24 | January 17, 2014
The Jewish Voice
ISRAEL | NATION
Snowden revelations boost calls for Pollard’s release By Ben Sales
Janet Yellen
Senate confirms Yellen as Fed chairwoman WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Senate confirmed Janet Yellen as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, making her the first woman and the third consecutive Jewish top U.S. government banker. Yellen was confirmed in a 56-26 vote on Monday. January 6. She succeeds Ben Bernanke, who followed Alan Greenspan in 2006. Yellen, 67, has been vicechairwoman of the Federal Reserve since 2010. She has pledged to continue Bernanke’s commitment to transparency and is noted for her emphasis on diminishing unemployment over tackling inflation. “As one of our nation’s most respected economists and a leading voice at the Fed for
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more than a decade – and Vice Chair for the past three years – Janet helped pull our economy out of recession and put us on the path of steady growth,” President Obama said in a statement. “Janet is committed to the Fed’s dual mandate of keeping inflation in check while also addressing our most important economic challenge by reducing unemployment and creating jobs.” According to media reports, a top contender to replace her in the vice chairman’s post is Stanley Fischer, a former World Bank chief economist who from 2005 to 2013 was governor of the Bank of Israel. Fischer holds dual Israel-U.S. citizenship.
MOTHER’S CIRCLE
the curriculum of the class, saying that she still returns to it once in a while. Metzger took the course to be prepared for the time when her daughter Zoe starts to ask complicated questions. She now feels ready to answer them. Cimmi Cumes and her son Isaak, as well as Anya Davis and her sons Ilan and William, are recent transplants to RI. The two women appreciated the sense of community and stability the Alliance JCC and the Mothers Circle offered. Cumes wasn’t raised religious; ever since she converted to her husband’s faith seven years ago, she had been eager to learn more about it. Davis had agreed to raise the children Jewish, so she felt that she should take advantage of the program that resonated with her situation. She said, “So much Judaism is practiced at home that if you don’t know how to do it, you’re in trouble.” Davis’ husband is baffled at the effort involved, but happy she’s following through with the commitment. Davis keeps recalling Haspel’s advice to encourage herself. During the course, Haspel urged the women to take the process one step
at a time and do the best they can. Davis dedicates herself because she has always been drawn to the aspects of Judaism that she is finally engaging in; they include mindfulness, prayers of gratitude, moments of rest and opportunities to do good deeds. Maria Ross also appreciated the chance to learn more about Judaism. Brought up Catholic, she never related to the faith. When her son Noah was born, she and her husband Jarred wanted to raise him with spirituality. They chose the husband’s faith because “Reform Judaism is more accepting of interfaith marriages.” Ross really benefitted from the course’s guidance, saying, “I loved it. He [Jarred] didn’t know too much about some of the holidays.” Her husband concedes, saying he appreciates the help the Mothers Circle has provided and that he’s proud of Ross’ initiative to learn. He praises his wife’s devotion, “It doesn’t surprise me – she usually jumps in with both feet.” If any readers would like to jump in too, they can contact Kit Haspel at 401-421-4111, ext. 184 or at khaspel@jewishallianceri.org.
TEL AVIV (JTA) – The (recent) disclosure that American intelligence spied on former Israeli prime ministers has given new momentum to the effort to secure a pardon for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several leading Members of Knesset have called in recent days for Pollard’s release following reports that documents leaked by former defense contractor Edward Snowden showed U.S. intelligence had targeted the email addresses of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert. Pollard’s case “isn’t disconnected from the U.S. spying on Israel,” Nachman Shai, the co-chair of the Knesset caucus to free Pollard, told JTA. “It turns out, it’s part of life. And what he did is a part of life.” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein accused the United States of “hypocrisy” for holding Pollard, who as a civilian U.S. Navy analyst spied on the United States for Israel, even as it spied on Israeli leaders. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said he wants the Israeli government to demand Pollard’s release and insist the United States cease its espionage operations in Israel. And opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Pollard’s punishment “has long passed the limits of sensibility.” “We hope that the conditions will be created that will enable us to bring Jonathan home,” Netanyahu said Sunday at the Israeli Cabinet’s weekly meet-
ing. “This is neither conditional on, nor related to, recent events, even though we have given our opinion on these developments.” When Pollard’s crimes first came to light in the mid-1980s, his activities seemed like a major act of betrayal given the close alliance between Israel and the United States. But the Snowden revelations show that spying by the United States and Israel was a twoway affair, prompting a new round of calls for the release of Pollard. Support for freeing Pollard represents a rare point of consensus in Israeli politics, with 100 Knesset members among the 120 signing a letter asking Obama to release Pollard, according to Shai. Eighty members signed a similar letter last year. But Ronen Bergman, an expert on Israeli intelligence who is writing a history of Israel’s spy agencies, says Israeli pressure is unlikely to convince President Obama to free Pollard in the short term. “I’m quite positive that it won’t happen tomorrow because otherwise it will look as if the president of the United States accepts the claim that following the recent revelations from Edward Snowden, he should parole Jonathan Pollard,” Bergman told JTA. “But once the Americans were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, it paints the Pollard issue in a different color.” The clamor for Pollard’s release has grown steadily over the past two years, with the late U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter,
former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Secretary of State George Shultz expressing their support. Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky, a vocal advocate for Pollard’s release who raised the issue last month in his speech to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, told JTA that American calls for the release of Pollard hold more sway than Israeli advocacy. “What really matters is what American public opinion and American professionals and the American Jewish community feel,” Sharansky said. “I want to be cautious, but I think we passed a checkpoint. Now we don’t see people thinking [Pollard’s release] is unthinkable.” Supporters of Pollard have long argued that his three decades of incarceration for spying on an ally is excessive. Revelations of American espionage may strengthen the rhetorical argument on Pollard’s behalf, they say, but the merits of the case for release stand on their own. “Without any connection to the recent news, there’s no question that the time has already come when the Israeli public and senior officials want this tragedy to come to an end,” said Adi Ginsburg, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Justice for Jonathan Pollard. “American justice and shared values between the two countries, like justice and mercy, necessitate Pollard’s freedom.”
Israelis snag top prizes at National Jewish Book Awards
NEW YORK (JTA) – Authors Yossi Klein Halevi, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and Ari Shavit were among the winners of the 2013 National Jewish Book Awards. Halevi, a longtime Israeli journalist, took the top prize, the Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award, for “Like Dreamers,” which tells the history of Israel through the personal experiences over decades of a handful of paratroopers who helped capture the Old City of Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. Sacks, the former British chief rabbi, won in the category of modern Jewish thought and experience for “The Koren Pesach Machzor.” Shavit, a journalist for Israel’s daily Haaretz, won in the history category for “My Promised Land: The triumph
and Tragedy of Israel,” a book of reflections on Israel’s complicated history. Awarded annually by the Jewish Book Council, the awards are in their 63rd iteration. This year’s crop announced Wednesday included a notable number of foreign winners. The award for fiction went to Israeli writer Amos Oz for “Between Friends,” which was translated into English by Sondra Silverston. Hebrew University professor Moshe Halbertal won the Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award for Scholarship for “Maimonides: Life and Thought.” Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman’s “FDR and the Jews” won the American Jewish Studies Celebrate 350 Award. Phyllis Chesler won in the category for biography or memoir for “An American
Bride in Kabul: A Memoir.” Michal Smart and Barbara Ashkenas’s book “Kaddish: Women’s Voices” won in the category of contemporary Jewish practice. In children and young adult literature, the winner was “The War Within These Walls,” written by Aline Sax, illustrated by Caryl Strzelecki and translated by Laura Watkinson. The top prize for illustrated children’s book went to “Hanukkah Bear” by Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka. A full list of the awardees and runners-up is available at the Jewish Book Council website.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony on March 5 at the Center for Jewish History in New York. The event is free and open to the public.