Jonathan Pollard - My Mission

[Music] Welcome to this wonderful event in support of Ammudim a unite to heal. My name is Pesaf learner and I am founder and chairman of the sakodesesh party in the Israel's national institutions. Our special special guest tonight is my dear friend, my brother Jonathan Pard. I have known Jonathan Pard for over 30 years. We have shared difficult times, better times, good times, sad times, and happy times. I believe I visited Jonathan in prison probably close to 100 times. Jonathan, I was there when you were released from prison. was by your side during Esto's illness at the Shiva and recently Bashem I walked you down the for your recent marriage to Rifka so you and I go back go back and go deep so it's always an honor to be with you and okay and you're now init you're living you're working you're contributing to you know what's going on you're part of what's going on unfortunately Yeah. And the question is, can you share your thoughts, your vision of greater Israel? Aliyah, anything. You're there. You fought for this country. You were imprisoned for this country. Now share with us your feelings, your visions. I think one of the biggest surprises I had when I returned was how different the country was. The whole notion of the Jewish identity of the state was up in the air. And for those of us who are what's generally called the religious Zionist, um it was pretty frightening where we were going. Now with the uh results of the new election having more or less been confirmed and we're in the middle of forming the government, the struggle for the identity of the state has taken on new meaning because now we have an opportunity vism to actually create a Jewish state. Two of the greatest myths of this country are that we are democratic and Jewish. Unfortunately, we're neither. Part of that is because of the outsized role and irresponsible role of the high court which kind of renders the Knesset moot. So that's as far as the democratic process is concerned and hopefully with the override clause we'll we'll try to amend that. And as far as the Jewish identity of the state is concerned, which is something I'm primarily interested in, uh with the appointment of uh Harav Ma um and his party, I think we'll be in a position to do some major healing. One of the first things we have to do is change the law of return so that it reflects and not the Nazi Nuremberg laws. Unfortunately, there were people back during the days of the Soviet Aya that were very happy to bring in a lot of people whose Jewish legitimacy was well, it wasn't questionable. It was non-existent. And the same thing is continuing to this day. This is dangerous because it's deliluding the am So hopefully if we can amend the law of return to reflect ali to reflect hala this will stem the slide that we're on right now into deliluding the Jewish character demographically of the state. The other issue as far as Jewish identity is concerned has to do of course with the role of the Rabanut. And there's been a big push here to dilute the rule of role of the Raban mostly by leftists uh the reform movement the conservatives and you know it's funny but our we never had a problem here before really with the Rabanut until the leadership of the American reform movement sensing their ship was sinking in the United States after they had basically knocked enough holes in When they realized this and they came here to set up shop, like if you'll excuse me, I've used this expression publicly before. Rats deserting a ship, suddenly the kotel became an issue. Suddenly kashut became an issue. Suddenly gerus became an issue. Suddenly Shabbat became an issue. It wasn't an issue for the vast majority of American Jews who came here. for example to visit Dakota they understood the role of a mita and they respected it. Suddenly when these I call them these uh rabble rousers from the reform movement and conservative movement showed up suddenly there was an issue. Suddenly there was a problem yet for them and for the local leftists they seized upon these people as a means of gaining uh legitimacy that they had lost at the polls in the same way that they basically gain tried to gain legitimacy and power through a high court a bats that they largely controlled. So this is this is another issue in the fight for the ident Jewish identity of the state. Basically trying to reduce if not eliminate the irresponsible and unjustified intrusion into our society of the American reform movement and and their conservative brothers and sisters as well. Lastly, as far as the Jewish identity of the state is concerned, there's the issue of the Ministry of Education. A lot of people don't understand what's been happening with that ministry. Basically, as long as the children that were turned out by the secular school system here were ignoramises, that was fine as far as Jewish education was concerned because there was a possibility of educating them later. Unfortunately, the role of organizations like the Shalom Hartman Institute and the reform movement have illegally intruded into the operations of the education ministry. And I say illegally because they've been the beneficiaries of non-competitive uh grants and access to our educational system, which which is illegal. We now have an opportunity to turn out educate Jewishly educated children from the secular school system. So in the event they want to leave or turn away from or abandon Judaism, at least normative Judaism, at least they'll know what they're walking away from. What I'm afraid of is what we've been turning out because of the the unethical influence of the left in the educational system, religious educational system. Uh because people who have been misled, who have been lied to and have been mis I I would call it miseducated as to what Jewish uh law and tradition and history actually are. Um, so hopefully depending on who the minister of education is, which party gets control of it, we'll be able to at least rebalance the quality of Jewish education that our secular students are receiving. And again, as I said, this is not a question of brainwashing. What we're doing is presenting them the opportunity to learn what normative Judaism is. So if they care and wish to practice normative Judaism, fine. If they don't, well, at least they know what they're walking away from. And hopefully hopefully over the years, we'll be able to bring them back. Right now, I'm putting together a Jewish educational center for children in Tel Aviv. It's named after my late wife Esther. We're starting a fund drive now to build the permanent building. Right now we have between 5 to 600 formerly Koni children uh at the gun level, kindergarten level who are now learning about Jewish traditions and heritage and history and practice. When I talked at the dedication of the school to several of the parents in the presence of our chairman of the board, Kavode Harav Mika Halevi, the chief Ashkinazi rabbi of Petikva, I asked them, these parents, why are you sending your children here? Uh, this is a religious school and you're definitely not religious or observant rather. And the answer was the same from all of them. They said, "Our parents refused or declined for one reason or another to teach us anything about what Judaism was. We hope that our children being educated here will teach us." So I looked at the Rav and I said, "Zah, this is the gu." Because we learn uh in our tradition that part of the guula will be uh represented by the children teaching the path can. So there it is and you know I'm I'm starting this children were very important for Esther and myself. we never were allowed to to have children and unfortunately upon our return to Isis um her health deteriorated and she and she died. She passed and so we never had an opportunity to have children. So this school is her legacy with these children. She was a teacher by training. So I hope that as she's looking down on us that she appreciates uh what we're trying to do in her name. So this is pretty much what I'm doing right now apart from my business activities which are keeping me up till 2 or 3:00 in the morning. Jonathan, I know that since you came to Israel with Esther Al Shalom and now with with Vivka and you're traveling a lot, you visited Judea, Samaria, the Golan Kev, Kev Yose, can you talk to us about your feelings of being in the Jude in Udav in the Golan in Kev and going to the places that in my opinion I know your opinion are part of the Israel that God gave us. And it's not it's not just part it's the core it's the core of Takodes. I think one of the most all inspiring moments of my life came when I I gave a speech at Haral which is where the tribes the shatim really came together to form a nation under one of the points that I was trying to make to people there in my speech was that if anybody wants to call into question our right to this And here's our reputation. Here's our proof. It isn't just the Maharatella that we bought. It isn't just Kev that was bought. It isn't just Yushai that was conquered and and became our our major capital after this place just like the Mishkan in Shilo represents the the epitome if you will of our claim to the land. So it was like coming real. It was really like coming home for me. And when I stood on that mountain overlooking valleys that our people had used in the conquest of the land, it just hit me very hard that I'm home finally. And for many people who come here from the United States or from Europe or wherever in the galut they come from, I don't mention diaspora. I don't use that word. I use the word galut because that's what it is. um when they actually go to places like Shilo and they see the Mishkan or where the Mishkan was or they go to the Maharatella and they actually look at the tombs of our imot and and people like Arak I mean all of these it's real there it is you can actually go up and put your hands on these then they suddenly realize this is where they belong There's an expression that Esther used to tell me all the time and she said it when she died. She said, you know, it's very easy to take a Jew out of galut and bring him to but it's very very hard to get the galut out of the Jews mind. Well, one of the major ways of doing that is to come here and live to make aliyah to recognize that it's not natural. It's unnatural for Jews to live in Galut while there is an opportunity to live in. There are some people I mean this is my opinion now there are some people who feel that they can't uh start this journey back until Moshiach comes. So they're waiting for Moshe. Well, I ask him another question. Maybe, just maybe, Moshe, may he come soon, is waiting for us for waiting for us to come home. So in in the possibility with the possibility that this could be the case, come home because you might be accelerating the timing of Mosiah. He's waiting for us. It isn't just our midot or our mitzvot or our our observance, general observance. It's our presence here in the land, the in gathering. So, it's very important to come and to be a part of this society, this evolving society, and to help defend and promote the Jewish identity of this country. Certainly when you look at all of the lands in Yehuda and Shamron and Beyammen, you look at all these lands it and you read Tanakh. You read the the Naven that the prophets, it's here. You can actually look at it. You can stand on it. You can breathe the same air that our our prophets breathed. It's the most all inspiring and uplifting experience. You could imagine is are there problems? O yes there there are a lot there are a lot of problems but they are our problems and we can solve them. You know there's an old expression that aliyah is a process of pushing and pulling. The pull of the land, the pull of the heart, the pull of the soul, the nishama to come home and also the push of bad developments in Galut. Right now, I think it's pretty obvious that the galut is closing down. And I have to, you know, tell people, yes, this includes the United States as well. Nothing that I've seen, nothing that I've read, nothing that I've heard would suggest otherwise. So it would be good for people to come now while you can in an orderly way before you you have to come and you have to come in whatever condition you are. So come get a place to stay, bring your children, bring your relatives, but come home and yes you can start a business here. It's a little difficult. Yes, you can uh eventually put up with the bureaucracy which is uh granted mind-numbing but you know it's something that we can change. Um and it's here that you can really live the life that God intended for us to live because there are certain uh mitzvot that can only be performed here only here. So why not come home and practice all of them rather than just some of them? Jonathan, I've had the opportunity to walk the streets of Jerusalem with you. And every time I do, whether people are walking or driving, they stop. They honk. They comment. They're happy to see you. They prayed for you. You're you're their hero. What what goes through your mind when when this happens? I remember once in I remember once in New York that you were walking down somewhere in one of the streets and all of a sudden a bus stops and off that bus came Hyolim and Kay soldiers who were in America for rest and relaxation. They had they had been hurt. They had been hurt in the war, hurt in the battle. And again, they stopped, came off the bus in the middle of Manhattan around you and started dancing. I see that in Jerusalem when we walk together, people stop, they honk, they get out of their cars. Uh, what feeling do you have when you realize that the Jewish people, the Jewish nation are supporting you? First of all, it's a it was a great privilege of mine to help defend our people. I don't consider what I did extraordinary. I was very embarrassed at first by everybody coming up to me and thanking me. And I'm not somebody that requires thanks for what I did. And Esther Al Shalom once asked me why is it that I felt so uncomfortable and I thought about it. She was my morah and so she used to push me pretty hard to think of of why things the way were the way they were. And I came to a a realization that that I should be thanking everyone for the privilege of defending the the Jewish state and the Jewish people. So, it was it was I was a little embarrassed until I realized that it was everybody who was thanking me that I should thank for the privilege. Part of the other reason is the fact that my hands are clean. I never shook the hands physically. I never shook the hand of any terrorist ever, nor will I ever. And there was one moment in my my life in prison that people know about now where I could have slipped up. There was the an event when John Kerry, the American Secretary of State, proposed that in exchange for being released that Israel should release prisoners with blood on their hands. These were the worst of the worst. I mean, why the American government would ever want these animals released to the street should give one pause? So, I was asked for my consent, but the issue with me was I would be released, but I could never go home. Not even my body. I would die in the midbar. Free, so-called free, but I would never be able to go home. So Esther came to see me and asked me what's your decision? Now I could say it was unethical for the government to ask a guy like me to make the call because I didn't have any chance of of living outside of prison at that time. I was going to die in prison. On the other hand, the government understood what I think pretty well what my answer was going to be. So it wasn't a risk on their part to ask me formally to make the call. So I told Esther Shalom my answer my answer is no. So when she said look I need a longer answer. I said okay hell no. So she laughed as was her way and she said no. um you know you've had a a wonderful secular education and a military education uh I need a professional answer. So I said okay there are three reasons why I say no. Number one it devalues the life of our victims. Two it lowers deterrence for obvious reasons. But three, and this was my principal concern, my agreement to this deal would inflict horrific pain and suffering on the victim's families. And I couldn't do that. I spent my professional career hunting terrorists and putting them away. And I I wasn't going to be part of a deal that released them. So she looked at me, Esther looked at me and said, "So that's your answer?" She said, "Well, those are very fine answers, but they're not the Jewish answers." She said, "The Jewish answers are as follows. If you agree to this deal and you agree to stay for the rest of your life in the Midbar, I'll stay with you as your wife." But she said, "You should understand, you would be making the same sin that the Maragle committed by cursing the land so they could keep their covet in the Midbar." And she said, "We're still paying for that sin to this very day." So she said, "Remember, as a Jew, you live for Shimime because at the end of your life when it passes, you'll have to stand before the and you'll have to defend your actions and you can't defend this. It's indefensible." She said, "Remember, we live for three things. We live and die on those principles. So she said, "You only have two options. You either come home dead as a meth to be buried in Kev is or you come home as a very old man to kneel down and kiss the land. Those are your only two options." So I said, "That's the Jewish answer." She said, "Yes." I said, "Fine. Put my name on it." And that's what she told the cabinet at the time. One tremendous benefit that a mood provides is particularly when people are in a time of trouble. They they've flounder. That's when they're the most alone. The time that they need help the most is somehow when people find themselves the most alone. Their support system isn't sure how to help them. Their friends might be a little uncomfortable with whatever they're going through and they're alone. And that's when a mudim steps in and provides a pillar of support. At the time when people find themselves alone, a mud is there to support them. A mud it does the subst substantive work that we all need to be done. Am goes and does it. Salaries need to get paid, rent needs to get paid, medical care, it all needs to get paid. So money is for better or worse on a it's the lifeline of an organization that what the organization does, that's what's critical. It needs money in order to be able to do its [Music] work at the time. People heard this, have learned about it, are aware of it now. And it's an issue here with regard to exchanging hundreds if not thousands of terrorist prisoners for either a living prisoner, Israeli prisoner or a war or the bodies of the prisoners. And we have to remember our tradition and I've I've talked about this a lot. We have limits on what we can pay for the return of a prisoner. There's a famous story that took place in in Germany where the rabbi m in middle ages basically said the Jewish community is being asked too high a price for my the Marram Rottenberg. Correct. So that's one lesson and I wasn't willing to pay I personally wasn't willing to pay that price to set that kind of precedent. The other has to do with what do we as as Jews in this country? What does the government do to secure the release of a prisoner, a living prisoner or even a dead prisoner? And I've talked a lot about the incident at Ziklak with Dov Melik where his people were kidnapped. His women and children were kidnapped and instead of negotiating for them, he went and got them. He fought for them. He killed the kidnappers. This was the the precedence of Ziklak. We've forgotten this year. The army, unfortunately, is too scared to do it. And the government sees an advantage in releasing prisoners because it looks like we're dealing, we're negotiating, were having relations with uh the enemy and they think that the international community respects that. Well, we need a Jewish army, not a woke army, led by Jewish generals to fight Alidush Hashem. We need a Jewish government in order to empower this army and these generals to fight decisively and destroy our enemies, not manage our threats, not kick the can down the road for the next generation, not to keep what we call here mowing the grass. The Jewish government doesn't do this. We have to act in the same tradition of Melik. We fight, we defeat the enemy and move on. We know in Talmet, it says if somebody comes to kill you, you rise up first and kill him. It doesn't say you negotiate with him. It doesn't say you manage him. It doesn't say you kind of uh look the other way as he continues to bomb you and and murder you and and defame you in international forums. It says very plainly, you kill him. And that's something a Jewish government hopefully here will finally put into practice. We've mentioned uh Esther Pard numerous times during this conversation and I think it's appropriate and important to let the this audience know a little bit about Esther Poly. I can vouch dealing with her for over 30 years in her fight for you. Um, she loved you dearly. She sacrificed her life. Literally a sacrifice that none of us can understand. She sacrificed her life, her physical, her mental. I mean, she was there fighting for you. Um, I can honestly say that if it wasn't for Esther, you would be I don't know where you would be today. She probably I would probably be dead. You didn't let anything get in her way. No. Let's talk about Esther for a second. She Esther was absolutely fearless. She taught me while I was in prison, you fear only God. And that literally kept me alive in prison. Fear only God. A lot of people ask me, "How was it that I I managed to survive 30 years in hell?" And there's a very simple answer to that. A lot of men in prison with my kind of sentence live on hate. And hate can let you live a long time. You You can live. I saw it. I I saw the evidence. But at the end, it leaves you a husk of a human being. You have nothing left and your soul is gone. Your reason for living is gone and you die spiritually and in most cases you die physically. So in that case I didn't embrace hatred. I embraced love of what and who. I had a wonderful wife that breathed life into me for 30 years. And I had a beautiful country, a land that I longed to return to. And as Kaborah pointed out to me, both of them had the same initials e and ey. So loving one, I love the other. And that was the secret along with Shamim of how I lived for 30 years. And she gave me the strength to do that. She was she was again from the outside. She sacrificed. She spent Yamim at a maybe a one-star hotel so she could be near you. She walked miles to get to you. She sac sacrificed um everything and anything for you. And I can give you I can give you I can give you one example that epitomizes what she meant to me. One day we were supposed to have visiting hours and there was a terrible terrible snowstorm. It shut the whole place down. And uh of course I I thought, "Okay, Esther can't make it because she was about 10 kilometers away." Well, all of a sudden the captain showed up at my door and said, "You won't believe this, but your wife is here. She walked 10 kilometers through the snow to get here." He said, "Uh, my wife would kill me if I turned her away." So we had a visit and it was the most wonderful visit we actually had. We were alone finally. I mean there was an officer there to monitor but we were alone and we could relate to each other as husband and wife talking, laughing, whatever we did. But as I noticed the sun go down, I got very concerned because I realized she was going to have to walk back 10 kilometers in even more snow because the snow had been coming down heavily the whole time and she was wet from about the waist down. She was walking through drifts. And all of a sudden, one of the security officers walked in and said, "Esther, come on." And I looked at him. He said, "Look, I'm not going to let her walk back. I have a four-wheel drive Jeep, and I'm driving all the officers back to their homes. I'll drop Esther off at the hotel." So, on the one hand, this shows that even in geome there there's some nice people, but it also exemplifies who and what she was to me. She wasn't going to let anything man-made or godmade get in the way of being my wife. And I can even even now she's still with me. She was the one that did the sh with my current wife Rifka. She did the And I asked her, you know, what what are you doing? You know, why are you doing this? And she said, "I'm not going to make it and I want you to be happy." Who does this? Who does this? The Esther P that I knew did it. Yeah. Can you share with us the story? I know it's a little painful, but I think it's it's important to show who Esther was. at the Shiva for Esther. you shared with us uh the story of the last few minutes of her life and the message she the story she told you the message you told you can you share with us as painful as it may be I think it's extremely important for the audience to understand who Esther Pollock was um she had um been lying in bed at our home for five weeks dying um not of COVID she had two forms of metastatic breast cancer, systemic leukemia, and MDS, which meant she had nothing in her bone mar. And she had several other lethal problems as well. So, she didn't eat anything for five weeks, but she always had a smile on her face, and she kept talking to me as if she didn't have a care in the world. So finally she died or it looked like she died. I've been around a lot of deaths. So I kind of instinctively felt she was still alive somewhere. So we got her to Hadasa in Kumam and an Arab doctor worked five hours on her to bring her back and she he revived her. And I asked this Arab doctor, why did you do this? She was basically nifa. was death dead when she came in. And he looked at me and he said, "I've never done this before, but there was just something that told me she needed to talk to you before she died. There was something she wanted to impart to you." Okay. So, because she had corona like everybody else here asymptomatically, um they put her in the ICU ward. And as they put her in there alone, wheeled her in, she was screaming for me because she didn't want to die alone. And Baroo Hashem, there was a new chief nurse there who let me get suited up in a army chemical warfare suit, not a paper gown or a mask. It was all it was a chemical warfare suit. And I was able to stay with her for 72 hours. I couldn't go to the bathroom. I couldn't eat anything. I couldn't drink anything but that was nothing in comp in comparison to what I I was giving both myself and her by staying with so finally she died in my arms and they called the time of death. There were four doctors and about six nurses around us. And before I could say, she turned over and looked at me. Her eyes opened up. Pupils were fixed in black and all she had no vital signs at all. And when she talked to me, her chest didn't rise and fall. And she said the following to me. My Nishama volunteered to come back for two missions. One was to bring you home. The second was to bring you home as a real Jew and not a She said the first mission to bring you home was actually the easiest of all, which came as somewhat of a surprise to me, but that's Esther. But she said the second mission to bring you home as a real Jew, a god-fearing Jew and not a she said was the hardest of all and it took me 30 years to do it. And that's when she said, "It's easy for a Jew to leave Dalut and come to Israel, but it's very hard for the Jew to get the galut out of his head." And then she ended by saying, "I completed my missions and now I can go home." And I guess she died for a second time. Yeah. Hey, her memory be a blessing. Amen. So I pointed out to everyone who was present the gift she gave us. And what was that gift? the clear unqualified evidence of an issim then we better be careful about our mid and our mitzvot because we will be held accountable before the for our actions and our inactions in this life. Unfortunately, the only person who understood and confirmed my definition of what characterization of what just happened was the Arab doctor. The other doctor simply attributed what they saw to quote a medical anomaly. I hope in due time that they'll come to a realization that what she gave them when she died was worth far more than anything they learned in medical school. She showed them that there was something beyond science. So, I'm not afraid of death anymore. I mean, I'm I I don't look forward to it, but I'm not afraid of it because I know there's something beyond the present, the present reality. And so, she gave me that as a comfort to go forward. And she gave me my wife, my new wife, um, who is keeping me on the d, believe me. And I think this is what was foremost in Esther's mind that uh you know she wanted to make sure that I would have a god-fearing uh Jewishly educated um successor to her role as my morah and she was right 100%. Any concluding words to the audience about as you said Israel Israel to Israel what message can we leave what is the afast that you want to leave in everybody's mind uh I guess about the Jewish people the Jewish nation the Jewish land come home. It's available. It's open. It's yours. The first Zionist wasn't Theodore Hersel. It was Ara with God gave us this wonderful land and it is exquisitly beautiful. Come home. Help us build it up. help us turn this so-called political establishment into a god-fearing Jewish government. And maybe, just maybe, you'll help bring about the guula that we've been domining for for generation upon generation upon generation. The guula will come either with a kiss or a schmice. But it's up to you, all of you, to determine which we receive as a people. So come home, be observant, help build up the land, create a Jewish land, a real Jewish land, and you'll be amazed at what might happen as a result, not just to you, but to our people. Amen. Jonathan on behalf of everybody listening and we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people if not a million people will watch this special ammooding program of unite to heal on behalf of everybody. We wish you continued and sim and may you merit to lead us, okay, to lead us to the coming of Mashiach. And if I could give a to everybody listening. Amen. We remain. Thank you, Jonathan, so much. My pleasure. [Music]