Jonathan Pollard is calling for the Israeli government to donate to the poor 50,000 tons of vegetables that can no longer be exported to Ukraine and Russia.
Pollard made the request while at a "We are all one family" charity project even honoring the memory of the three teenagers – Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah – who in 2014 were kidnapped in Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion and murdered.
At the ceremony in Rechovot, Pollard was greeted by the local yeshiva students.
“Many years ago when our three sons, our three brothers, our three children were murdered by terrorists, I asked Esther, my wife, to go pay a shiva visit to the families,” Pollard said. “She and I, as well as the entire nation, were devastated by what happened. Once again, we’re experiencing the same kind of terrorism on our streets now across the country.”
Pollard urged the Jewish people to come together in solidarity against the wave of terrorism.
“Then we exhibited as a nation the degree of [unity] that we need now more than ever. We all have to pull together now and this is an example of exactly what ‘achdut’ [unity, a feeling of peoplehood] means. We remember [Passover] as a celebration of our freedom. It was a celebration of our physical and our spiritual freedom. Now we also see this phenomenon of our people being free by each other. This is what Hashem wants for all of us. That we should look after ourselves, we should take care of ourselves, and we should be sympathetic and we should be empathic to the people who need food at this time of year.”
To that end, Pollard is requesting that the Israeli government give the 50,000 tons of vegetables that can no longer be exported to Ukraine and Russia to the poor who are in need of food.
“I would ask the government to buy this food so that the farmers are not punished and our people are fed,” he told Israel National News.
Pollard called for the food to be distributed through organizations involved in feeding the poor.
He called doing so an act of kindness that “is critical.”
“When Hashem took us out of Egypt, he saved our bodies, he saved our souls, and he also fed us with [manna],” he said. “Right now we have a similar opportunity to feed our people and to repeat the act of [kindness] that Hashem did during out journey in the desert.”
Pollard implored the government to consider buying the 50,000 tons of fresh vegetables, to compensate the farmers and to distribute it to the poor and to schools.
“This would be in the best tradition of our people… by feeding the poor, by taking care of our poor, [we] can show them the dignity and respect that they deserve, especially at this time of year,” Pollard said.