A Prisoner's Apostasy

Gershom Fish never imagined he’d ever respect anyone as bigoted as Leo Stolz. 

When he arrived to prison, Gershom made a “fight or die” decision. He was given a shank and ordered to stab a Correctional Officer that Stolz, the Aryan Apostates shot caller, did not deem sufficiently compassionate toward White inmates. 

In exchange for his decision, a decision motivated more by fear than by courage, Fish was not forced to renounce his Judaism, but after the bloody ritual of initiation, Gershom Fish’s name became “Gerry Ish.” To Stolz, and to the stabbed C.O.’s colleagues, Gershom Fish was now, simply, “Jewish Gerry.”

Fish came from a conservative, educated, and, for the most part, secular, Israeli family that emigrated to Los Angeles from the Promised Land when Gershom was only two years old. Gershom’s father, Abner, a mild-mannered and mildly bitter engineer, insisted his son attend public school not only for the sake of saving money and integrating the boy into the diverse and overwhelmingly goy fabric of Los Angeles, but also for purposes of toughening up the émigré child. 

One of Gershom’s most lucid childhood memories was being bullied by a dark-skinned Black kid in sixth grade. The kid’s name was Earnie Ives, and one morning before the teacher arrived, Ives muscled Gershom out of his seat at the front of the class. Earnie claimed he had bad eyesight and that his parents didn’t have the kind of “kike dough” required to buy him prescription spectacles. Gershom suspected, however, that Earnie had muscled him out of the seat in order to sit next to Emily Smith, the prettiest Black girl in class.  

After cravenly buckling to Earnie’s demand, Gershom became a frequent target of the ebony-skinned youth’s predations, and on numerous occasions Gershom rendered unto Earnie the lunches the Jewish boy’s mother lovingly prepared for him every morning. Ives would ceremoniously, and spitefully, dump the kosher pita bread rolls and rabbinically blessed yogurt with muesli into a garbage bin as Gershom, fists-clenched in frustrated rage, tearfully watched from behind a schoolyard olive tree.

Later, as he followed his father’s footsteps toward a career in public service, Gershom experienced the humiliation of losing a girlfriend to Quan Hue, a ruggedly good-looking, hard-drinking and devastatingly intelligent Taiwanese student at the publicly-funded university where both Fish and Hue competed to graduate magna cum laude in one of the notoriously tree-hugging university’s engineering departments.

At a house-party following a perfunctory graduation ceremony, Gershom walked into a bathroom to discover Quan and Laura Eisen in a torrid act of copulation. Gershom had met Laura at a dorm when Gershom was a sophomore and Laura a freshman. They had made marriage vows. The couple’s parents believed their kids had an ideal courtship. The discovery shattered both the night’s celebratory bells as well as Gershom’s ego.

After taking a few more shots of Grey Goose at the party, he walked to the boardwalk, and started shouting Sino-phobic insults to no one in particular. “Xi Jin-Peng,” Gershom yelled, placing emphasis on the mispronounced last syllable of the Chinese leader’s name, “Xi Jin-Peng ain’t a man,” he yelled, suddenly directing his words at an interracial married couple out on an anniversary stroll, “Xi sucks a fat one!”

Disturbed bystanders called police, and Gershom was accosted by a pair of campus officers, one of whom happened to be Black, and the other, Asian.    

Before he was tasered then hogtied by the cops, Gershom spat at one and attempted to kick the other in the groin. During the arrest and while he sat in the back of the squad car, Gershom peppered the officers with racist slurs.

Determined to prove herself as “tough on crime” early in her career, the district attorney assigned to Gershom’s case was unforgiving and made sure to portray him as an “incorrigible racist.”      

The newbie D.A. even managed to elicit a damning testimony from Laura Eisen. As a result of a questionably ethical cross-examination, Laura confessed Gershom had told her he harbored resentment against Blacks who reminded him of a junior high school classmate named Earnie. 

Gershom was given a three-year term for two felony assaults on peace officers. The felonies were enhanced as hate crimes.  

It was the bias born of these traumas as well as the fear that accompanies being an ethnically outnumbered newcomer in prison that made Gershom decide to join the Aryan Apostates and good-naturedly accept when the prison’s general population christened him “Jewish Gerry.” 

The attack on the correctional officer added three years to Gershom’s sentence but it also earned him membership in what Leo Stolz called the institution’s “White Protectionist” association. Stolz explained to Gershom that given demographic trends in Europe and the Americas, neo-Nazi dreams of White Supremacy were unattainable. The much more modest goal of mutually tolerant ethnic separatism for the sake of protecting the undeniable global minority status of Whites—Aryan, Jewish, Hispanic or otherwise—was what Stolz envisioned for the group.

Although Gershom had lost family in the Third Reich’s concentration camps, Stolz taught Gerry not to begrudge, and even giddily admire, the accomplishments and conventionally-maligned genius of Adolf Hitler. “The adoption of much of Nazi Germany’s technological acumen made American Post-War industry far more efficient and safer for the working class,” claimed Stolz. 

Although many of Gershom Fish's relatives had perished at Auschwitz, Stolz made a compelling argument that following the war many more of Fish's extended family had profited from drugs and medical procedures that had been developed as a result of clinical trials modeled after the systems of experimentation in the Nazi laboratory prison camps.

Gershom also learned interesting facts from Stolz. After they became cellmates, Stolz explained to Gershom that despite media imagery that stokes the fires of Black resentment, more than twice as many Whites as Blacks have been fatally shot by police in recent years. Also, Stolz told Gershom that while historically Blacks have been killed at disproportionate rates by officers of the law, FBI homicide data revealed that percentagewise in 2019 alone, amongst civilians, Blacks killed Whites at more than double the rate that civilian Whites killed Blacks.

When Stolz challenged Gershom to find a statistic that challenged conventional academic depictions of White privilege, Gershom soon discovered that Whites were more than twice as likely to die by suicide than Blacks. Gershom told his Apostate comrades that a certain famous and controversial rapper should cite that statistic whenever he was given a hard time for wearing his trademarked White Lives Matter T-shirt.

While most White Supremacists in prisons observed Odinism, a spiritual practice that pays homage to the Norse pantheon of gods, Stolz encouraged his White Protectionists to pursue whatever religion appealed to their individual tastes. 

Stolz found that allowing the Apostates to delve into all the religious services offered at the prison not only facilitated keeping an eye on the activities of rival gangs, but also elevated the level of discourse amongst the Apostates. Stolz thought ignorance of other cultures was the greatest obstacle to the acceptance of White Protectionism.

Given the episodic and unpredictable violence that characterized prison life, half of the Apostates found that the pagan Odinist warrior cult best suited their characterological needs. Fights between gang members and riots that occurred almost on a monthly basis made more pacific religious practices seem ludicrous and weak to the pagans.

Although Gershom was for the most part irreligious, he observed the Sabbath, but did so now as an Odinist, participating in collective chants to commemorate the bravado of the pantheon’s one-eyed patriarch and drinking teas from prison-grown herbs in the name of the goddess Freyja. 

There were other Apostates who attended Christian, Muslim, or Indigenous services, and during Saturday afternoon recreation yard time, the Apostates would gather and discuss what they had observed and learned.     

One morning a placid, grey-haired man in civilian clothing and wearing Birkenstock sandals approached the door to Gershom and Stolz’ cell. The stranger introduced himself as Bernard Thomson, the prison’s new Buddhist chaplain. Thomson was inviting inmates to Friday night services and with Stolz’ blessing, Gershom agreed to attend.

At the prison’s first Buddhist mindfulness group, Bernie, as the chaplain insisted being called, introduced the participants to the practice of standing meditation. Bernie instructed the service-goers to simply stand with feet together and hands limply at their sides, count their breaths, and focus on how much muscular effort they noticed it took for their legs to keep them steady. 

After Gershom noted that it took a lot of minor adjustments to remain steadily upright, Bernie told the participants that the mostly unconscious effort required to do so was analogous to the constant push and pull of unacknowledged deleterious desires in daily life. 

“Even though we don’t usually realize it, or pay attention to it,” Bernie said, “we’re constantly adjusting to adversity. When we finally become aware of these adjustments, it’s best to do so with a breathing practice. Conscious breathing, over which we can exert partial control, ameliorates the perpetual unsteadiness. It grounds us and makes us solid despite the constant tugging of adversity.”

When Gershom showed Stolz what he had learned, the Aryan Apostates leader suggested all the gang members practice standing meditation in their cells so that they could daily learn the spiritual lesson of the practice. Most Apostates reported they felt relaxed by the mindful standing meditation. The next Friday evening Stolz decided to accompany his cellmate to the Buddhist services.

At the second meeting of the spiritually curious, Bernie gave a dharma talk on karma and reincarnation. 

“My views on this matter are unorthodox,” he said to the participants, “I have been very influenced by the work of the anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner.”

For forty-five minutes, Bernie held Stolz and Gershom rapt as the chaplain explained what he called Steiner’s “inverse law of karma and earthly rebirth.”

Bernie used an example from one of Steiner’s better-known books recounting how according to the inverse law, “Aristotle was probably a dunce in his former life.”

“Human attributes are inherited every other karmic generation in order to create karmic balance in a transmigrating soul. Pugnacious men are reborn docile women, and vice versa. The dynastically rich are reborn miserable paupers so that the karmic wheel can level out imbalances that would lead to repetitious, and unjust, reincarnations.”

“What justice would there be if the oppressed where always reborn oppressed, or if the privileged were always reborn privileged?” asked Bernie, rhythmically hitting his left open hand with his right fist for emphasis.

Stolz became convinced that not only would he be reincarnated as a staunch anti-racist due to the vehemence with which he had embraced the Aryan cause for all of his adolescent and adult life, but that his chauvinistic ways would lead to a reincarnation as an unwavering feminist.

After he heard chaplain Thomson’s dharma talk, Stolz became obsessed with taking action to avoid being reborn as possibly either a woman, a Black nationalist, or both. 

To balance out his masculine karma, he began nurturing his Apostates. He prepared spreads, or the closest possible equivalent to homemade meals in prison, and made them with the best ingredients he could buy from the prison store. To enforce discipline, Stolz formerly demanded himself to be miserly.

On one occasion when Gershom became sick with a virulent stomach flu, Stolz forced himself to caress Gershom’s neck and back as the sick inmate alternately took turns vomiting, then voiding his loose bowels into the toilet.

When the Apostates heard of their leader’s transformation, they thought he had gone soft, mad, or a combination of the two. To maintain control of the gang, Stolz ordered that two upstarts get beaten by members who remained loyal despite the shot-caller’s sudden change of character and demeanor.

The end of Stolz’ role as kingpin of the Aryan Apostates arrived when the leader of the Niggas Wit’ Aptitudes clique informed him that a Black undesirable had arrived to the prison. Earnie Ives, the same Earnie Ives who had bullied Gershom Fishman in sixth grade, had been sentenced to a term at the prison for having repeated sexual relations with underage girls. One of these was Tanya Bailey, the 12-year-old sister of the prison’s N.W.A. gang leader, Talib “Bonecrusher” Bailey. 

Bonecrusher, like most prisoners, had a hardline stance against child molestation, but because White’s victim was Tanya, Bailey was particularly unforgiving toward the new arrival and gave Stolz a green flag to deprive Ives of his life as soon as there was an opportunity.

Concerned with the possibility that taking the statutory rapist’s life would seal the inverse karmic deal and definitely lead to rebirth as a proponent of Black Nationalism, Stolz gave the task of killing Ives to Jewish Gerry, who still harbored ill-feelings toward the tormentor from his middle-school days. Stolz said he would accompany Jewish Gerry just in case he needed back-up.

When the day of the sanctioned hit arrived, Jewish Gerry and Leo Stolz, shanks hidden in their state-issue trousers, inconspicuously waited for Earnie Ives to exit to the prison yard. Stolz’ broke into a cold sweat as he watched the new arrival walk in the Apostates’ direction, and slowly come within striking distance. 

Buddhist chaplain Bernie’s sermon about inverse karma and reincarnation resounded in Stolz’ conscience as he saw Ives approach. He knew he wasn’t going to kill Earnie, but he couldn’t possibly let Jewish Gerry kill Earnie either. Stolz steeled his nerves, and as Jewish Gerry moved to stick Earnie as many times as he possibly could, until either Earnie was dead, or Correctional Officers intervened, Stolz took his shank and plunged it into his cellmate's back.

The response from the guard tower was immediate. Stolz was shot with half a dozen non-lethal rounds and anti-riot guards arrived on the scene with pepper spray and batons to quell any further violence. 

Earnie Ives walked away from the encounter unscathed. The N.W.A.’s were left to handle their own matters of prison politics and vengeance. 

Jewish Gerry didn’t forgive Stolz’ betrayal until he received a letter from Stolz, who was moved to a state psychiatric hospital because he had suffered a nervous break-down after his attack on Gershom. 

In the missive he wrote to his former cellmate and right-hand man, Stolz told Gershom Fish that as a convert to a belief in inverse karma he did what he had to do in order to avoid being reborn belligerently pro-Black in his next incarnation. 

“I stabbed you,” Stolz wrote, “because I was convinced a drastic act of anti-racism in this life would allow me to express some form of sympathy for White Protectionism in my next one.”

“Attempting to kill you, Gershom, would allow me to demonstrate at some crucial point in my next earthly manifestation a drastic form of compassion for White people—perhaps even express to the next generation of incarnated souls a form of patience, tolerance, faith, and hope for Whites that would allow for an improvement of their moral, and mental, conditions as well as guarantee their continued survival.”

Gerry Ish, or Jewish Gerry, as he was called by his prison cohort, never wrote Stolz back. After leaving institutional life he resumed using his birth name, Gershom Abner Fish. He also ended up marrying a devout Catholic woman, Kathleen, who taught classes about the sociology of racially-based radical movements such as Neo-Nazism and Woke-ism at a Jesuit University. 

In order to balance his own karma, and thereby be reincarnated into a fleshy shell in which he would also exhibit some modicum of sympathy for White Protectionism, he vehemently spoke against the more virulently ignorant forms of White racism whenever he was asked to do so by his genteel and academic wife. Gershom died of a heart attack the day after Kathleen passed away from injuries sustained in an assault authorities claimed was racially-motivated.