When senior Clinton administration officials would meet with Jewish organizational leaders in recent months, a question was often put to the Jews: What is the sentiment in the community concerning Jonathan Pollard?
It was an important question for President Clinton, who was trying to decide whether to grant a request for clemency for Pollard, the former civilian naval analyst who has been serving a life sentence for spying on behalf of Israel.
As the Justice Department conducted the official review of the Pollard case, the president had to weigh the inevitable opposition from intelligence agencies against the arguments and political clout of the Jewish community, which supported him overwhelmingly at the polls in the 1992 elections.
Within the Jewish community, freedom for Jonathan Pollard has often appeared to be as self-evident a cause as freedom for Soviet Jewry, judging by coverage of the issue in Jewish newspapers, sermons in synagogues and appeals from Israeli leaders.
But for the White House — and indeed, for the organized Jewish community — the view has not been that clear.
A 1991 poll by the American Jewish Committee showed that not much more than half of American Jews had heard of Jonathan Pollard, and no more than 22 percent thought Jewish organizations should campaign to reduce his sentence.
And there has been a split among Jewish organizations. Those the White House is most accustomed to dealing with have been taking the lowest profile on the issue.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella organization that includes both groups strongly advocating for Jonathan Pollard and those who have maintained it is not an issue for the Jewish community, has taken no stand.
A FLURRY OF LOBBYING
Its rationale is that the mandate of the conference is to deal with international issues.
The umbrella dealing with domestic American concerns, the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, voted last February to take no stance regarding Pollard.
Little surprise, then, that unnamed White House officials told. The New York Times this week that Clinton wanted to hear from American Jews on the issue.
The Times reported that Clinton had yet to make up his mind and that protests following reports of his opposition to clemency could alter the dynamics of his decision making.”
The article indicated that Clinton is leaning against commutation of Pollard’s sentence.
For supporters of Pollard, these remarks on the eve of the Justice Department’s conclusion of the review, set off a flurry of lobbying.
Seymour Reich, president of the American Zionist Movement, and Rabbi Avi Weiss, president of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha, said they were mobilizing their constituencies to inundate the White House with calls and faxes.
Pollard has been in federal prison for eight years. As a decision on clemency seemed imminent, a long-standing divide among Jewish groups over the issue came to the surface.
It is a division that both sides agree has pitted the grass roots against either “the establishment” or “the knowledgeable professionals,” depending on which side is making the characterization.
NJCRAC and those groups whose bread and butter consists of dealings with Washington on domestic issues have consistently held back from supporting Pollard.
Those groups that represent specific constituencies have increasingly come on board.
These include the rabbinic organizations of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox branches of Judaism, and half of the Jewish community relations councils.
Tension also has been evident within the organizations themselves.
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations recently came out for commutation of Pollard’s sentence.
The position was taken by a vote of its convention, attended by 4,000 people, and overruled the position of the organization’s committee on social actions.
Similarly, while the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America sponsored a petition drive at its member synagogues, its Institute of Public Affairs is not taking action on behalf of Pollard.
Some members of the Jewish War Veterans have launched a petition drive to move the organization from its noncommittal support of a review of the sentence to favoring commutation.
JWV’s current position was stated by former national commander Albert Schlossberg, who was quoted in a JWV publication saying, “any act of espionage, whether for an ally or an enemy, will not be tolerated by this organization.”
Those who signed the petition said they would resign from JWV if it does not change its position.
The Anti-Defamation League has not taken a position.
The ADL’s chairman, Melvin Salberg, and national director, Abraham Foxman, have written the White House asking for clemency, saying “as serious as his crime was, Jonathan Pollard has paid his debt to society.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
