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Newsletter : 9fax0119.txt
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>Israel Faxx
>JN Jan. 19, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 12
Pollard Case is Being Reviewed
By Ed Warner (VOA-Washington)
President Clinton has ordered a formal review of the case of
Jonathan Pollard, the former Naval intelligence officer who in 1987
was sentenced to life in prison for selling top secret information
to Israel. However, CIA Director George Tenet has threatened to
resign if Pollard is freed, and other US officials, past and
present, also have strongly objected. While, some American Jewish
groups, as well as the Likud party in Israel, have asked for
clemency -- many have not taken a position.
Joseph DiGenova is a former US attorney who prosecuted Pollard: "in
terms of the amount of information that was compromised and the
level of its security, the Pollard case is, in fact, the worst
because he compromised sources and methods information of an
astoundingly vast array in incredible quantities. It is unmatched
in terms of the quality and quantity of information compromised
in an espionage case."
Pollard managed to do this, says DiGenova, even though his behavior
should have aroused suspicion. He was known as a heavy drug user
who spent lavishly and was deeply in debt. He borrowed from
colleagues to make ends meet.
According to an article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker
magazine, Pollard quite openly carried off classified documents. On
one occasion, he piled so much into a handcart that security guards
had to open the door for him.
Among his acquisitions was the National Security Agency's 10 volume
manual on US communications and signals links. "It is the bible,"
an intelligence officer told Hersh. "It tells how we collect
signals anywhere in the world."
Intelligence officials believe some of the material got into Soviet
hands. In their opinion, either the Israelis traded the
information for Jews trying to leave the Soviet Union or KGB spies
in Israel obtained it. A close reading of the documents would have
revealed US sources in the USSR and may well have cost them their
lives.
Some US Jewish groups have called for Pollard's release on the grounds he was spying for a close ally and has suffered enough for what could be considered a selfless act. But others point out he took money for spying and offered his services to countries beyond Israel.
Barry Jacobs, assistant director for the Office of Government and
International Affairs at the American Jewish Committee, says his
organization has not taken a position on the case. Jacobs says
Pollard's wife complains that the American Jewish community has not
done enough for her husband, who she thinks should be pardoned and
allowed to move to Israel.
According to Jacobs, the media have exaggerated Jewish support for
Pollard. But opinion is by no means uniform. Jacobs doubts Jewish
organizations have put pressure on Clinton to free Pollard. In any
event, a number of top officials, including Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen, have urged
the president to keep him in prison.
Rabbi Puts the Word Out
By IsraelWire
A leading Orthodox rabbi has ruled that the word "God" may be
erased from a computer screen or disk, because the pixels do not
constitute real letters. Rabbi Moshe Shaul Klein published his
ruling in a computer magazine aimed at Orthodox Jews, "Mahsheva
Tova."
Klein was responding to a question from a reader who was unsure whether the ban on erasing the variations on the word "God" applied to computers. The rabbi, prominent in ultra-Orthodox circles in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak, ruled that the letters may be erased.
"The letters on a computer screen are an assemblage of pixels, dots of light, what have you," said Yosef Hayad, the rabbi's assistant. "Even when you save it to disk, it's not like you're saving anything more than a sequence of ones and zeroes," Hayad said.
According to Jewish law, printed matter with the word -- "Elohim"
in Hebrew, and its manifestations in any other language -- must be
stored, or ritually buried. The existence of the magazine -- a
pun that means both "Good Computer" and "Worthy Thinking" --
reflects the growing incursion of modern implements into the world
of the ultra-Orthodox.
Rabbi Kaduri Blesses Muslim Woman
By IsraelWire
Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri, the Elder Kabalist, blessed a Muslim couple,
and the wife became pregnant after 17 childless years. "It doesn't
matter if I'm a Jew or an Arab, I have firm belief in Rabbi Kaduri.
Belief is the common language," stated the husband, a resident of
southern Israel.
The couple tried to have children for 17 years, investing $240,000
in fertility treatments in clinics around the world. A friend
arranged for the couple to meet with Kaduri who blessed the couple
and gave the husband a small bag, which the man put under his
pillow. After receiving the blessing, the husband presented Kaduri
with a bottle of home-prepared olive oil.
The blessing worked, and the couple is expecting a child in a few months.
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