The Man in the Mirror
Two decades into his life sentence, Jonathan Pollard casts a long shadow
from his prison cell.
by David Holzel - The Jewish Angle
http://jangle04.home.mindspring.com/1035.html

In March 1987, I was attending a gathering of Jewish journalists in New
York City, when I happened to scan the front page of the New York Times. A
headline noted that Jonathan Pollard was to be sentenced that day, and as I
read the article, my sense of reality shifted. An American Jew, guilty of
one count of passing classified material to Israel, was almost certainly
about to receive a life sentence, and not a word of it had been mentioned at
this gathering of Jewish newspaper editors and writers.

If there was a story for a Jewish journalist, this was it. It threw a
glaring light onto the hyphenated identity of the American-Jew. It raised
the question of how far an American Jew would be willing to go to help
Israel, if it were in his power to render the Jewish state singular
assistance. And it raised a mirror to those who dared to look at a
reflection that asked: "We say we revere the martyrs who went to their death
saying the Shema, rather than desecrate the name of God. Is that empty
sentimentality, or do we truly believe in sticking our necks out for a just
cause?"

For all that, not a word from my colleagues. And suddenly my conscience
became a clock ticking down the minutes until Pollard was put away for life.
All Jews are responsible for each other, we are fond of saying, but I could
do nothing to stop that clock ticking down on an American Jew, just four
years older than I, a Zionist who wanted to see Israel safe, and who, from
his position as an analyst for the U.S. Navy, had passed military
information to Israel that the U.S. had withheld.

It soon will be 20 years since that date - March 4, 1987. Jonathan Pollard
and I have grown from impetuous young men to something like middle age. We
have never met or spoken. But since that day, he has been my shadow.
Whenever I have looked for him he is there, in prison.

Considering the indifference of my employers, I am still baffled why they
allowed me to write an editorial stridently sympathetic to Pollard. Then I
was given the assignment of traveling to South Bend, Indiana, where the
Pollard family lived. In a clubby Notre Dame dining room, I had lunch with
Jonathan's father, Morris, a microbiologist at the university, and
Jonathan's mother, Mollie.

That day they conveyed to me their grief at what happened to their son and
their frustration over the shoddy legal representation Jonathan had
received. Along with Jonathan's older sister Carol, Dr. and Mrs. Pollard
were the main sources for my article. It was, I think, the first lengthy
story about Pollard in the Jewish press.

In those days, when those who called themselves American Jewish leaders, and
the organizations they led, were silent about Pollard, I learned that there
were three types of Jews who vociferously were not - Holocaust survivors,
the Orthodox, and the crazies.

I've often wondered why. From experience, Holocaust survivors know that
staying quiet and following the rules isn't always enough when it comes to
preserving Jewish lives. Pollard's willingness to break the law because it
could potentially save Jews was exactly what there wasn't enough of during
the Holocaust.

Orthodox Jews are less burdened about what for others is a sense of dual
loyalty between their American-ness and their love for Israel. Because their
Jewishness is very much on display, many have to stick their necks out to
exercise their freedom of religion. That Pollard stuck his neck out for
Israel was something to be commended, not condemned.

The crazies, who never fit in anywhere because they can't or won't conform,
have nothing to lose in speaking up for another marginal figure, Pollard.

I'm still not sure where I fit in. For years I was razzed by Jewish friends
and colleagues for continuing to push the Pollard issue. I advocated
dedicating an empty seat on the synagogue bimah to Pollard, to lighting a
candle for Pollard. Similar symbolic acts were done for Soviet Jews. But
apparently it is easier - or less disconcerting - to identify with the more
abstract plight of Jews caught in a foreign dictatorship than it is to hold
a place for someone a lot more like us who is serving a life sentence for
aiding Israel.

Pollard embarrassed most American Jews. He broke the law to help Israel.
Having to explain that to other Americans, let alone to the face in the
mirror, was just too uncomfortable. Isn't America a good place for Jews?
Isn't America good to Israel? So how could he have repaid America by passing
its secrets to Israel and possibly ruin a good thing? Better he should stay
where he is and we forget about him.

It's ironic that polls showed that few Americans realize that Pollard is a
Jew. What is real is that Pollard received a sentence disproportionate to
the crime he committed. As Edwin Black wrote:

"Pollard has by far received the longest sentence in U.S. history for spying
for a friendly government. His life term rivals only those handed down to
America's greatest traitors, such as Aldrich Ames, whose treachery killed
American agents, and John Walker who revealed our nuclear submarine
positions to the Soviets. In fact, at least one of Walker's family of
accomplices has already been released after serving 15 years of a 25-year
sentence."

So it was a surprise, and a relief, to meet two up-and-coming Federation
machers in Atlanta, one an attorney and the other a real-estate developer,
who were nudging the Jewish community there about Pollard. One of them even
visited Pollard where he is being held, at the Federal prison in Butner,
North Carolina.

For their trouble, these two men earned the not entirely complimentary
nickname "The Pollard Twins." They were both participants in the Wexner
program, a high-intensity program to teach up-and-coming Jewish leaders
about Judaism. When the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim - rescuing captives - was
discussed, the two made the connection with Pollard.

Pollard does seem more like a captive than a prisoner. He remains chained by
a secret - by a 46-page classified memorandum that then-Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger submitted to federal Judge Aubrey Robinson. The public has
never been allowed to see this memo, which reportedly outlines the damage
Pollard did to American security and which, David Zwiebel writes, "is widely
cited as a major reason that the judge ultimately sentenced Pollard to life
in prison for espionage."

The day before Pollard was sentenced, Weinberger submitted an additional
memo to the court, in which he accused Pollard of treason.

The accusation was dramatic, but inaccurate. Pollard was not charged or
convicted of treason. Worse, to this day the public has not been allowed to
see and judge the secret information Weinberger supposedly presented. That
we are expected to accept Pollard's life sentence without hearing a credible
reason enlists us in what amounts to a witch hunt.

The witch hunt has had the intended chilling effect. Every judicial appeal,
every attempt at clemency for Pollard has failed. And yet I cling to the
belief that, whoever else Jonathan Pollard may be, he is a Jew who attempted
to help Israel, an American who has been denied justice, and that his
punishment far outweighs his crime. He has served his time.

Just as disappointing to me has been how the Israeli leadership turned its
back on Pollard. While the Israeli public is sympathetic, those in power
have distanced themselves.

When I interviewed Shimon Peres in February 1995, I asked him for his
thoughts on Pollard. At the time of our interview, Peres was Israel's
foreign minister. But he was prime minister when Pollard was passing
documents to his Israeli contacts, in what an Israeli government
investigation after Pollard's arrest cynically called "a rogue operation."

As I wrote of the exchange at the time, "Before I even finished my question,
Mr. Peres, who until that point in the interview seemed half asleep, turned
his head and glared at me.... 'No, no, no,' he said. 'I shall answer some
questions, not all of them.'"

As the 20th anniversary of Pollard's sentencing approaches, his shadow grows
longer around me. He sits in prison with no release in sight. Yet the world
has changed greatly in those two decades. The U.S.-Israel relationship,
lauded for its closeness at the time, has grown even closer post-Sept. 11.
The go-go '80s -- in which unrestrained entrepreneurship and a
pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps approach to solving problems were
encouraged, and an arms-for-hostages deal was carried out by White House
operatives -- was the environment in which Pollard acted. (If you've
forgotten or are not familiar with the zeitgeist of the 1980s, watch Oliver
Stone's "Wall Street" or read Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City.")

Still, if in that time and in that place you had been in Pollard's position,
what would you have done? Look into the mirror as you consider that
question.