Jonathan Pollard bids farewell to his wife and tireless advocate
trial and tribulation.
It truly took a superpower that few people possess — the sort that is usually found only in storybooks — to marry a man imprisoned for spying and then sentenced to a life term with only the dimmest of prospects for ever getting out.
But that was the magnitude and mesirus nefesh of Esther Pollard, who passed away Monday morning in Jerusalem at age 68 after a prolonged illness that she battled with the same determination and courage that she showed her husband, and everyone who knew her.
It would likewise be a major understatement to say that Jonathan Pollard is alive today thanks to Esther.
The man who knows that better than anyone else is Rabbi Pesach Lerner, the chairman of the Eretz HaKodesh faction at the World Zionist Organization. An earnest and untiring advocate for Pollard, and more of a brother to Jonathan than a friend, Rabbi Lerner logged tens of thousands of air miles during his years as executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, visiting Pollard in Butner, a forsaken part of rural North Carolina.
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