IN the 49 years that Rabbi Irving Koslowe was a chaplain at Sing Sing Correctional Facility here, he witnessed 17 executions — including those of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. With a career spanning those of 13 wardens and superintendents, he was one of the last living, let alone working, appointees of Gov. Thomas E. Dewey.
Now retired, he leaves behind a chapel, recently dedicated in his name in an unusual act of tribute by prison officials. At the dedication ceremony last month, on a day of brilliant sunshine, only muted light made its way into the room through barred windows and walls three feet thick — light that was symbolic, in some ways, of the challenges of the rabbi’s work here.
”This is not a place that is conducive to spirituality,” Rabbi Gilbert S. Rosenthal, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis in Manhattan, said. ”Rabbi Koslowe helped to make God’s presence known to people here. It may have been frustrating, painful and heart wrenching at times, but it was appreciated and welcomed by some who were on the verge of despair and thought that God was not in this place.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/03/nyregion/after-49-years-rabbi-leaves-post-at-sing-sing.html?smid=pl-share