Pollard's Wife Encouraged By Support For Husband

Liat Collins - The Jerusalem Post - July 27, 1994

Esther Zeitz-Pollard, wife of Jonathan Pollard who is serving a life sentence in the US for spying for Israel, said she was "very encouraged" by the meetings she had yesterday with President Ezer Weizman, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron and Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

Both Bakshi-Doron and Netanyahu promised to visit Jonathan Pollard in prison during their next visits to the US and pledged firm support, Zeitz-Pollard said last night. She refused to divulge details of the private meeting she had with Weizman.

Bakshi-Doron promised to raise the issue at the Rabbinical Council meeting tomorrow, while Netanyahu said he would introduce a Knesset bill to grant Pollard immediate Israeli citizenship.

Zeitz-Pollard told the three that her husband is suffering from the very bad conditions in the North Carolina jail and that "he could not go on much longer.

"My husband is a soldier who fought for Israel, was wounded, and was left in the field. It is inconceivable that at a time when Israel is freeing prisoners whose hands are drenched in the blood of innocent people, the man who did so much for [Israel] should be the one to stay in prison".

Today, Zeitz-Pollard is scheduled to meet with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau and tomorrow she is expected to have a second meeting with Justice Minister David Liba'i. She had hoped to meet with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before his trip to Washington, but instead fowarded him a written request to persuade US President Clinton to release her husband.