NCYI Expresses Disappointment and Renews Call for Release of Pollard

August 25, 1994

President William Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Mr. President:

As National Executive Director of the National Council of Young Israel, an umbrella organization representing over 150 synagogues throughout the United States with more than 50,000 member families, I would like to express my disappointment at your decision not to grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard.

The double standard shown by the government in sentencing Mr. Pollard to a life sentence while others, who have been prosecuted for similar crimes, received much less draconian sentences, is unconscionable and raises profoundly troubling questions that will not go away until Mr. Pollard is freed.

On behalf of my members, I ask you to reconsider. Show us your compassion, your sense of justice and commute Jonathan Pollard's sentence. Show us that this is, indeed, a country where all men are treated equally.

Sincerely yours,

Chaim S. Kaminetzky
National President