Nevada inmates to receive kosher meals after lawsuit is settled

JTA — The Nevada Department of Corrections, responding to an inmate’s lawsuit, agreed to provide Orthodox Jewish inmates with kosher-certified meals.

Corrections department officials said this week that the department would obtain rabbinic kosher certification of food prepared for those who joined the lawsuit filed by Howard Ackerman “and demonstrate an ability to maintain such certification,” the Los Vegas Review-Journal reported. A hearing on the lawsuit had been set for April 18.

Ackerman’s lawsuit filed in January claimied the newly instituted “common fare” menu was not kosher and thus violated his First Amendment right of religious freedom.

An injunction ordered by a federal judge in Nevada prevented the department from serving the new menu to Ackerman and included the nearly 300 other inmates who were receiving a kosher diet in the injunction.

Ackerman, 51, is an Orthodox Jew who is serving a life sentence for kidnapping.