Agudath Israel of America has expressed concern to U.S.
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen about what appears to
be a pattern of religious profiling in the nation's defense
establishment. As a result of this pattern, the Orthodox
Jewish group charges, a number of Jewish employees in the
defense and intelligence services are working under a cloud
of suspicion simply because of their religion.
The immediate impetus for raising the issue was a recent
investigation of a Jewish military employee, David Tenenbaum,
whose security clearance was suspended and whose home was
raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a Shabbos.
Mr. Tenenbaum, an Orthodox Jew who works for the U.S. Army
Tank Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM), has sued
officials of the defense agency, alleging that he was singled
out as a likely spy for Israel solely because of his
religion.
In pre-trial deposition testimony, TACOM's director of
research stated that the investigation had been prompted by
Mr. Tenenbaum's speaking Hebrew and wearing a yarmulke,
which raised suspicions that "he was doing something
improper with the Israelis." He further testified that "none
of this would have happened" had Tenenbaum not been
Jewish.
Other evidence that came to light in the Tenenbaum case
include a 1996 memo from TACOM's director of
intelligence/counterintelligence stating that "[s]ubject's
behavior, actions and statements fit a classic profile that
warrant and create security concerns!"
And, in a 1997 memo to the director of the FBI, an FBI
special agent recounted the opinion of the person who
administered a polygraph test to Mr. Tenenbaum "that because
of his [Tenenbaum's] devout religious beliefs and his strong
affinity to Israel, Tenenbaum would have provided restricted
information to the Israelis! [Tenenbaum] makes his life's
decisions based on his deep rooted beliefs in his Jewish
faith."
In a letter conveying this information to Defense Secretary
Cohen, Agudath Israel's executive vice president for
government and public affairs, David Zwiebel, makes the point
that Tenenbaum's case is only the latest wrinkle in a
disturbing pattern. "In 1996," he recounts, "a Defense
Department memorandum warned American defense contractors
about those with `strong ties to Israel'." Though that memo
was subsequently repudiated, its effects, says Mr. Zwiebel,
"seem to have lived on."
He cites, for one example, a "60 Minutes" report this past
February that featured an anonymous Central Intelligence
Agency official who contended that religious Jews with
intelligence clearance within the CIA are suspect as Israeli
spies. That program came in the wake of the investigation of
a CIA employee, Adam Ciralsky. At that time, Agudath Israel
expressed its concern to CIA director George J. Tenet, who,
in response, "categorically reject[ed]" the allegation "that
CIA employs ethnic profiling or that we treat Jewish
employees or applicants for employment any differently from
anyone else." Neither Tenenbaum nor Ciralsky, in the end, was
charged with any criminal activity.
In recent weeks, concerns over racial and ethnic profiling
within the defense and intelligence establishments have
escalated, in the wake of the FBI's widely criticized actions
in the case of Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the Asian-American nuclear
scientist accused of spying for China -- as it turned out,
without any evidence.
In reference to the evidence introduced in the Tenenbaum
case, Agudath Israel's Zwiebel told Secretary Cohen, "We are
troubled by the notion that loyal and dedicated American Jews
within the defense community may be subject to suspicion
because of their religious beliefs and observances.
"We are particularly alarmed that there may exist a `counter-
intelligence profile' that specifically singles out
religiously observant Jews for investigation by the Defense
Security Service, the FBI, and other intelligence
agencies."
