National Phone-in to White House Lets Bush Know of American Feelings

Americans from across the country jammed the White House Opinion Line on Monday to let President Bush know of their support for Israel. The lines were so busy that callers from across the country complained they couldn’t get through.

A White House spokeswoman said the line was closed at 1 p.m. because of a severe snowstorm in the Capitol. She said no figure would be released on the number of calls received in the four hours before the line was closed.

Jeffrey Reznik, a Brooklyn plastics manufacturer who organized the call-in effort, said he was told by a Washington official that the Opinion Line was closed early because of the flood of calls.

“The snow might have forced it to close at 4 p.m. on a normal day, but all of the calls caused them to close it early,” said Reznik. “It means someone at the White House knows what we’re doing. I hope it’s the president.”

A White House spokesman said Tuesday that a summary of the calls coming in on the White House Opinion Line is given to the president once a week. It is never made public because it is considered “personal and private,” he said.

The spokesman said the other White House line, which Reznik said he had been using for 12 years, was discontinued at the end of the day Friday as long planned.

Persons calling the line are told to call the White House Opinion Line, (202) 456-1111, a number “simpler for the American people to remember,” the spokesman said.

ENDORSEMENT FROM CAPITOL HILL

Reznik noted that the call-in campaign received the endorsement of U.S. senators and members of Congress, as well as local politicians and Jewish leaders. Rabbis throughout the country called upon their congregants to call the White House and Jews responded, he said.

“I understand this response was unprecedented,” said Reznik. “We’ve been told that the last time there was such an outpouring was during the Vietnam War.”

Commenting on the closing of the telephone line, Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “As a matter of public policy the White House should keep the lines open, particulary when there is an issue of such extensive public force as this one.”

Reznik said that he had printed several thousand flyers asking people to call a second White House phone number. The number was working as of 4 p.m. on Friday, he said, but was out of service on Monday morning at 9 a.m.

“I guess that confirms they knew what we were planning,” said Reznik.

Scores of persons who connected to a busy signal when calling the Opinion Line on Monday called the Jewish Week and other Jewish newspapers across the country to complain.

“We want to let President Bush know that people really do support Israel,” said Hinda Potenz of Manhattan. “Israel needs the support of the White House just as well as the White House needs the support of Israel.”

Said Esther Greenspan, a Manhattan dressmaker, “I wanted to let the White House know that the U.S. should be behind Israel.”

A woman in the Bronx said her daughter in Stamford, Conn., and her son in Manhattan had also received nothing but busy signals. “My son said he dialed the number at least 20 times,” she complained.

Reznik said more than 400 friends called him at his office to say they had called the White House, but only a dozen said they actually got through. He asked those who didn’t to try again Tuesday.

“What’s amazing to me is the intensity of the loyalty of the people out there,” said Reznik. “They feel that their president has betrayed them by not hearing their calls.”

In other developments, the Rabbinical Alliance of America has called upon Jews to observe Jan. 15 as a day of “penitence, prayer and charity”; and the Agudath Israel of America’s Council of Sages is asking that Jews also fast for a halfday on that date, the deadline set by the United Nations for Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait.

Rabbi Abraham Hecht, president of the Rabbinical Alliance, urged an “outpouring of prayer” to protect American forces in the Persian Gulf and Israel, which he noted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has threatened to destroy.

“Never since the Holocaust have we faced such a calamitous future, and the inherent dangers of the current state of affairs prompt us to request the fullest cooperation of the Jewish people to stave off a horrendous catastrophe, God forbid,” said Hecht.

(JTA correspondent David Friedman in Washington contributed to this report.)