(JNS.org) On Thursday, Nov. 21, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard entered his 29th year in American prison. Pollard, now 59, is the only person in U.S. history to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally. “It’s an embarrassment for America, it’s a lack of justice,” Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president emeritus of the National Council of Young Israel, told JNS.org. “The clemency petition has been sitting on President [Barack] Obama’s desk for 4-5 years already. It’s his move,” he added.

Last week Pollard’s wife, Esther, appealed to Obama to free her husband out of humanitarian considerations. Ahead of Obama’s visit to Israel in March, more than 200,000 Israelis signed a petition to the American leader calling for Pollard’s release.

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said recently, “It is our collective failure that Pollard is still in prison. It is unprecedented in the history of the U.S. that someone who spied for a friendly country served even half the time [that Pollard has] in prison.”