Please read about our past years conference:
5784 / 2024
11 & 12 Iyyar, 5784
19 & 20 May, 2024
The Aleph Institute founded its Regional Jewish Prison Chaplains Conference in 2009 to provide a hands-on training environment for the volunteers and chaplains who provide services to Jewish inmates, their families and those in the process of reentry to society. The Aleph Institute values the unique and distinctive contributions of each and every person who seeks to help, counsel, support and work with the special population entrusted by the community to The Aleph Institute’s care.
In recent years, significant data has come to light which attests to the positive effects of individual mentoring and individual training for those re-entering society. The need to train and qualify a greater number of individuals to be able to volunteer in the prisons and help inmates is evident. It’s important that interested volunteers be provided the essential tools to effect a lasting change on this population. The primary objective of the Regional Jewish Prison Chaplains Conference is to provide these tools to interested chaplains and volunteers.
Our conference welcomes those who possess extensive experience working with inmates and those with no experience at all, and every level of experience in between. Sessions at the conference include training for those with little practice in the prison ministry arena, but who are beginning to assist the unique population Aleph services. The conference provides basic training for these beginner volunteers and an opportunity to interact one-on-one with trained professionals who have many years of experience working with inmates.
Over the past 30 years, Aleph Institute in Pittsburgh has counseled and worked with thousands of Jewish inmates and their families to provide resources and religious accommodations in prison and for those returning to society. The resources that Aleph provides these individuals include assistance with finding employment, rehabilitation and counseling. These efforts have contributed to a lowering of the recidivism level in America from 79 percent to under 40 percent. Aleph Institute works across a wide spectrum of the Jewish community, providing each person with his or her religious needs.