Campaign To Free Pollard Just Gets Odder
The campaign to free Jonathan Pollard just gets odder, and more disturbing.
Pollard started serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison in 1987 for passing military secrets to Israel while working as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy. The Shmooze reported back in December that his wife Esther Pollard claimed that the enormous forest fire in Northern Israel came to rebuke Israel for not working hard enough to free him. Now we have a religious study project that has seen 250,000 people across Israel take on extra study in the name the release of Pollard and… Gilad Shalit.
The project draws a parallel between Pollard, who was tried and sentenced by a transparent American legal system, and Shalit, who is held by Hamas, his whereabouts and state of health unknown and Red Cross visits denied. “I’m sure our learning will help bring Jonathan Pollard and Gilad Shalit home. They have been in prison too long,” said one of the speakers last Monday when some 700 people gathered in Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue, in the presence if Israel’s Ashkenazi Yona Metzger, to mark the end of the project.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
