H eadlines
Rescue Dogs — and a Rabbi — Help Prisoner in
California Find Redemption
NATIONAL ALIX WALL | JTA.ORG
VACAVILLE, CALIFORNIA
— Soon after Jon Grobman was
released from prison, where he
had once thought he would die,
he headed back inside volun-
tarily — this time with canine
sidekicks. Grobman was returning as
the newest hire of a nonprofit
group, Paws for Life K9 Rescue,
that had been instrumental in
his own long and difficult road
to redemption.

He won’t easily forget the
words of the judge who sentenced
him to life without parole. “If
I felt that you had any promise
to ever amount to anything in
your life, I wouldn’t give you this
sentence,” Grobman recalled the
judge saying.

The takeaway, Grobman said,
was that “he determined I had
no value to anyone or anything
in this world.” Sixteen years
later, his voice still shakes from
the memory.

Raised in a nonobservant
Jewish family in the affluent
Bay Area town of Hillsborough,
California, Grobman had been
in trouble for years. He’d begun
experimenting with drugs at
a young age, continuing as he
struggled with emotional issues.

When his parents sent him to
a child psychologist as a teen,
the doctor molested him (along
with many other young boys,
including several Jewish victims,
over the span of decades).

Stealing to fund his drug
habit into adulthood, Grobman
continued to get in trouble with
the law. In 2005 he ran afoul of
California’s “three strikes” law,
which suggests a 25-years-to-life
sentence for anyone convicted of
three felonies.

But in prison, Grobman
found a new lease on life. With
the help of a local Chabad rabbi,
he rediscovered his Judaism;
14 SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
Jon Grobman works with a rescue pup from Paws 4 Life K9 Rescue at
California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

and, with the help of some
four-legged friends, he found
an opportunity to practice
teshuvah, or repentance.

“Of all the classes I took in
prison, nothing impacted me
more than one on victim sensi-
tivity awareness,” he said. “It
connected me to what people
go through when they’re victim-
ized. I started connecting the
trauma that I went through to
the trauma of those around me,
and the trauma I caused others.

I began thinking about what I
can do with my life to make a
difference in the lives of those
around me, and began mento-
ring younger guys.

“I knew I was never getting
out, but I could help them for
when they did.”
In 2018, the extraordinary
happened: After 13 years in
prison, Grobman became the
state’s first-ever beneficiary of a
“Recall of Commitment” from
the California Department of
Corrections. Citing his excep-
tional behavior in prison and
evidence that he would be a
positive asset on the outside, the
state recommended that he go
free. Today, at 54, he is.

Since getting a second
chance, Grobman feels he has
been proving that judge wrong
every single day — something
that he says kicked into high
gear when he became involved
with Paws for Life. The Los
Angeles-based nonprofit gives
incarcerated men the chance to
train rescued shelter dogs with
behavioral problems who other-
wise would be euthanized.

The group began in 2014 as
an idea from prison leadership,
which partnered with a local
shelter. For the pilot program,
the shelter’s operator, Alex
Tonner, brought dogs into the
maximum-security California
State Prison, Los Angeles County,
in Lancaster, California, at the
behest of the prison’s warden.

That pilot program worked with
men who were a part of the
prison’s so-called “Honor Yard,”
reserved for lifers who have
demonstrated a commitment to
rehabilitation. Grobman was among
them. The story of that group,
including Grobman, was
recently featured in the short
documentary “Shelter Me: Soul
Awakened,” hosted by musician
John Legend and broadcast on
public television. Grobman was
JEWISH EXPONENT
Jon Grobman hugs his mother, Diane Grobman, at a Paws 4 Life
graduation ceremony.

also in the 2015 HBO documen-
tary “Toe Tag Parole: To Live
and Die on Yard A.”
In prison, Grobman hid the
fact that he was Jewish at first,
but over time he befriended
the only other Jewish man at
Lancaster. Rabbi Joseph Lazar,
the Jewish chaplain at the prison
in Lancaster and director of
the nearby Chabad of the High
Desert, came once a week to
wrap tefillin with him and teach
him about Jewish history for
most of his time there.

“In prison, he found his
better side that was buried deep
beneath all those layers that led
him to be incarcerated in the
first place,” Lazar said about
Grobman. “Over time, he made
his life about helping others.

He really learned how to have
compassion and empathy for
others inside, and could really
be a poster child for teshuvah.”
Grobman said learning with
Lazar was inspirational. “We’re
a resilient people, and learning
about our history, I saw the
connection to my own story,”
he said.

His job in the prison captain’s
office, running many of the
prison’s rehabilitation programs,
gave him a certain amount of
power and protection, which
allowed him to feel safe being
“out” as a Jew, even among
skinheads; he even became close
friends with one of them, he
said. When he was approached to
help start Paws for Life at the
prison, he agreed. At first, it was
hard to find 15 men willing to
sign up, partially because they
couldn’t believe dogs would be
allowed into prison. Grobman
ended up taking part, too; he
was a natural at dog training,
and eventually became the
program’s leader.

“Every person I was able to
have an impact on erased more
of what the judge said,” he said.

“I realized how good it feels to
help change someone’s life, and
to play a role in guiding people
in the right direction.”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H EADLINES
Jon Grobman (center) poses with a group of incarcerated men at
California State Prison, Los Angeles County, in Lancaster. His own prison
term behind him, Grobman now works as director of programs for Paws
for Life K9 Rescue, which has incarcerated men train shelter dogs.

Photos courtesy of Rita Earl Blackwell via JTA.org
It was clear from the outset
that it wasn’t only the dogs who
were benefi ting.

Outside of the human-ca-
nine bond, “there is trust,”
said Tonner, who today runs
the program. “Th ese animals
come in with no judgment. Th e
dog was caged, in a shelter, and
wasn’t given opportunities, and
the guys relate to them in that
way. Th e dogs also make them
vulnerable; they open up their
emotions.” Prison is “not an enriching
environment,” Tonner said,
“but they’re able to take this dog
and enrich it in the ways they
would like to be enriched and
they take pride in that.”
The graduating dogs —
hundreds have been trained
by now — are then adopted
into “forever” homes, with
their trainers receiving regular
updates about them. As men
advance, some have learned how
to train service dogs, particularly
those that can be companions
for veterans with PTSD.

As soon as it became known
that Grobman was getting
out, he was off ered full-time
employment by Paws for Life;
he calls it his dream job.

As the group’s director
of programs, he is in charge
of bringing the therapeutic
benefi ts he had once experi-
enced to other men. So far, he
has helped start the program
in two prisons in Northern
California: Mule Creek State
Prison and the California
Medical Facility.

Grobman still sees Lazar on
his frequent visits to Lancaster.

“He’s obviously intelligent
with excellent people skills,”
Lazar said. “I’m quite impressed
with how much he continues to
give back. At every opportunity,
he really goes out of his way to
help others.”
During Grobman’s recent
visit to the CMF in Vacaville,
a group of men in prison blues
showed off their charges: Tank,
Panda, Hearts, Roger and
Farrah Fawcett. Th ree trainers
share a single dog, and they
are always paired with trainers
of diff erent races so as to
encourage interracial harmony.

“Working with the dogs can
make me forget I’m in prison,”
said Andrey Bernik, who identi-
fi ed himself as a Ukrainian Jew
on his mother’s side.

“We are warehoused here,
and for the most part, don’t
have any way to give back to
society,” said Chris Mann,
who’s been incarcerated for
nearly 30 years. “Most see
us only as the last crime we
committed, and not who we’ve
turned into. Knowing that the
dogs we trained will go to good
homes allows us a chance to
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JEWISHEXPONENT.COM give back.”
Paws for Life says that, to
date, 39 of its participants have
had their sentences commuted.

Many of them are now working
with dogs on the outside. Not
one has returned to prison.

“All this good that came
from freeing Jon, helps free
us,” said Eddie Davis, another
incarcerated man at CMF. “In
an odd sort of way, Jon found
his passion and his purpose in
prison. He could now probably
be a corporate type, but he
wouldn’t be anywhere as happy
as he is now.”
How many of these men will
be given a second chance to
follow in Grobman’s footsteps
is ultimately up to the governor
and the parole board. But the
numbers continue to grow, and
his regular visits remind them
that it’s possible.

“Th is is my community,”
Grobman said. “I don’t want
people to forget about them.” ●
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JEWISH EXPONENT
SEPTEMBER 9, 2021
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