In a surprising twist, Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Perlstein, shliach to Salem and chaplain at the Oregon State Penitentiary, sat down with Cameron Hayes, a former Neo-Nazi who previously served a lengthy prison sentence, to talk about the journey that led him to rethink his beliefs and rediscover his humanity.

Their connection began years earlier inside the Oregon State Penitentiary. Rabbi Perlstein explains that as part of his work as a chaplain, he was required to oversee outdoor services for the Asatru religion — a group that, within the prison system, had become associated with white-supremacist ideology. He says he went “simply out of obligation to the job as a chaplain,” adding that although he could have chosen not to attend, he felt responsible to ensure the group’s legal right to a chaplain’s presence.

Hayes was part of that circle at the time. “For almost a decade, I was a neo-Nazi skinhead,” he says in the interview. He recalls standing among inmates shouting slogans and noticing the Rabbi quietly sitting nearby. He says he respected that the Rabbi still came.

After one of the services, Hayes decided to approach him to shake his hand and thank him for being there – an action that immediately brought backlash from his gang, who viewed it as betrayal. Hayes says that moment forced him to think about what kind of person he had become and what decency really meant.

Their next real conversation took place in a prison hallway. Hayes describes how he began asking what he calls “gotcha questions” about Jews and Judaism, drawn from propaganda he had read. He admits he was trying to provoke a reaction, but instead the Rabbi stayed calm and unshaken.

Those small conversations continued over time, and Hayes began seeing the contradictions in the ideology he had built his identity around. Rabbi Perlstein reflects that interaction itself is what makes change possible. Once dialogue begins, he says, “you never know where it can actually lead.”

The story is told in a new film produced by JLI, where Hayes recounts how Rabbi Perlstein’s compassion in the darkest of places opened his heart and helped him rediscover his own humanity.

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