Interfaith Rally Held To Demand Release of Gross
Jewish and interfaith groups are organizing simultaneous vigils in Washington and New York calling for the release of Jewish American contractor Alan Gross from a Cuban prison.
The vigils, coordinated by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, will take place Friday at the Cuba Interests section in Washington and the Cuba mission to the United Nations in New York.
At both vigils, organizers will attempt to present Cuban officials with petitions calling for Gross’ release before Rosh Hashanah. The Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington is co-sponsoring the vigil there.
Gross, 62, a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, has been imprisoned since 2009 and was sentenced this summer to 15 years in prison for attempting to overthrow Cuba’s government. He was hooking up the island’s small Jewish community with access to the Internet.
Gross is ailing in prison and reportedly has lost 100 pounds. His mother and one of his daughters are suffering from cancer, and his wife is recovering from an undisclosed illness.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
