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| By Rabbi Avi Shafran July 3, 2008 |
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The case of an Army engineer accused over ten years ago of spying for Israel was the focus of a recent government watchdog group report and is once again being pressed by Agudath Israel of America.
The Army engineer, David Tenenbaum, he was given a polygraph test in 1997 during which he says anti-Jewish epithets were shouted at him. The next day, he says, he found his computer gone and his name erased from the e-mail system at TACOM (the Tank Automotive and Armaments Command), the military facility in Warren, Michigan where he worked.
He claims he was urged to confess to the crime of espionage but did not do so and was not arrested. Two days later, he says, on the Jewish Sabbath, investigators ransacked his home.
The U.S. Attorney, however, declined to prosecute the case, stating insufficient evidence to do so.
Mr. Tenenbaum has maintained throughout that he is innocent of the charge and that he may have been targeted because of his religion. Indeed, TACOM's director of research expressly stated that the investigation had been prompted by Mr. Tenenbaum's speaking of Hebrew and wearing of a yarmulke. He further stated that "none of this would have happened" had Tenenbaum not been Jewish.
At the beginning of 2000, Agudath Israel raised the issue with then-CIA Director George Tenet and, later that year, then-U. S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. The national Orthodox Jewish group expressed concerns about the allegations of anti-Jewish bias in the Defense Department and pressed for clarification of the government's position on Jewish employees in general and on the case of Mr. Tenenbaum specifically.
Last month, an independent watchdog organization, the Project on Government Oversight, published new government documents relating to the Pentagon Inspector General's investigation of the handling of the Tenenbaum case.
On June 27, the Inspector General, General Claude M. Kicklighter, received a letter from Agudath Israel of America's executive vice president for government and public affairs, Rabbi David Zwiebel. In the missive, Rabbi Zwiebel, the Agudath Israel representative who petitioned Mr. Tenet and Mr. Cohen in 2000, cited the "strong evidence that Mr. Tenenbaum may have in fact been the victim of religious discrimination."
He also noted a recent report in The New York Sun about the Project on Government Oversight's disclosure of the Defense Department's preliminary finding that "Mr. Tenenbaum experienced religious discrimination when his Judaism was weighed as a significant factor in the decision to submit him for an increase in his security clearance."
Rabbi Zwiebel further asserted that "if it is true that Mr. Tenenbaum was singled out for special scrutiny and adverse action because of his Orthodox Jewish identity and practice, the message that sends to all Orthodox Jews in this country is nothing short of devastating.
"It tells us that, despite the fact that we may be model citizens in every sense of the term, we are somehow considered second-class Americans, not to be trusted within the Department of Defense."
The Agudath Israel leader implored the Defense Department Inspector General to recognize the "critical fork in the road" for the government agency. "Either you can acknowledge that Mr. Tenenbaum was a victim of? religious bias? and thereby send a powerful message that this culture of anti-Jewish stereotyping will not be tolerated within the Department of Defense; or you can circle the wagons, pretend that such bias does not exist, and tell Mr. Tenenbaum that he was treated fairly by the Department."
"Much is at stake in this choice," Rabbi Zwiebel wrote in conclusion. "Respectfully, but urgently, we implore you to seize the opportunity to do the right thing." |
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