Jonathan Pollard

As Pollard was facing a life sentence, he chose to divorce Anne, and the divorce materialised in 1990.

He then married Canadian teacher and activist Esther "Elaine" Zeitz. It was often doubted whether Esther, who conducted Pollard’s release campaign and held a public hunger strike for him, was legally married to Pollard.

He was born on August 7, 1954, in Galveston, Texas, to Jewish parents Morris Pollard and Molly Pollard as their youngest child among three.

In 1961, his father, a microbiologist, moved with the family to South Bend, Indiana, and became a professor at the ‘University of Notre Dame’.

Jonathan Pollard had knowledge of the ‘Holocaust’ and the dreadful consequences faced by his family. The family infused Jewish sentiments and a sense of zeal in their children for the cause of Israel.

In 1970 he visited Israel for the first time during a science program in Rehovot at the ‘Weizmann Institute of Science’.

In 1976 he completed his graduation in political science from ‘Stanford University’.

In 1979 the ‘Central Intelligence Agency’ (CIA) turned him down for a job after it was found in a polygraph test that he used drugs during 1974 to 1978. The other reason was his inclination of manufacturing stories, few of which reflected him of being an Israeli intelligence agent.

Thereafter, he started attending the ‘Tufts University’ in Medford Massachusetts to study law and diplomacy.

From September 19, 1979 he served the ‘Navy Field Operational Intelligence Office’ (‘NFOIO’), in Maryland. While doing a background check the ‘NFOIO’ sought information about Pollard from the CIA but was not provided the same by the latter.

In 1981 when ‘(NFOIO’), found out his repeated lies, they curtailed his security clearance and advised him to look for psychiatric help. However, later his security clearance was restored after he filed a grievance and warned to seek legal help.

In mid-1984, he expressed his intent of working as a spy to Aniem Sella, a former fighter pilot of Israeli ‘Air Force’ who later became ‘Director of Operations’. A few days later in June 1984, he began his espionage by parting classified data to Sella.