Will President Bush lend an ear to the pleas of gedolei hador and free Jonathan Pollard from prison?
Pollard, a Jewish-American, who hails from South Bend, Indiana is currently imprisoned in a federal penitentiary in Butner, North Carolina, having served some twenty-two years of a life sentence for espionage on behalf of Israel. Most individuals sentenced for such an offense are released after serving from two to seven years, leading many legal experts, as well as politicians with knowledge of the Pollard case to contend that the punishment far outweighs the offense. Pollard, a former naval intelligence official is both accused by authorities — and credited in pro-Israel circles — with having provided information on Iraqi weapons activities in the 1980s that enabled Israel to be prepared for the Scud missile threat during the 1991 Gulf War. Israel has acknowledged that Pollard furnished them with classified information, but has done little to gain his release.
The letter signed by Rav Elyashiv and Rav Steinman was relayed to Jeremy Katz, special assistant to the president and liaison to the Jewish community, and others in the White House. Copies of the letter were also sent to various Jewish communal leaders and activists, asking them to use their relationships to have the letters presented to President Bush.
“This was a serious process, and to my knowledge, unprecedented, as it is the first time that these Sages have written to an American president,” said Rabbi Lerner, in a telephone interview from his home in New York on motzaei Shabbos.
Even Rabbi Lerner, who has been spearheading the behind-the-scenes contacts with the gedolim for a year, was surprised at the outcome.
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