Jonathan Pollard (60) was hospitalized on Friday after losing consciousness. It is not yet known why he collapsed.

Jonathan’s wife Esther was told that he was taken from his cell to the hospital.

Pollard has been in very bad health for the past few years, and getting worse.

Pollard has spent the last 30 years in jail for spying for Israel.

Last month the parole board and US Justice Department rejected his parole.

His Hebrew name for your prayers is: Yonasan ben Malka.

Israel and Israelis have been blaming everyone from Shimon Peres to President Barack Obama and even Jonathan Pollard himself for the American government’s refusal to free him from prison, but the real reason is American Pride that sits deep in the gut of the United States .

It is easy, and perhaps partly correct, to cry “anti-Semitism,” but that does not explain why most of the American Jewish establishment has not been campaigning for his release.

Pollard was sentenced to life for handing over secret documents for Israel, a crime that usually is punishable by two to four years in jail.

He has languished in jail, except when he was taken to the hospital for medical emergencies. He was not even allowed to go the funeral of his parents.

Pollard was accused of but never was convicted of “spying,” but American media to this day still report he “spied” on the United States.

Pollard is different from others who have been caught in the act of espionage,

He is an American. He was born in the United States. He is not an immigrant.

That is what hurts Americans.

Whatever damage he did to American security, if any at all, Americans suffered far more pain in its pride, a characteristic that Israel cannot understand because it takes on a different form in the Jewish state.

The United States always has been proud of itself, and it had good reason to be when it was the leader of the world, economically, culturally, morally and financially.

“When willful wickedness comes, then comes disgrace, but with the modest is wisdom.” – Proverbs 11:2.

Israel is proud in the positive sense of the word – affiliation and association with its raison d’tre and the feeling that every Jew belongs to the same tribe.

Israel is known for its divisiveness, but that is the root of its strength. Jewish thought never would have developed and flourished if rabbis had not argued over minute points, discussions that are written in the Talmud.

The deep divisions in Israeli society disappear in the time of need, such as when virtually the entire country recited Psalms for the well-being of Nachshon Waxman, the soldier who was kidnapped by Arab terrorists and eventually killed in a botched rescue effort by the IDF.

Israel, from left to right, was bound together when three yeshiva youth were kidnapped by Hamas murderers last June, and the entire country, from left to right with the exception of a few zanies, walked hand in hand during the Hamas war following the kidnap-murders.

On the other hand, America was supposed to be a melting pot that has turned out to be a collection of different religions, ethnicities and races, like any other country whose only common bind is that they leave in the same country.

Except for eating a turkey on Thanksgiving, the melting pot is more like a strange and totally coincidental mosaic

Mom, flag and apple-pie no longer represent America’s manufactured pride. ”Mom” doesn’t mean much in a society that not only accepts but also encourages homosexuality; “God” has a hard time in a society that goes out of its way to keep religion in the home. As for apple pie, there is only so much that one can eat.

So when an American, a born and bred American, is reported to be a “spy,” it punctures the illusion that the United States is pure, a country of patriots without knowing exactly to what.

The same false pride that keeps the Obama administration acting as if it is the power broker that can make peace in the Middle East, put Russia in its place and turns Africa into a continent of democracies, also keep Pollard behind bars.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And think of Pollard while you are eating turkey.

Bnei Akiva religious youth members joined forces with far left Meretz youth group members on July 4, 2011, to protest in front of the US Consulate in Israel, calling for the release of Jonathan Pollard.

That was years ago, and as of today, Pollard has now spent 30 years in jail.

Enough is enough.

A U.S. government parole board has turned down former Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard’s request for release after 30 years in prison, according to the Campaign for the Release of Jonathan Pollard.

The 60-year-old dual Israeli-U.S. citizen was sentenced to life in prison on a single count of passing classified information to an ally – Israel – in his position as an analyst in the U.S. Navy.

His sentence expires in 2030.

Since Pollard first became eligible for parole numerous public figures in the U.S. and Israel have appealed to the American government and successive administrations to free him, but all have failed.

A statement Wednesday by activists on behalf of Pollard quoted U.S. officials as saying releasing Pollard would “constitute contempt for the severity of the offense and promote a lack of respect for the law.”

Another review of his case is expected in February 2015, with a parole hearing to be set five months later, media reported. But a commission member told journalists the government would oppose Pollard’s release “Absolutely, vigorously.”

If the trend continues unabated, Pollard is likely to remain in prison until his sentence expires, when he is age 75.

Jonathan Pollard’s projected release date was changed on the US Government’s Federal Bureau of Prisons website from November 21, 2015 to Life.

It is not clear why the change was made, but many were expecting that Pollard would be automatically released next November, and apparently that won’t be the case.

Pollard’s health is in very poor condition.

Netanyahu raised the issue of Pollard’s release in his last visit to the White House.

Israel’s President Ruby Rivlin recites Slichot, the prayers for forgiveness that are said leading up to Yom Kippur. This slichot prayer session was held at the President’s official residence.

Speaking of presidential pardons, it would be good if this were the year that Jonathan Pollard was let free.

U.S. President Barack Obama doesn’t want to disappoint an old friend, nor does he want to end his presidency on a sour note with Israel, and he certainly wants to sidestep a political minefield.

What’s a president to do?

Faced with the eternal American dilemma over how to deal with the Jonathan Pollard debacle, it could be that Obama believed he had finally figured out a win-win solution to evade responsibility for the endless nightmare.

Let Eric make the call.

If Attorney-General Eric Holder recommends to let him go for whatever reason, Obama will be hailed as a hero by the Jews, and by the now-countless political and community leaders who have said for years Pollard should be freed. Justice will prevail and Israel will be grateful. Israeli and Jewish gratitude is a precious gift, because neither tends to forget their friends. Or their enemies.

If Holder recommends to keep him in jail for whatever reason, Obama will have someone else to blame.

He’ll also join the list of presidents before him who rejected a request from the State of Israel and ignored the Jews again. Pollard will likely die in prison, and Obama will go down in history as having been the president on whose watch justice was not served – along with all the others. He will be vindicated by the anti-Semites within the U.S. State Department and justice system, and vilified by a host of others. And life will go on.

So that’s the answer he gave his good friend Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday during a visit at the White House. Peres, who just turned 90 and who is ending his own term in office next month, is in Washington on a final state visit in that capacity.

By the way, it was Peres who was Israel’s prime minister when he handed over documents with Pollard’s fingerprints that were used to incriminate the Israeli agent and jail him for life, after being initially charged on a single count of passing classified information to America’s ally, Israel.

On Wednesday, he and Obama – the only two current heads of state to both have won the Nobel Peace Prize – met in the White House to discuss the matter. Peres had promised Pollard’s wife he would make one more try to convince Obama to grant her husband clemency – a presidential privilege used for humanitarian purposes.

Speaking with with uncharacteristic realism to Israeli media in Washington after his meeting with Obama, Peres briefed reporters on his attempt to secure freedom for Pollard, now entering his 29th year of incarceration in a U.S. prison.

But Obama ducked, apparently – and passed the buck to his attorney general.

Speaking with obvious reluctance, Peres told reporters in a briefing following the meeting, “I cannot say that he answered me on the spot. I don’t want to go with more than what he said,” Peres began. “He said the attorney general would [get involved.]

“His answer was, ‘The attorney general, it belongs to him. He will decide,’” Peres continued.

“There is a problem if I am optimistic, if I would say more than what he [actually] said,” Peres continued. “We have to cautious, and not to inflate or exaggerate … I asked specifically to be given the wording of what I could and could not say — and I have used precisely [the wording] that I was told I could say,” he concluded.

But it is very important to realize that the privilege of clemency — moderating the severity of a sentence in an act of mercy or leniency — is one unique to a president. Not an attorney general.