Congressional Intervention? Jewish Army engineer cleared of spying presses his religious discrimination claim. mation. Morganroth scoffed at that defense and accused the govern- ment of invoking the state ithin 24 hours after the U.S. secrets doctrine as a mask for Supreme Court's rejection religious discrimination, point- Monday, Nov. 29, of an appeal ing to the fact that "both the from Southfield resident David Department of Justice and the Tenenbaum, his lawyers said U.S. Sen. FBI stated in writing that no Carl Levin, D-Mich., "is going to get evidence existed against involved" in the long-running religious Tenenbaum and that if any evi- discrimination case. The Jewish civilian dence had existed, the FBI Army engineer was wrongfully accused in would have found it due to the 1997 of spying for Israel. David Tenenbaum thoroughness of its investiga- According to attorney Mayer tion." Morganroth of Morganroth & Tenenbaum filed suit against several of his Morganroth, PLLC of Southfield, Tenenbaum, an accusers in 1998, stating his accusers were moti- Orthodox Jew who is fluent in Hebrew, may now vated by anti-Semitism. The government claimed find redress through Congress rather than its employees were unable to defend themselves through the judiciary. "This case needs to be without divulging classified materials. resolved on its merits," Morganroth said. Paul Wolfowitz, currently deputy secretary of Morganroth said that Levin, the ranking defense and one of the most prominent Jews in Democrat on the Senate Armed Services the Bush administration, wrote that revealing Committee, "expressed an interest in drafting a material relevant to Tenenbaum's case could cause bill that would provide Tenenbaum with compen- serious damage to the national security." sation and would address problems of religious A federal district court agreed in 2002 and the discrimination in military classification." decision was upheld in May by the Sixth Circuit However, Levin's press secretary, Tara Andringa, Court of Appeals. The request to the Supreme would only confirm that Tenenbaum's attorneys Court was the last step in the judicial process. "have been in contact with us. We are looking into it, but we will have no comment today," she said on Tuesday. Information Under Wraps Tenenbaum acknowledged to the Jewish News Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter A. Caplan said both that he and his family `went into debt over this of the lower courts were given the information thing." He continues to work as an engineer at the government wanted to keep under wraps. the U.S. Army Tank Automotive and Armaments After careful examination, he said, they agreed Command in Warren. with Wolfowitz. By declining to consider arguments in "These were the conclusions of two courts -in Tenenbaum's discrimination case, the high court this case. It is not the result of unilateral executive effectively upheld the decision by two lower fed- department decision-making. The courts play a eral courts that dismissed the case on the grounds role in this case, and are able to see and evaluate that the U.S. government was unable to mount a the data," said Caplan. proper defense to the allegations of anti-Semitism Morganroth called Caplan's comments "unbe- without revealing sensitive national security infor- ALAN AB RAMS Special to the Jewish News W " Jews Denounce Divestment New York/JTA β€” American Jewish organizations asked Protestant leaders to reject divestment from Israel. Five Jewish agencies released a statement Tuesday asking Protestant leaders to focus on alternative ways to promote a two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The statement came in response to an October meet- ing with Protestant leaders, who asked for an explanation as to why Jews 12/ 3 2004 16 oppose divestment. "Far too often, our Christian broth- ers and sisters, most particularly the mainline Protestant denominations, have remained too silent in the face of this persistent hatred, rejection, and violence aimed at Israel," the Jewish leaders wrote in a letter Monday. "Divestment efforts that are not uni- versally applied but rather focused uniquely on Israel, no matter how nuanced and explained, smack of dis- crimination," the letter states, adding lievable for two reasons. First, we were never allowed to see what documents were provided to the courts β€” which could not have been relevant to the case in any event based upon the Department of Justice's and FBI's conclusions that no evidence existed against Tenenbaum. "Second, there were secret administrative hear- ings held over Tenenbaum's security clearance in which the government defended itself and Tenenbaum's accusers, which resulted in Tenenbaum's 'secret' clearance not only being restored, but in Tenenbaum also being granted a `top secret' clearance. "If Tenenbaum's accusers could not even prevail in secret hearings conducted by the government, how could they prevail in a public court?" The Tenenbaum case made headlines in 1997, when Tenenbaum allegedly admitted in a poly- graph test that he had inadvertently shared classi- fied documents with Israeli military officials, a charge Tenenbaum's lawyer disputes. The FBI and U.S. Army investigated Tenenbaum several times, even raiding his home on Shabbat. Morganroth said Tenenbaum was investigated for 11 years and was falsely accused of spying for Israel because of his close ties to Israeli officials in Michigan. Some saw the case as a reverberation of anti- Israel and anti-Jewish bias in government follow- ing the conviction of Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. Navy analyst sentenced in 1987 to life in prison for spying for Israel. American Jewish groups have been reluctant to get involved in the case, acknowledging the legiti- macy of the state-secrets doctrine. "It's somewhat troublesome, but there may not be any way around it," said Marc Stern, the American Jewish Congress' general counsel. "The question is how to make sure the provision is not used improperly, to cover religious discrimination. ❑ The Jewish Telegraphic Agency contributed to this report. that the move "provokes extremism from all sides." The letter was signed by representa- tives of the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Anti-Defamation League, the Union for Reform Judaism and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Exclusion Bill Blocked Jerusalem/JTAβ€” A bill that would allow the creation of Jews-only towns in Israel was defeated in the Knesset. The legislation offered by Zvi Hendel of the National Union bloc failed Wednesday by a vote of 40-38. "A Parliament of the Jewish people cannot ratify a law that would segre- gate on the basis of religion or nation- ality, something Jews have fought throughout the generations," Justice Minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, leader of the Shinui Party, told reporters.