Jewish, Christian and Muslim prisoners serving time in Israeli jails flocked to a Bible contest last month sponsored by the South Bloc of the Israel Prison Service. In the final round, as 15 prisoners competed in front of a live audience including their parents, siblings and spouses at the Eshel prison auditorium, the excitement was electric. It all sprang from the initiative of two Israel Prison Service education wardens, 1st Lt. Keren Bokovsa, an education officer in the Dekel prison, and Maj. Mazal Yifrach, the South Bloc's education officer. Bokovsa spent two years as an education warden in the prison's mitzvah-observant wing. She would organize Bible trivia contests for the prisoners as well as larger Bible contests for religious prisoners and at one point she convinced the prison rabbi to hold a Bible contest between the prison's different wings. "I enrolled in an advanced officers' course," she recalls. "Part of what we had to do was choose a project -- a dream I would like to realize in my work with prisoners. It was clear to me that this dream was a Bible contest." Bokovsa's commanding officers were excited by the idea and her superior Lt. Col. Lavana Levi-Shai agreed to head the steering committee for the contest. Modeled after the International Bible Contest held each May in Jerusalem, the prison contest consisted of a written preliminary test followed by a semi-final and final round in front of a live audience. In their wildest dreams Bokovsa and Yifrach never imagined that 80 prisoners from all the southern district prisons would sign up for the first round. They included prisoners from the Eshel, Dekel, Ella, Shikma, Ketziot, Nafha and Ramon Prisons as well as the Ohalei Kedar and Jerusalem Detention Centers. Fifty-two prisoners passed the qualifying test and embarked on a course of study and preparation for the next rounds. The contestants had the opportunity to study Bible together, delve into Jewish values, acquire knowledge and even rediscover themselves. At the final event, the excitement was palpable. The auditorium was packed with wardens, family members and fellow prisoners, all of whom had come to cheer on the contestants. The panel of judges took their seats on the stage. The emcee and author of the questions was 1980 International Bible Contest laureate Pinchas Neria, who also writes the questions for the International Bible Contest. Also judging the event were Prison Service Chief Rabbi Col. Yehuda Yekutiel-Vizner; Chairman of Education and Prisoner Study Lt. Col. Lavana Levi-Shai; Deputy Commander of the South Bloc Brig. Yossi Mikdash; attorney Dr. Shmuel Sa'adia and author and literary critic Menachem Benn. At the end of the event, two prisoners were crowned the victors. "My mother cried," said Y., one of the two winners, a married father of four who is serving time at Dekel prison. "She was so disappointed in me. Of the 12 children she raised, I was the only one who turned to crime and ended up in jail and she is angry with me to this day. But when I took second place in the Bible contest, she sat in the auditorium beaming and proud with her eyes filled with tears," he said. "I cannot thank the Prison Service enough for the opportunity they gave me. Not just to acquire knowledge and values but to atone in a small way for all the distress I caused my mother."
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