Close Up
P o ll ar d
ople
After 10 years of ups and downs (mostly downs),
volunteers working to free Jonathan Pollard
are a committed but frustrated lot.
LOIS K. SOLOMON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
reason. The word drives Jacob Seidenberg
crazy.
Jonathan Pollard, the Jewish U.S. Naval
Intelligence officer who spied for Israel, did not
commit treason, Mr. Seidenberg insists, even
though so many critics claim that his espionage
amounted to this ultimate crime.
"Treason is making war against the United
States," said Mr. Seidenberg, 72, a retired ac-
11111
countant from Coconut Creek, Fla. "I keep on reading about trea-
son. This is not treason."
But anti-Pollard letter-writers to South Florida newspapers con-
tinue to use the blasphemous word. Mr. Seidenberg fires back reg-
ularly, estimating that he's written hundreds of letters since Pollard
was arrested in 1985.
Mr. Seidenberg does more than write letters in defense of Pol-
lard. He maintains a bookshelf filled with 15 categories of files re-
lated to the Pollard case, including "Anti-Semitism, or Anti-Israel
Bias, Charges of," "Legal Matters and Commentary," "Disinfor-
mation and Misinformation" and "Comments on the Sentence."
Mr. Seidenberg is disgusted with the Jewish community, which
didn't defend Pollard until a few years ago, and with the Ameri-
can government, which he charges with anti-Semitism. His frus-
tration grows with every setback in the case, such as President