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, was given a polygraph
test in 1997 during which he says anti-Jewish epithets were
shouted at him. The next day he found his computer gone and
his name erased from the email 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 Shabbos,
investigators ransacked his home.
The U.S. Attorney declined to prosecute the case, stating
that there was 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 Hebrew and wearing a yarmulke. He
further stated that Ÿnone 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,
with then-U. S. Defense Secretary William S. Cohen. It
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 Chaim Dovid Zwiebel. Rabbi Zwiebel 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 ŸMr. Tenenbaum
experienced religious discrimination.
Rabbi Zwiebel wrote further that Ÿif 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 serious.
"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."
