Ronald Greenwald
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| Born: | January 8, 1934 |
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| Occupation: | Negotiator and Educator |
Rabbi Ronald Greenwald (b. Jan. 8, 1934) is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who is a businessman and an educator. He has made a career of spy trading, international hostage mediation, and other forms of high stakes, high intrigue diplomacy. He served as presidential liaison of President Richard Nixon to the Jewish community during the Nixon administration. He serves as a community activist, chairs various civic boards, and directs a high school and a summer camp.
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[edit] Involvement in notable release efforts
Rabbi Greenwald has been involved in scores of release efforts for various prisoners from around the world.
[edit] Natan Sharansky
In perhaps his highest profile case, Rabbi Greenwald worked closely with Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) and East German lawyer Wolfgang Vogel to secure the release Soviet dissident and Refusenik Natan Sharansky from Soviet prison in the late 1970's. He made more than 25 trips across the "Iron Curtain" to East Germany as part of that effort. [1] The Rockland Journal News reported that Rabbi Greenwald was the "man behind the talks" that freed Sharansky. [2]
[edit] Miron Marcus
In conjunction with Representative Gilman, Rabbi Greenwald negotiated the rescue a 24 year old Zimbabwe born Israeli citizen named Miron Marcus in 1978. Mr. Marcus was captured when an airplane piloted by his brother-in-law, Jackie Bloch, was forced to land in Mozambique, where Mr. Bloch was killed and Marcus taken hostage. Rabbi Greenwald, Congressman Gilman and others arranged for a complex swap that involved four countries (Mozambique, Israel, the United States and East Germany), convicted East German spy Robert Thompson and U.S. student Alan van Norman. [3]
[edit] Raul Granados
Granados was kidnapped by leftist guerillas in November, 1979 while at a soccer game in Guatemala City. Rabbi Greednwald, working again with Representative Gilman, helped broker the exchange of Mr. Granados in exchange for a ransom payment of $4,000,000. [4]
[edit] Vladimir Raiz
Vladimir Raiz, a Soviet molecular biologist, had been denied permission to leave the former Soviet Union for 18 years before Greenwald entered the picture. According to Steve Lieberman in the Rockland Journal News, Greenwald secretly met with Raiz in Lithuania in 1989. Following negotiations with Soviet authorities, Raiz and his family were permitted to emigrate in 1990. [5]
[edit] Shabtai Kalmanovitch
Rabbi Greenwald was involved in the transfer of Shabtai Kalmanovitch from the USSR to Israel.
[edit] Lori Berenson
In 1994, political activist and New York native Lori Berenson was arrested, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason by a Peruvian military tribunal. She was accused of belonging to a Marxist rebel group and plotting to overthrow the Peruvian government. [6] Because of the shady circumstances surrounding her trial and her harsh sentence, Amnesty International, in 2003, referred to berenson as a "political prisoner." [7]
With the support of President Bill Clinton. in 2000, Rabbi Greenwald led a delgation of American negotiators to Peru to press the Peruvian government to free Berenson or, at least, to grant her a new trial in a civilian court. [8] The effort succeeded and Berenson was afforded a new trial in civilian court. At her subsequent trial, Berenson was convicted again and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
[edit] Media coverage
Jack Anderson, in the December 3, 1988 edition of the Washington Post, reported that Rabbi Greenwald was working on an effort to persuade U.S. authorities to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, who had been condemned to life imprisonment. Those efforts were unsuccessful, and Pollard remains in prison as of 2007. With regard to Pollard, Greenwald has commented "With the Pollard case there's not exactly anti-Semitism, but rather the issue of Israel and how the State Department looks at Jews and feels about Israel, and I believe there's a bias." [9] Earlier, Anderson had insinuated in a previous column that Rabbi Greenwald had ties to the CIA, Mossad and KGB.[10]
On February 3, 1986, the ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings credited Rabbi Greenwald with playing a role in the negotiations for the release of Sharansky and featured a video clip of Rabbi Greenwald expressing optimism that Sharansky would be released. [11]
His high-placed connections and adventures involving delicate international diplomacy have led to speculation (albeit groundless) about nefarious connections to legal and illegal organizations around the world. As of May, 2006, no fewer than 20 websites (mostly anti-Semitic sites) have alleged that Rabbi Greenwald has or had mafia connections.
On March 9, 1990, a Rockland Journal News headline called Rabbi Greenwald a “master of international negotiation” and credited him with playing prominent roles in the freeing of Sharansky, Marcus, Granados and several others. [12]
The USA Today also credited Greenwald for arranging the release of Sharansky and commented that his dealings with famed international mediators such as Wolfgang Vogel during various negotiations resembled a "spy novel."[13]
[edit] Lithuanian Torah Scrolls Incident
In September of 1997, during a visit of scores of rabbis and other Orthodox Jews to Lithuania to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the death of the great Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu Kramer of Vilnius)[14], Rabbi Greenwald personally successfully negotiated with the Lithuanian government to allow the burial of several desecrated Torah scrolls.
The scrolls were among hundreds of Torah scrolls that had been disgraced by the Nazis and/or the Lithuanians during World War II. With the negotiated help of the government, Rabbi Greenwald and others located over three hundred scrolls, including some that were being held in the basement of a church. They were able to salvage most of the scrolls for further use. The scrolls that could not be salvaged were buried in an elaborate ceremony attended by visiting Orthodox Jews from around the World and Lithuanian officials[15].
The day prior to the "funeral," Rabbi Greenwald was invited to (and did) address the Lithuanian Parliament.
[edit] Other activities
[edit] Bophuthatswana
Rabbi Greenwald had a variety of unusual ties to South Africa in the Apartheid era. He was the diplomatic representative of the African Bantustan of Bophuthatswana in the United States, when that "homeland" lacked international recognition.[16]
[edit] Schools and camps
When not engaged in high stakes international diplomacy, Rabbi Greenwald operates Camp Sternberg, a summer camp in the Catskill Mountains [17] and runs Monsey Academy for Girls, a private high school in Rockland County, New York, of which he was the founder. [18] On November 26, 2006, a groundbreaking ceremony was organized and held by Rabbi Greenwald in New Hempstead, New York to celebrate the commencement of a multi-million dollar construction project that will, when completed, result in a new campus for that school that will feature detached dormitories, modern classrooms and extensive athletic facilities.
[edit] Involvement with charitable organizations
Rabbi Greenwald has served as chairman of the board of the Women’s League in Rockland County (which creates and oversees adult group homes in that county) and of the Boro Park branch of the Jewish Board, Family and Children’s Services. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the Orthodox Union and formerly served as Vice President of that organization.[19]
[edit] Rabbi Greenwald and the Prince of Italy
Rabbi Greenwald has worked with Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Italy in a variety of capacities. In January of 2007, the two met in New York to discuss, among other things, a billion dollar Las Vegas hotel construction project being worked on by the "Made in Italy Group." (Both men serve the project in various capacities.) During the meeting, Prince Filiberto expressed regret for his great-grandfather Victor Emmanuel III's cooperation (albiet limited) with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in their campaign of aggressive war and genocide against the Jews. He further reiterated his prior condemnation of those actions and expressed optomism regarding the present and future of Italian-Jewish relations.[20]
[edit] Other positions
Rabbi Greenwald has also held positions as:
- Executive Director of Yeshiva Toras Emes in Brooklyn, New York
- Director of the Jewish election campaign of former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller
- Chaplain of the New York State Police
- Director of the Jewish presidential campaign of Richard Nixon
[edit] References
- ^ New York Post article from June 16, 1978
- ^ Rockland Journal News, Feb. 11, 1986, front page (banner headline)
- ^ New York Post article from June 16, 1978
- ^ New York Post article from Jan. 21, 1980
- ^ Rockland Journal News article from March 9, 1990
- ^ http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=65000350
- ^ http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/Per-summary-eng/
- ^ The Jewish Week, March 10, 2000
- ^ http://www.forward.com/issues/2000/00.10.06/news5.html
- ^ Washington Post Nov. 18, 1986, Page E19
- ^ http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1986-2/1986-02-03-ABC-5.html
- ^ Rockland Journal News article from March 9, 1990
- ^ USA Today, Feb. 12, 1986, Page 2A
- ^ "Back to the Future," Jewish Seintinel, October 10-16,1997, Page 17
- ^ "Burial of Holocaust Torah Remnants in Vilna," Jewish Press, October 3,1997
- ^ Washington Post Nov. 18, 1986, Page E19
- ^ http://campsmogenavrahamhellersternberginc.org/sternberg/administration.html
- ^ http://www.nevey.org/ushigh.htm
- ^ http://www.ou.org/index.php/ou/contact_names/category/Board%20of%20Governors/
- ^ Jewish Tribune, January 19-25, 2007, pages 3,39
