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Jewish Leaders Appeal to Cuba to Free Alan Gross
(JTA) Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Monday called on the Cuban government to release Jewish U.S. government contractor Alan Gross, 61, jailed for more than a year. "We are disappointed that the prosecution presented Mr. Gross as attempting to destabilize the Cuban government when the project he was working on in Cuba was aimed at helping communication in the local Jewish community," said Presidents Conference Chairman Alan Solow and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein. "As we mentioned in the appeal we sent to President of Cuba Raul Castro prior to the trial, Mr. Gross has managed multiple humanitarian projects around the world and believed he was advancing his humanitarian work in Cuba." State Department officials say Gross was in the country on a U.S. Agency for International Development contract to help the country's 1,500 Jews communicate with other Jewish communities using the Internet.