Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Jonathan Pollard Collapses in Jail Cell

Convicted spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard collapsed in his jail cell and was hospitalized.

Pollard reportedly collapsed Saturday. He reportedly had been complaining of being in serious pain for several weeks.

Pollard’s wife, Esther, told the Israeli news site Ynet that she has been updated on her husband’s condition and asked people to pray for him. It is unknown what caused his collapse.

Pollard recently marked his 27th year in prison. He has suffered from a variety of illnesses since being imprisoned for life in 1986 after accepting a plea bargain for spying for Israel while working as a civilian analyst for the U.S. Navy.

Esther Pollard recently asked U.S. President Barak Obama to grant clemency for her husband, since U.S presidents often grant clemency requests from Thanksgiving through the winter holidays.

The calls to release Pollard, who is said to be in ill health, have intensified in recent months, with pleas from lawmakers and former top officials of both U.S. political parties.

Pollard has been hospitalized several times during his time in prison. In April, he was rushed to a federal hospital outside of the prison on the eve of Passover, suffering from an unspecified emergency condition.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.