Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau is among those who have signed a letter calling on United States President Barack Obama to free Yonatan Pollard. Rabbi Lau , the Rabbi of Tel Aviv and a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, noted in his appeal to Obama that the U.S. is known for valuing freedom.

Pollard has admitted his crime and expressed regret, he said, “and yet Yonatan continues to sit in jail, for an unprecedentedly long sentence, that has never been seen in American history” for similar crimes. He noted, too, that Pollard’s health is declining.

Freeing Pollard “would be remembered by those who love freedom as an elementary humanitarian gesture worthy of going down in human history,” he concluded.