By Judith Fein, Special to JTNews
It was winter in northern New Mexico. Christmas lights fringed the adobe walls in downtown Santa Fe, the Salvation Army had staked out its turf in front of the old Woolworth’s, Yuletide Muzak spread cheer over all the shoppers, and I was feeling strangely gloomy. In a few days I would be leaving the country on a five-week assignment, and I wouldn’t be able to celebrate the holidays with the kids behind bars.
For several years I had volunteered to teach them creative writing, and I had become very attached to them. In spite of their crimes, I loved them for their sensitivity, their openness, and because they were so young and vulnerable. I had seen many of them change and, with a shudder, step out of the criminal shoes that had strolled the streets of their barrios and their hoods.
The youngest of the incarcerated juveniles were only 12, the oldest inching toward 21. They were just kids. I knew their ghastly stories of poverty, drugs, abandonment, abuse and pain, and I knew their young hearts would ache with loneliness during the holiday season.
Impulsively, I picked up the phone and called the head of the jail. He said that because I was leaving the country, I could have a special holiday session with the kids the following night. I quickly geared up for a nice, cold Friday night behind bars.
Almost all of the kids were Hispanic and Indian Christians, and they were thoroughly familiar with Christmas. But did any of them know what Hanukkah was? I decided to find out. I spent all day Friday buying five huge plastic dreidels, gold-wrapped chocolate coins called “Hanukkah gelt,” and then I cut up more than 600 paper chits because I knew the kids weren’t allowed to have pennies or any other coins in their possession. Just in case they rebelled against Hanukkah, I bought each kid an oversized Christmas card. I signed them all “hugs” or “holiday hugs” or “love,” and figured that even if I gave them out randomly, they would fall into the right hands.
Just as I was about to leave for my secret life in jail, my friend Kitty arrived at my house with an enormous 50-pound Hanukkah designer pillowcase full of candy. She was touched by the incarcerated kids and wanted to do something for them. I could barely lift the pillowcase, and as I loaded it into the trunk of my car, foot-long chocolate bars and peanut butter cups and licorice packs came spilling out. How would the kids respond to this Hanukkah stash? Would they feel it was against their own religion?
When I arrived, there were more than 60 kids in the gym. I walked around the room, patting them on their buzz-cut heads, giving the high-five to others, always letting them take the lead, always trying to see what they wanted and if they want to be touched and how they wanted to be approached. It was a constant dance, and I didn’t always know the steps. One 15-year-old boy named Mike, who was up on adult murder charges, handed me an old copy of Newsweek with some Christmas poems he thought I might like to read.
I looked around the room at all those beautiful brown faces and those arms and necks covered with gang tattoos, and I hesitated to do the Hanukkah thing.
“What’s in that sack?” the kids wanted to know. “Is it something for Christmas?”
I took a deep breath, asked my dear, departed ancestors for guidance, and then jumped into it. I gathered the kids around and told them who the Jews were. I said we had been desert people, just like the Indians. I explained that Jesus had been a Jew, and for many years after his death, his disciples and followers were still Jews. I told them about the Diaspora after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. I explained how “brown-skinned Jews from the Middle East” had migrated everywhere, and there were hundreds of thousands in Spain at the time of the Inquisition. I told them about the horrors of the Inquisition, and how many Jews went underground with their practices and became secret Jews.
The kids took every word deep into the cells of their bodies. They were like spiritual sponges. I went on with the story of the secret Jews, how many went to Mexico and some ended up in New Mexico. I looked them straight in their 120-plus pair of eyes and said there were most assuredly Hispanic Catholics today who were descended from the secret Jews of Spain. Maybe there were even some descendants of secret Jews in the gym that very night.
The kids were great poker players, and I had no idea what they were thinking. I went right on talking…or, rather, drawing. With my complete lack of artistic talent, I drew four Hebrew letters on the chalkboard: Nun, gimel, hay and shin. I explained that each of these letters adorned one side of the dreidel. The letters stood for the Hebrew words: “nes gadol haya sham,” which meant that a great miracle happened there.
I told them how, in ancient times, the Jewish Temple had been ransacked and there was only enough oil in the lamp to burn for one day. Yet, by some miracle, the oil had burned for eight days. Then I drew a rough menorah on the board, and asked how many candles they thought the Hanukkah candelabra had. I had barely finished the question when they shouted out: “Eight.”
Now we were ready to begin the game of dreidel. I pulled out one of my huge plastic dreidels and spun it on a tabletop. It landed on shin. I spun it again, and it fell with an upright gimel. I told the kids that each letter required an action. Either they would do nothing, put in two chits, take half the pot or, if they landed on gimel, all the pot.
I asked if anyone would help me hand out my 600 paper chits — 10 to a customer. Many of the boys volunteered to help. They did it with smiles, with no attitude, just trying to be helpful. This was a very good sign behind bars. The kids were extremely fair about distributing the chits, and I saw no signs of favoritism or cheating. They gave me back the few extra chits that remained. Then we divided up into five groups, ready to play.
The girls were not allowed to mix with the boys, and they formed their own group. I quickly realized that the girls were somewhat interested in the dreidel game, but the boys were passionate about it. This gambling game was more of a boys’ thing. They considered it some sort of Jewish poker.
Every kid was instructed to put a chit in the middle of the table, and the game began at all five tables. Jail is not a happy place, but that night the cold, antiseptic gym was a place of joy. The kids were yelling and high-fiving and spinning those dreidels across the tables. They were calling out “shin” and “hay” and an occasional, excited “gimel” as someone scooped up the pot.
The federal prisoners, the long-termers, asked if they could be bigger gamblers and put in two chits at a time. I said yes. The big spenders spun those dreidels as though they were in Vegas. Each time one of them scored a gimel, he raked in the chits as though he had just won a million bucks at a craps table.
I looked up at the clock. An hour had gone by. The guards were getting restless. One by one, the kids used up their chits until each table had a winner. At the federal table, Travis, a Navajo kid, was triumphant. His pod-mates surrounded him with congratulatory slaps on the back and they probably would have carried him over their heads if the guards had allowed it.
At the second table, Manuel, an affable deaf boy, won. How had he even understood my instructions? Finally, each table had a winner and the kids were ready for the dreidel finals. The five winners were told to come to the middle of the room. A table was set up for the serious playoffs. As they started to spin the dreidel, I went around the room schlepping and hauling Kitty’s huge Hanukkah bag, and let each of the kids reach a hand in, without looking, and pull out a candy. They tore open the wrappers and traded with each other and pretty soon the whole gym was full of kids buzzing on sugar. As they ate and the playoffs went on, I told them who Kitty was and how she had wanted to give them something. I assured them there were people in the community, like Kitty, who really cared about them all the time, but especially at holiday time.
The playoffs were finally reaching an end, and with a rolled gimel, Manuel won. He jumped into the air with buoyant pride and excitement. He seemed to understand my agonizingly slow finger-spelling as I handed him a bag of Hanukkah gelt and told him he would have much luck and money.
The staff and the guards started pouring into the gym. They wanted to know about Hanukkah and the kids rapidly filled them in with stories of miraculous oil that burned for eight days. The guards had also heard about Kitty’s candy and they wanted some too. The whole jail was now high on Hanukkah and on sugar.
Then I walked around the room and arbitrarily handed out Christmas cards. Some of the kids, like Thomas, wanted a red envelope or a white envelope. But other kids said things like, “Give me whatever you think I should have.” Pretty soon the cards were distributed, and then the guards barked that the kids had to line up to leave the gym. Gone was the exuberance, the joy. Each kid stared fixedly at the head of the inmate in front of him. I wanted to say good-bye to the kids, I wanted some closure, but when I opened my mouth, the guards forbade me from speaking to the children. I felt my body droop, and my feeling of letdown must have been visible. One of the staff members came up to me:
“Hey, Judie, the kids aren’t allowed to speak when they are lined up. But we’ll make this one holiday exception. The kids want to tell you something.”
I walked down the line of kids and they all said “thank you” and reached out their heads and hands to be touched and hugged. I held them with great tenderness and affection. Then they all wished me happy holidays and a good, safe trip.
The federal boys requested that I come to their pod and, surprisingly, the head guard agreed. When I walked into their confined, concrete living quarters, all of the kids gathered around to see my reaction. Carlos had drawn a card for Kitty, thanking her for her Hanukkah gifts. He wrote her a poem and all the federal boys had signed it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw tall, lanky Alvino beckoning to me from another pod. I walked to the doorway of his jail nest and he leaned over and whispered to me, “Someone told me I could be part of the 12 tribes. I am going to join the Hebrews.”
I didn’t tell him it wasn’t that easy. If he had a dream or a goal, it wasn’t my role to be the bubble-burster. I think Alvino saw right into my mind.
“Even if I never get to be a Hebrew,” he said, “I think dreidel is my game.”
I understood how Santa felt that night in jail. What a high it was to spread holiday cheer. I headed toward the metal doors of the sallyport, ready to leave jail for the outside world, when I heard a faint voice calling out to me. I turned around and little Juan was standing in the doorway of his pod. In all the time I had been coming to the jail, Juan had never spoken a word. He was about 12 years old, and although I am short, it seemed like he hardly came up to my navel.
“Happy Manukkah, kiss,” he whispered with the utmost respect and politeness.
I smiled.
“I mean, Happy Hanukkah, miss,” he corrected himself, flustered and blushing.
I beamed. Tiny Juan beamed back at me as a guard whisked him away to his lonely little bed.
I turned to go, and then, I just couldn’t help myself. I knew it was wrong, I knew it was inappropriate, but I shouted down the hallway as I disappeared out of sight:
“Happy Hanukkah to all, and to all a good night!”