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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week urged Jewish groups to join the campaign to persuade Cuba to release a U.S. government contractor detained for seven months without charge.

Clinton told representatives of the American Jewish community that they should add their voices to calls for Cuba to release Alan P. Gross, a contractor for United States Agency for International Development who was helping members of Cuba’s small Jewish community use the Internet to stay in contact with each other and with similar groups abroad.

“Alan was providing information and technology that would assist this community to be better connected,” Clinton said at a State Department reception in honor of Hannah Rosenthal, the Obama administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. Gross’ wife, Judy, attended the event.

Gross, a 60-year-old native of Potomac, Md., was working in Cuba for a firm contracted by USAID when he was arrested as a suspected spy in Havana on Dec. 3. He has been held without charge in the capital’s high-security Villa Marista prison since.

U.S. officials say Gross committed no crime and repeatedly have appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds. — ap