July 01, 2026
Kristin Hunt/PhillyVoice
Eastern State Penitentiary restored its synagogue in 2009. But the museum has reimagined its exhibit on Jewish life after hundreds of hours of research.
The newest permanent exhibit at Eastern State Penitentiary tells stories of the Jewish people incarcerated at the former prison — and the synagogue they built over a century ago.
That synagogue, the first established within an American prison, was originally restored in 2009. It opened that spring along with an exhibit on Judaism at Eastern State, located next door. But the museum's staff have reimagined the space ahead of the Thursday opening of "Freedom Through Faith: Judaism at Eastern State and Beyond." The revamped display taps into hundreds of hours of research the curators conducted over the past year, which turned up new letters, newspaper clippings and details on the congregants who gathered in this temple.
Those individuals include Jacob Forbes or "Big Yonick," a carpenter who built model ships during his time at the penitentiary. Sheldon Glasshofer, who worked in the prison's print shop, is also featured. He eventually became the president of the synagogue at SCI Graterford, which raised money to buy three Philadelphia homes for men leaving state prisons.
Eastern State Penitentiary has restored its synagogue, the first established in an American prison. It was originally built in 1922.
One of the most eye-popping characters was a booster outside Eastern State Penitentiary. Joseph Paull was a wholesale butcher and circus performer who entertained inmates and established a program to match parolees with employers. In a photo on the exhibit wall, he wears gladiator sandals and a cheetah print jumpsuit to show off his muscles.
The panels also include surprising facts of religious life at the penitentiary. Jewish prisoners were celebrating the High Holidays as early as 1913, following the end of solitary confinement at Eastern State. They gathered to worship in the emergency hospital until they built the synagogue in 1922. But long before any of those milestones, they accomplished an extraordinary one in 1851: the first bris on the prison's grounds. At least 33 women gave birth while incarcerated at Eastern State, and one of them requested the Jewish ceremony.
"Legally there was no obligation to have a synagogue here," Beth Tinker, who developed the exhibit, said Tuesday. "It wasn’t in any way typical to allow a bris to happen in the 1850s. Not at all. So this amazing community really is a shining example of what’s possible inside prisons."
The new displays also highlight the legal history of religious freedom in prisons, starting in 1871 and stretching through centuries of court battles over the rights of incarcerated Muslims, Buddhists and Wiccans. As the museum's president and CEO Kerry Sautner noted, this timeline is still very much ongoing. She linked the history on the walls to the recent case brought by a Rastafarian against the prison guards who shaved his dreadlocks. The Supreme Court ruled against the former inmate last week.
New panels delve into topics like the legal history of religious freedom inside prisons.
"History isn’t a story just told 100 years ago, isn’t something from the 1920s," Sautner said. "It is a current investigation. And the more that we unfold the story, the more that we investigate, the more we can add to the story."
Additional information that Sautner and her team uncovered will be featured in pop-up talks, tours and future lectures at Eastern State Penitentiary. As with all of the museum's programming, the new exhibit aims to expand visitors' understanding of the people who serve time behind bars.
"We really work hard here to talk about the individuals as congregants and to tell their personal stories," Tinker said. "… So often it’s easy to think about prisoners as their crimes and their mugshots and that’s such a very narrow view of what their lives are like and what it’s like to be in a prison."
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