.Eric Rickard, warden of the federal prison in Otisville, New York, paid an official visit this week to Kiryas Yetev Lev, the Satmar community in nearby Bloomingburg.
Rickard was accompanied by a delegation of community askanim led by Rabbi Moshe Dovid Niederman and R’ Dovid Katz of the UJO, along with representatives of the Yachad organization.
The highlight of the visit was a meeting at the home of Rav Aharon Teitelbaum shlita, rav of Kiryas Yetev Lev, where the two discussed the needs of the Jewish inmates at the facility and ways to improve their conditions and accommodate their religious requirements.
Rav Teitelbaum thanked the warden for recent improvements made on behalf of the inmates and praised Rabbi Niederman’s tireless work in the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim.
After the meeting, the delegation toured the community, visiting local yeshivos, the Hatzalah center and the chassidus’s main beis medrash.
