Jonathan's Letter to A "Jewish Leader"

November 4, 1997

NOTE:


Jonathan Pollard sent the following letter to a Jewish leader. We have deleted the man's name, but the truth is, we could have addressed this letter to any one of hundreds of "machers", since it encapsulates our experience with many of them.


Dear "Jewish Leader",

Authentic Jewish sources teach us that often a man's rise to a position of influence or power is not so much a reward as it is a test. Consider then how it is that a man who presents himself as an ethicist, and an expert on the Holocaust, could display such a pitiful lack of moral conscience and such a striking lack of memory in dealing with a man whose situation has been defined as a case of "pidyan shhvuyim". (See the Urgent Appeal From The Great Rabbis.)

My ultimate redemption does not rest in the hands of false friends such as yourself. In truth, in spite of the commitments you made to me which you did not keep, and in spite of the lies you told me straight-faced, there is nothing you can do for me.

Rather, in my reaching out to you to ask you to make a small gesture of participation in the mitzvah of pidyan shvuyim, all that you could do in fact is to build your own legacy. It has taken us nearly a year of phone calls and discussions and now your legacy is complete.

I pity you. It is far easier to live a life of truth behind bars than it is to live a life of lies in a palace of smoke and mirrors. I bear you no malice in spite of the lies and the cowardice.

If our brief contact these last few months can do nothing for me, at least it may perhaps encourage you to look into your own soul and start you on the process of redeeming yourself. Until then, it seems that the only legacy you have is falsehood disguised by the smoke and mirrors of "Shoah Business". In any event that is how the historical record of the Pollard case will remember you.

Yours truly,
Jonathan Pollard