Pollard

Painstakingly investigated by acclaimed journalist Omri Assenheim and directed by preeminent documentarians Gilad Tocatly and Shani Haziza, the Jonathan Pollard affair is a complex, one-of-a-kind international spy thriller.  It is also the most significant event in the history of America’s strategic partnership with Israel, almost single-handedly destroying the relationship between the two nations.

Jewish-American Pollard joined the U.S. Navy Intelligence department in the late 1970s. His insatiable appetite, shared by his wife Anne, for money, luxury hotels, high-end restaurants, and drugs, intersected at a critical moment with his ideological support and admiration for the state of Israel. Encountering an Israeli war hero set off a chain of events that saw him steal over a million top-secret documents from the most sensitive coffers of the U.S. Navy Intelligence over the period of a year and a half – the largest theft of its kind. As his spying activities unraveled, Pollard was ruthlessly abandoned by his handlers, leaving him at the mercy of the FBI in the street outside the Israeli Embassy.

“Pollard” is a series about betrayal: the betrayal of the United States by a young intelligence analyst from a Jewish-American background; the betrayal of that young man by his Israeli handlers; and finally, Israel’s betrayal of its greatest and most important ally. It asks how far up in the Israeli government did the scandal really go? Who in the Israeli government had knowledge of Pollard’s activities? Who are the people that pushed Pollard to the limit – and never paid the price? And why did the American intelligence community not pick up on Pollard’s spying activity despite warning flags throughout his career?

The previously untold story has been meticulously researched and assembled by one of Israel’s top investigative journalists, Omri Assenheim, who has been leading complex, ground-breaking investigations for more than two decades, including 15 years as a correspondent and director for Uvda (“Fact”), the top-rated current affairs program on Israeli television. The original documentary series “Pollard” is directed by Gilad Tocatly, a household name in the Israeli television industry who was Uvda’s chief director for 26 years, and Shani Haziza, a creator of acclaimed documentary films for Israel’s public broadcaster.