First Photos from the Human Chain Event and Pollard Rally
J4JPnews - May 13, 2008
It may take a day or two for all of the wonderful photographers at the Pollard Human Chain Event and Rally to send us their photos, but we can't wait to share the ones we just received!
View all the photos.
The first photos came in today, courtesy of Yechiel Jonathan Stein. The densely populated photos were taken at the main event, the solidarity rally at Pollard Square. Photos of the Human Chain event are not as densely populated. The Human Chain stretched from the American Consulate on Agron Street, all the way up the very long block to Pollard Square! Because of the overflow crowd, police soon had to close the road to traffic for several hours, all the way past the Prime Minister's residence. Here is a brief description by Judy Lash Balint, excerpted from The Jerusalem Diaries. (View the first photos here
):
"...several thousand Jerusalemites formed themselves into a human chain in front of the U.S Consulate two days ahead of the visit of President George W. Bush, to urge the American president to "free your captive--Jonathan Pollard."The crowd spilled over to the square around the corner from Prime Minister Olmert's residence where a long list of speakers berated the Israeli government's lack of action as well as the intransigence of the American defense establishment in refusing to allow Pollard out of jail after 22 years punishment....Amongst the crowd I spotted Mayer and Regina Mansdorf, a couple who are almost 90 years old, who both survived the Holocaust, emigrated once to America and then to Israel in the 1980s. They live close by and never miss the opportunity to speak out against injustice. Standing close to the spry elderly couple are a gaggle of teenage girls who lead the shouts of "Free Pollard, Free Pollard" that are quickly taken up by the large, mostly religious crowd....Human rights lawyer Nitsana Darshan Leitner addresses the demonstrators, as does former Prisoner of Zion Yosef Mendelevich, who spent 11 years in a Soviet prison camp back in the 1970s....Police photographers discreetly take photos of participants as a throng of border patrol and police officers ring the square.