Sen. Daniel Inouye (D. Hawaii) urged American Jews not to fear a backlash against the Jewish community because an American Jew, Jonathan Pollard, was convicted for spying for Israel.
“I don’t think there is any reason for you to be afraid or embarrassed,” Inouye told the 175 persons attending the Mission to Washington of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in America (OU), last Wednesday.
“If you show fear it gives courage and strength to your enemies,” he stressed. “This is the time to show strength and not fear.”
Inouye said that while he condemns Pollard’s espionage, “with equal fervor I condemn those Americans who are using this to imply the concept of collective guilt.”
The OU members, joined by members of two other Orthodox groups, the Rabbinical Council of America and AMIT Women, spent the day here being briefed by members of the Reagan Administration and the Israel Embassy, as well as individually meeting with various members of Congress.
At a luncheon on Capitol Hill, they heard from Inouye and about a dozen other Senators, who urged the need for them to demonstrate their support for Israel and the cause of Soviet Jewry.
The Jewish community is the chief supporter of Israel and “that is how it should be,” Sen. John Danforth (R. Mo.) stressed. “If you don’t support the State of Israel, if you don’t do it in a very strong way, who’s supposed to do that?”
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D. NJ) and others said the Pollard case would not have a long-lasting effect. He said that the United States “depends” on Israel and the Jewish State “gives good value” to the U.S. for the aid it receives.
Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D. Md.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, said that the $3 billion in U.S. aid for Israel is “protected.” But he warned that there will be pressures to cut it because of domestic needs.
On the Soviet Jewry issue, Sen. Arlen Specter (R. Pa.) said he believed that if the U.S. and the Soviet Union reached an arms control agreement, more Soviet Jews will be allowed to be released. Lautenberg told the Orthodox leaders that he will seek again to get Senate approval, denied last year, for a bill allowing Orthodox Jews in the military to wear yarmulkes.
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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.
