Gerald Greenwald

Ronald Greenwald (born January 8, 1934) is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who is a businessman and an educator.

Born in New York City, 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.

Involvement in notable release efforts
Rabbi Greenwald has been involved in scores of release efforts for various prisoners from around the world.

Natan Sharansky
thumb|Rabbi Greenwald taking to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, with whom he worked closely in a series of hostage release efforts, including the Sharansky case
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 1970s. He made more than 25 trips across the "Iron Curtain" to East Germany as part of that effort. The Rockland Journal News reported that Rabbi Greenwald was the "man behind the talks" that freed Sharansky.

Miron Markus
In conjunction with Representative Gilman, Rabbi Greenwald negotiated the rescue a 24 year old Israeli citizen named Miron Markus in 1978 who was living in Zimbabwe. Mr. Markus 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 Markus 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.

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.

Source @ Wikipedia