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America's Most Controversial Spy Finally Tells All / Jonathan Pollard
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America's Most Controversial Spy Finally Tells All / Jonathan Pollard In this None of Your Business episode, Michael Greenfield and co-host David Begoun interview Jonathan Pollard, sharing his experiences and reflections on his espionage activities for Israel, his arrest, and life in prison. They delve into his early life, motivations for his actions, and the immense difficulties he faced, including his harsh treatment during incarceration and the profound impact on his personal life. Pollard discusses his perspective on truth, leadership, and loyalty, and describes pivotal moments, such as his conversation with God in solitary confinement, and support from his late wife, Esther. This candid discussion provides a deep insight into the complexities of espionage, national loyalty, and personal resilience. Episode Sponsors: ►Twillory Upgrade your wardrobe with Twillory’s performance dress shirts and everyday essentials. Whether you're heading to the office or a simcha, Twillory keeps you looking sharp without sacrificing comfort. https://www.twillory.com
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Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
So I I said to to Hashem I said to God
that look just like Araino when he
negotiated for the uh survival of Sodom
and Gomorrah. I said, um, look, if I
stop doing these 10 bad things, and I
thought about it and I said, eight
[laughter]
and [snorts] six. And then I settled on
five and God agreed five. And I start
doing these five good things.
Save me.
And that was it.
>> None of your business, Oshi. None of
your [music] business, Michael. It's the
None of Your Business podcast hosted by
Michael Anoshi.
>> Welcome back everybody to the None of
Your Business Podcast. I'm your host,
Michael Greenfield, and joined with me
today is a special co-host,
>> Mr. David Began. It is so nice of you to
be here.
>> It's amazing to be here.
>> You fill the seat a lot better than
Ushi, by the way. Only because we're in
Israel. Only because we're in Israel.
I'm saying, you know, when it comes to
being here, like
>> I am so happy to be here. This is
something we've been looking forward to
doing this for a long time. This is
great.
>> Absolutely. And we have such an amazing
guest today and I want to get right into
it. Uh but before I do, I just want to
thank all our subscribers, all our
comments, all our feedback, negative or
positive. You know, we love it. We like
to hear what you have to say and today
we like to hear what this man has to
say. Jonathan Pard is here with us and
uh what a moment for us to be shared.
Welcome to the program.
>> Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Really, it's uh it's just like I'm I
have goosebumps. You just sitting here
with you and feeling that uh you know,
just years ago on our fridge growing up
in Brooklyn, New York was free Jonathan
all over our refrigerator. I mean, there
was you know, pictures of us as
children.
>> Well, trust me, you did more for me than
the government of Israel did. So, I I
appreciate it very much. Thank you.
>> Wow. Wow. you know, uh, something I've
learned about you over the past, uh, you
know, 20 minutes of talking to you
offline and when I met with you, uh, is
the fact that you're so transparent in
everything that you say. I feel like you
you don't hold back any punches and it's
just a great feeling to talk to someone
like that and how did you get to that
point? uh cander uh is very good both
for the listener and for the speaker
because you get to emit you get to truth
and this is something uh that we lack in
this country right now. Uh you can't
believe anything the army says you can't
believe anything the government says. Uh
you can believe everything your wife
says. Um
>> you can or you or you must.
>> You absolutely no you can. Okay? because
if it gets to the point where you must,
then you should look for somebody else.
[laughter] They're too they're too big
and strong. Um, no, it's just uh the
reason October 7th happened was because
of government lying and military lying.
You can say it's a misconceptia that
happened but uh there were two
misconcepts
on October 7th. One was of course the
one we know that the army and government
made a horrible mistake
um to which they have not been held
accountable
and the people of this country made had
a misconceptia
in believing them
and one can be forgiven the other one is
treason.
So, as far as I'm concerned, I tell
people, um, you may not like what I say.
You may not agree with it, but you
should know that I'm telling you the
truth as I see it. I've been I was lied
to for 35 years. I know what it's like
um to be on the receiving end of that
and I will never inflict that on anybody
else.
>> Wow. You know, I I have to tell you that
uh the concept of transparency and being
honest is something that I uh live by.
And uh David here knows me for a while
and he can attest to that. And it's just
the feeling of freedom in of itself.
Just being able to speak the truth.
>> Correct.
>> Never have to watch about what you're
saying and who you're saying it to. And
that's what I'm learning from you and
that's why I'm so excited here. Before
we start, um Dave, why don't you tell us
and the listeners a little bit about who
you are, you know, because being as a
co-host, uh just give us a, you know, a
quick rundown. I I
>> should I tell them the most the most
important thing about who I am?
>> Please.
>> Michael and I, we are um Makatonum as
they say. My son Ley is married to uh
Michael's son Aviva.
>> Michael's daughter.
>> Michael's daughter of Let's do that
again. [laughter]
>> Michael and I
>> That's okay. In Tel Aviv, by the way,
that would not have been a mistake.
Michael and I are That means that we are
we're in-laws with each other because my
son Ley is is married to Michael's
daughter, Aviva. And um we are very
happy about that cuz Aviva is my
favorite vegan. Did I just say that
online?
>> It's out there. It's in public. We don't
edit this thing by the way. Just warning
both of you. We don't edit this podcast.
>> We've been here for four years. We came
from Chicago four years ago. We moved
here. We made Aliyah. And since then, um
I've been doing a number of things. I've
been a tour guide and I'm also a
podcaster. We have a podcast called
Israel Take Three. We've been exploring
different topics related to the war,
related to hostages, related to all
different topics since October 7th, and
now we're moving on to other topics. Um,
that's what I've been doing, podcasting.
I'm a journalist by trade, also a rabbi,
and trying to combine those pieces
together in a sort of educational
package. People are trying to understand
Israel and understand how to navigate
the landscape and make sense of this
really crazy nuanced world called
Israel. Um, not that I understand it,
but to the best of my ability, I help
people to understand that through the
journalism and the podcasting.
>> I have to say the first time I met you
and Jonathan, it's a great story. You'll
appreciate this. Um, is uh we really
felt Israel as a whole when we made a
for
>> we lifted our glass. We were in our
apartment in Jerusalem
>> and we lifted our glasses to make a my
daughter, his son, him, his wife, me, my
wife, we all raise our glass and we make
a the official.
>> As we're raising our glass,
his son gets a telephone call.
>> Army
and he realizes that it's somebody he
has to pick up and he goes, "Guys,
before we clink, let let me just pick up
this. I'm so sorry."
>> He picks up the phone call.
>> Talk about chills. I have the chills now
when you're telling this story. and he
got the call that his immediate
commander was just killed
>> and he was the one to get the phone call
because that was just the protocol of
how they did it after next of kin
>> the way he transformed
from getting emotional and just living
in that moment of my my world is
colliding and everything is just falling
apart but right now I have to pick it
back up and get back to the
>> Israel I I remember um
>> the night of
My wife and I were celebrating um our
second wedding anniversary. So I
arranged to get rid of the kids, had a
nice bottle of wine, nice music, and the
phone rang and I put it on speaker and
it was a friend of mine who's a uh
military rabbi and he said, "We need you
at um Harzel."
And I said, "Why?" He said, 'We have too
many bodies and we need you to help dig
the graves.' So I said, 'Why are you
calling me?' He said, ' Because I know
you'll keep your mouth shut. [laughter]
So I and I was kind of trying to explain
to him that, you know, this is a special
night for me and my wife. And all of a
sudden, I see my wife walk into the
bedroom with a thermos of coffee and tah
to and she says, "Go. They need you more
than I do right now.
>> So transformed and I spent the night on
on Herzil, Mount Herzil, the military
cemetery with a complete cross-section
of Israel. There were no arguments.
There were no political debates, nothing
from guys full of tattoos and metal
piercings all the way over to her. Um, I
was filling the white sandbags
and as the sun came up, uh, I looked at
one of the, uh, coffins
and, uh, I knew the guy
and, um, it was very difficult at that
moment to kind of balance out my joy of
celebrating my wedding anniversary with
a wonderful woman, with the loss of a
wonderful guy, with six children and a
loving wife. But um I wasn't really
angry or depressed at the situation.
It's war, but I was depressed and very
very angry at the people who led us into
this trap because that man should have
been alive. He should have been able to
go home to his wife and children and he
should have lived a wonderful life. uh
he was a professional soldier but he he
should have had the chance to have a a
full life and that was taken from him
and that also is part of Israel. It's
not that the enemy takes our lives.
We're accustomed to that. What we're not
accustomed to is having our loved ones
offered up as a sacrifice by our
presumed betters in the government in
the military. That man should not have
died, but he was betrayed and abandoned
by the same people that betrayed and
abandoned me. On October 7th, uh my
security phone rang. It's a Shabbat. I
was getting ready to go across the
street for u services, Shabbat services,
and I have to answer it because it's
glowing red. So, and it was uh the
telegram
um the Nukeba GoPro
of what they were doing and my wife
looked at it and she said, "You know,
this is sick. What is this like FA? I
mean, is this a movie?" And I said, "Uh,
no, it's real." And she started crying.
And at that moment, my life changed. How
so? Up until that moment, I had assumed
that I was the exception to the rule. My
abandonment and betrayal
was an outlier.
Um, but what I realized on October 7th
watching those videos, those horrible
videos, was that the entire country had
been abandoned and betrayed.
And that's when things began to change
for me in terms of my the possibility of
me going political or having any
association with the political process
aka the swamp in uh in Israel. So, you
go from moments of joy, I'm getting
ready to celebrate Shabbat,
to absolute fear and anger and um a
feeling of nakama, revenge for what
happened. I I have refused to wear a
yellow hostage pin because the whole
movement, the left has taken over. Uh
and I warned certain people about that.
um they changed from
being anti-judicial reform to you know
prohost
to get them out to prioritize the uh
rescue of the hostages uh to the
exclusion of everything else and it was
meant specifically to undermine the
credibility of our conservative
coalition government.
So I I didn't wear a hostage pin. And
when confronted by I remember one
instance uh near Kikar Paris where they
used to gather in Jerusalem the they the
the leftist this woman came up American
Anglo was screaming at me where is my
hostage pin? So I looked at her and I
just said do you know who I am? And she
said yes. I said well did you wear a pin
for me?
>> And she said no. Why should I? you're a
fascist.
Okay, that that was and I thanked her
for her cander on that. So, I wore a pin
that said Nakama
because the yellow pin reminded me of
the yellow star
that the in this case the the enemy made
us wear and I I refused to do that. My
my position on the hostages was quite
controversial here. Um, it didn't gain
me any friends or allies, but I tell the
truth. And I I related a story always of
a submarine commander in war
whose submarine is damaged by enemy
action and the boat's going down. His
responsibility is commander of the boat
is to rescue the boat, keep the boat and
as many of the crew as possible alive.
So in some cases that you have to close
off the damaged part of the ship, in
this case a boat, and sacrifice the few
in order to guarantee the lives of the
many. And this was a concept that just
people uh could not understand here
because they've been brainwashed
and um
to the point where they they don't
understand what it takes to fight
terrorists. You you cannot validate the
taking of hostages because what we've
done now is is just that. We validated
the taking of hostages
and no Jew now is safe anywhere in the
world because of that.
So again, it's a controversial thing. I
did a lot of videos for the right-wing
families, uh, Tikva,
um, and they were about bringing the
their loved ones back through strength,
you know. So, as I said, I didn't get
any uh friends or allies uh by my
position, but um sometimes you have to
look at the bigger picture. You have to
step back and this is why we elect
leaders to make those hard decisions.
But unfortunately, um we lack those
types of leaders right now. I just
wanted to jump in and ask you a question
about that because I remember reading
that when when you uh when you said I
think the quote was something along the
lines of maybe um maybe who knows
because the media says what they want to
say but it's came across as something
along the lines of the hostage families
should be put in detention camps or
detention centers.
>> No what happened was this was on channel
14.
>> Yeah. and they take a lot of liberties
especially with me because I'm not a
bibista
>> you know I'm I'm not a uh Benjamin
Netanyahu you know
>> right
>> supporter
>> so no what I said was that if the the
leaders of the U left-wing the hostage
family forum and some of the family
members themselves
don't shut up
because they were undermining our
ability to prioritize winning the war
and They were the worst thing. They were
going overseas and mobilizing enemies of
ours ostensively to help the hostages,
but their objective was to undermine our
ability to prosecute and win this war. I
said they
the quote I used and Israel can
sometimes be a very provincial
uh place to live.
I said quoting Cicero and I quoted the
Latin which I won't do now but it it was
in times of war the law is silent
and in this case these fam particular
family members and the movement itself
left-wing movement were aiding and
abetting the enemy.
>> So I I I get all that and and that makes
sense. And I think everyone in Israel
there's I think there's a misconception
that in Israel you have people who want
the hostages to come home and people who
don't want the hostages come home.
>> That is but that is
>> that's of course false. We all everybody
every Israeli every Jew wants two
things. We want to win the war and
eradicate Hamas and we want to bring the
hostages home. And the question is
>> the political question becomes how do
you prioritize one over the other? And
some people prioritize winning the war
some people prioritize bringing the
hostages home. I happen to have been
more on the side of prioritizing winning
the war. I have sons that are soldiers.
I don't want my sons to go in and fight
and be I asked
>> and be and be held back from being able
to correct because of this. So my
question for you was
>> did anything change in your mind? What
did anything change in your heart let's
say when you watched those hostages come
home to their families last week?
Because for me even as somebody who did
prioritize the war over the return of
the hostages I have to be honest I sat
there and I cried and I couldn't help
but cry when I saw what was going on.
And part of me said to myself, maybe
this really did need to happen for the
country to be able to heal and move
forward. And even though logically it
makes no sense and yes, we
>> I felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
If anything later
um I felt rage
over this uh hysterical optimism that
ensued.
It's like people are so depressed
uh and so discouraged
and so fearful that they'll grasp at any
reason to feel good.
Well, I didn't survive 30 years in
prison living according to those
beliefs. I look at things very
uh cold
and crystallized. And what I saw
reminded me of a defeated nation getting
their prisoners of war back by
surrendering. That's what I saw.
I'm I mean I'm sorry to say this, but um
on October 8th,
uh I was asked by certain people, you
know, for my opinion on how what we
should do because I had when I came
home, I had briefed a scenario. I used
to be on a red team, what they call it
in Washington, and the enemy team. And I
um briefed a war in in Gaza, and one of
the former chiefs of staff said, "What
are you wasting our time for? We are
never going back into Gaza." And I said,
"That's a recipe for fail for for defeat
if you think so because the enemy has a
vote." So I gave a scenario.
full confession. Uh I never imagined
them coming across the border and taking
hostages. Okay. So
I I said we have to prioritize winning
the war and I said I I'm feel that the
prime minister should make a public uh
announcement to Hamas. You either return
our living hostages and the remains of
the dead ones within 24 hours or there
will be nothing left from Jabalia in the
north to Rafa in the south. The largest,
tallest building will be in Anthill.
I have always opposed urban warfare
because it devalues the lives of
soldiers. It's a horrible, horrible mode
of fighting. I've studied Stalenrad.
I've The [snorts] worst one was Manila,
believe it or not, in 1945. It was a
meat grinder. And uh we can't afford it.
I mean, if you're being utilitarian
about it, we can't afford to lose
soldiers. We can't. And for me, the most
sacred individuals in Israel above and
beyond the Rabonim and uh the Sadikim
and the Mikubim are the men and women
that put on the uniform to defend us. We
owe them everything.
And yes, another controversial statement
I've made was that the the most
effective killer of Israeli soldiers are
the rules of engagement promulgated by
leftists and enforced by uh judicial
commasaars down to the company level.
I I don't care about the enemy. I am not
by enemy in the sense that I I would
authorize just the indiscriminate
killing of civilians, but I will not
send soldiers into a building uh that
has a target uh because they're
civilians and en enemy civilians. I
won't do it. I'll take the building out
because those men and women um are my
brothers and sisters and I will not
squander their lives on the altar of
some political correctness. I'm not
going to do that. Um I remember a
busload of uh young paratroopers tan
khanim stopped. I was coming back from
Malava Malika. I sobered up immediately
and they all piled out and they uh were
surrounding me. Most of them were Anglo
and they uh asked me what is it like to
be in combat? What is it like to have
people shooting at you? What is it like
to be scared?
And um I looked at them and I I I told
them a story that my father told me
before Viet I'm from the Vietnam
generation.
And he said um to whom do you owe your
loyalty
as an officer? Who do you who do you and
I said uh the commander-in-chief? He
said no.
Uh the Congress? No. Uh the flag? No.
The Constitution? I mean that's what we
swore to defend against enemies foreign
and domestic. He said no. I said how
about my commanding officer? And my
father said a hell no. He was a cavalry
officer from 1932 333 veterinarian then
human doctor.
He said you owe your loyalty unqualified
loyalty to the man at that time the man
on either side of you. And if the orders
you receive compromise them to any
degree, he said, 'I'll be proud to visit
you in in the stockade in the military
prison. Those are the people you owe
your loyalty to.
So I told them this and their officer
wasn't too happy with what I but he
really wasn't happy with what I did
next. I said, "Do you all have the
purity of arms little pamphlet?"
And they said, "Yes." I said, "Let me
see them.
And I got about 50 of them. And I said,
"I'm going to do something right now
that I hope will save your lives." And I
went over to a trash can and threw them
all away.
I said, "Everything in there is uh a
there's nothing Jewish at all in there.
We're given our orders from Torah. We we
understand how we fight from Torah, not
from that." I said, ' Do you Did have
you guys read that? Yeah. They said,
'Yeah. I said, ' Do you agree with any
of it? No. I said, 'So, forget about it.
Shoot straight. Shoot to defend the guy
or woman on either side of you and fight
Aladoo Hashem because that's you're
fighting God's war right now.
So, they got on the bus. They looked a
little bit relieved. And the officer
came up to me and said, "Um, I've I've
sent a message that you have nothing
more to do with talking to soldiers."
And I said, "Well, hopefully a kamas
sniper will save me the effort of doing
the same for you." [laughter]
>> Wow.
>> So, he he didn't like that, but I didn't
care. Um
so
yes um there are moments where you get a
phone call
and you're in another reality here a
totally different reality
but that's one foot in that the other
foot is getting ready to say
and you have to somehow balance or merge
both of them.
Um, I was at a soldier's Levia
in which the mother jumped into the
Kevin screaming
and I was standing back from the grave
and all I heard was the voice coming out
of the grave and um some guys jumped in
and got her out.
But um
we as a people have not waited 2,000
years
to be offered up as corbanote
uh by our betters, presumed betterers.
Um I can honestly say that I've never
shaken the hand of any terrorists or
their representatives. I have pulled a
trigger on quite a few of them, but I've
never shaken their hands. I never will.
people here for some reason and it's
because of the indoctrination of the
media and are presumed elected leaders.
They're not elected. They're cho they're
chosen by the political party. We don't
have really accountable representation
here as we understand it say from the
United States where you can go into a a
congressman's office or a senator's
office and hold a guy responsible or
woman responsible for her actions. You
can't do that here.
So,
um, for me,
one of one of my goals if I ever get
elected,
uh, is to make sure that we have a
different way of electing people in this
country where we have accountability in
the Knesset. We don't have it right now.
We just don't have it. Our educational
system is wretched.
Um, our judicial system is appalling. I
was in court a couple of days ago with
my wife on another matter, a family
matter, and I was sickened by the
attitude of the judge. Misogynistic
is hated women. No question. And he was
open about it. But this this rot runs
through the entire judicial system.
Uh, how can you say we have a democracy?
We have a
a um
juristocracy.
I think that's the way I put it.
Unelected
judges from one political from one side
of the political spectrum who feel that
they have the right to dictate to us and
override the will of our democratically
elected legislature. This is not a
democracy. So I met I was asked to meet
with four officers, air force officers
in the height of the um judicial
anti-judicial reform protests coup d'eta
which is what it was and I took them to
lunch at a very nice restaurant and I I
asked them a very simple question. I
said you guys have all said you're not
going to fly the reser you're not going
to fly if the judicial reform package is
passed. Correct? Yes. Okay. I said,
"Would you agree that um you would fight
for the land and people of Israel
irrespective of the government just for
the land and people of Israel?" I didn't
say alto.
I left that out, right? Israel is alpat.
That's my philosophy. But I left Alpat
out and they said, "No."
Kind of shocked me. So I said to them,
"Okay, I have just three questions left
for you. Did we have a free and fair
election?"
And they answered, "Yes." I said, "Did
you guys win?"
And they said, "No." I said, "So you
lost, right?" "Yes." "Okay, can you get
over that?"
"No." And I said, "Why not?" And they
said, "Because people like you don't
know how to run a 21st century
government." And I said, 'What are
people like me? Who who are you
referring to? They said, this whole God
thing. Oh. I said, 'Oh, well that's
thank you. That makes it all clear. So I
said, um, would you excuse me? I I have
to go to the men's room.
And uh, you know, the food was coming.
So I got up and I walked around and
talked to the matraee whom I I know. And
I said, "You see those four guys there?"
He said, "Yeah." I said, "They're going
to pay for their meals. I I have another
appointment I have to run to. So later
that night, I got a call from one of
them screaming at me. You know, how
could you do this to us that you you you
promised to pay for our meal and you
disappeared and we had to pay for the
meal? I said, well, you know, I guess
I'm just kind of stupid. You know, I
don't know how to run a 21st century
government.
>> Wow.
[clears throat] uh you know I have to
tell you that um you know part of our
podcast and the things that we do is
learning from other people and growing
with them and hearing the messages and
already you know such a short time in
I'm already getting so much of that but
I need to step a little bit back because
I did tell you that I grew up with your
face on our refrigerator and the free
polard I just want to understand a
little bit who you are like who were you
when you were 10 years old where did you
grow up if you don't mind give me a
little bit of the background or who are
you as a person did you grow up
religious did Did you grow up in New
York? I I I know nothing. I I I only
know after Free Paul and it happened and
we celebrated, but um I'd love to know
and especially for my audience who's
listening, how did you grow up? How did
you get into the spy business? How did
you
>> The short story was I was born I had a
Brit Ma, I had a bar mitzvah, I went to
college, almost made it to Vietnam. Um
>> that was in prison for 30 years. uh lost
my wife here in Israel when she got me
home. Uh remarried a friend of hers with
seven children, which I didn't know
about. Uh seven children, six girls,
>> and um and here I am.
>> Okay, great. But we got to step back a
little bit. We got to step back after
your Brits. [laughter]
>> After my after my Brit.
>> After your British before my Brit, you
should understand that uh my family
>> Yeah. Where are they from? Who are you?
Yeah.
>> Who am I? I'm a product of the past
obviously.
>> Yes, of course.
>> Uh my distant ancestor was the gra.
>> Wow.
>> The vil on through my mother. It
was a direct line.
And um it's strange because a lot of my
views especially on aliyah religious
aliyah can be traced right back to what
he proposed back in the 1700s.
>> Uh I grew up in Texas.
Uh, Galveastston, Texas to be exact. So,
I'm not really an American. I'm a Texan.
>> Ah, love it.
>> That explains a lot.
>> Yeah, that does explain a lot. Every,
you know,
>> Okay, good. Take me now to to your bar
mitzvah. [laughter]
>> No, before my bar mitzvah, every boy
when I was growing up and I, you know,
I'm a little bit older than I think both
of you. Um, every boy on his 10th
birthday got a gun. Uh, in my case, a
rifle. And my father, who was a
high-ranking army officer and a doctor
and a research scientist, um gave me the
only
uh advice on gun safety that has ever
seemed to be logical in my mind, which
is uh if you're going to point the gun
at somebody, pull the trigger. If you're
not, don't point the gun at them. Uh and
in Texas, this was heresy.
>> Yeah.
>> But I grew up with that. And then um
eventually my father took a position at
the University of Notre Dame uh which
was a cultural shock for me because the
Catholic University and uh it was in the
north
and uh when I was in school in Texas, we
didn't learn about the Civil War. We
learned about the War of Northern
Aggression.
And every morning when we put hand on
heart, we had we didn't have Abraham
Lincoln,
we had Sam Houston. We didn't have the
stars and stripes. We had the lone star
flag and we sang the eyes of Texas and
all the Mexican kids sat in the back and
were quiet. That's where I grew up in
the south.
>> Keep going.
>> I never experienced any anti-semitism in
uh Texas.
um you know when you have a second
amendment enforced even down to 10 years
old you you tend to watch your mouth
very carefully around people so I never
experienced anything that's not to say I
didn't experience it up north
um
it was very bad for me I was usually the
only Jewish kid in class the school and
uh my father
uh basically said you know you got to
tough it out
And um it was hard as a young young boy
>> as a teenager.
>> No, before that.
>> Oh, even before that.
>> Before that, you know, fighting, you
know, a mob of
anti-semites.
Uh but my father told me, "Pick one and
make sure he doesn't come back again."
So I did that and finally he gave me a
knife.
>> Juice.
>> Yes.
And finally he gave me a knife,
>> which was the origin of my ability to
use a knife, which saved my life on
innumerable occasions in prison. And I I
cut somebody. And so I was brought into
the principal's office
um a a drunk Irishman, anti-semite, and
he said, "Give me the knife."
I took him literally.
So, I um drove the knife into his $3,000
Herman Miller desk and he screamed and
called the police and my parents showed
up and I'm just sitting there. I'm not
really scared or embarrassed or
anything.
>> Well, I'm sorry. You're not a teenager
yet.
>> No, no, no, no.
>> And uh so my father came in. He was
apprised of what happened. And he looked
at me and he said, "Did did you do this
to put this knife in the desk?" I said,
"Uh, yes, sir, I did." He said, "Um,
what did the desk do to you? You should
have put it between the guy's eyes."
So, uh, that's my dad. Great guy. So, I
was excused from attending that school
again. And I went to a Catholic school.
Wow. St. Joseph's. And um that was the
beginning of my formal Jewish education
because they brought a rabbi in from
Chicago Orthodox Skoi to when they when
the Catholic kids had catechism. I had
and I was obliged to wear a keepa.
>> Do you remember who he was?
>> No, I can't remember. Okay. I can't
remember. Young guy.
>> Yeah.
>> And uh it was wonderful. Apparently, the
Monscior had warned everybody in the
school that if there were any
disrespectful remarks made to me, um
they their hide would be worn out. And I
was
>> He's carrying a knife. [laughter]
>> No, I I was amazed at how violent the
nuns were.
>> I mean, I I was scared to death of them.
Um they they would beat boys up right in
the classroom. And of course, the boys
couldn't do anything. And what what what
crime had they committed? They talked in
class. So
>> you're saying the Raam weren't the only
ones to hit us when we were
>> No, no, no, no. The these these these
women with the big habits. I mean, they
it was it was incredible. Actually, fast
forward, there was a time in the United
States where if you were a uh a pastor
or somebody from the clergy,
um you could fly for half price.
So, I was flying from Southbend, Indiana
to San Jose. I was attending uh Stanford
at the time. And so, I said, "Well, this
is crazy. It's $125."
One, this this is this is insane. So, I
went to the Notre Dame bookstore and I I
bought a Roman Catholic shirt and pants
with a collar and everything. And I had
some cards made up. Um, Father Jonathan
Pard, uh, the Jesuit order, you know, of
Latter Jesus Christ, you know, the whole
thing. And I had a huge crucifix. I
mean, it's something that gangster
rappers use, you know, but but at the
time it may it served the purpose. And
uh, I went up at the United desk and she
looks at me and she says, you know,
father. And I gave her the card.
Pollarded. I said, yes.
And uh she said, "Okay, you know, we're
going to let you fly for 50%." And I
said, "Thank you, my daughter."
And I was feeling really good about my
>> It sounds like the first time you were a
spy.
>> No, the first time I was a spy. I really
don't want to go into that. Um
[laughter]
Um My sister hates me to this day.
>> For something you did then?
>> I was a little kid.
>> What was it? I caught her I caught her
doing something and I ran to my mother
and father and I said uh I want a room
now [laughter]
and my father said you never inform or
rat on your family and that's when I
learned the idea of you never moser a
Jew
and I was punished [laughter] about my
sister. So I learned that when you you
know when you're an agent you you better
know what you're saying and to whom
you're saying it. So, at any rate, I'm
standing there feeling very good about
myself and there's a tap on my shoulder
and I turn around and there is the
provost of the University of Notre Dame
priest
and he says, "Father Jonathan." And I
said, "Uh, yeah." And he picked up the
cross, sorry. He picked up the cross off
my chest and he said, "Never say that
Jesus Christ didn't do anything for
you." [laughter]
And laughed. He laughed. My mother was
incandescent. My father thought it was
pretty funny, but my mother, she was a
strict um
Yankee from Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
And my father was uh off a dairy farm in
upstate New York on Hudson Hudson River.
>> And um
so I I was in college uh mechanical
engineering.
>> What did you think you wanted to do
then? I wanted to be a naval architect.
I wanted to design warships.
Um, and designing warships is as much
about the technology of buoyancy and um,
strength coefficients and things like
that as it is the aesthetics of the
ship. And I remember one of my
professors uh, giving us an example of
this of a destroyer stacks and he said,
"What is this?" You know, this is a
warship, right? And we all Yeah. He
said, "No." He put another slide up and
this was a Russian warship, the same
class, same tonnage, but it had
something different. It had a more
pronounced bow, raked bow, and the
funnels were tilted and they had what
was called draculus capes on them
ostensively to funnel the smoke away
from the aft of parts of the ship, but
it gave the impression of speed to the
ship along with the bow. And he said,
"This is how aesthetics scare the enemy
because he said, "This looks dangerous."
and we all nodded our head. He said, '
Remember that when you design a warship.
So, um
eventually, uh the war was over, came
home and um I didn't know what to do.
You owe the Navy four years. I'm on
reserves. So, I called my mother from
San Diego the pay phone. [laughter]
>> Collect call.
>> No, I I had changed. um they would have
accepted it. But uh and I said, "Mom,
I'm I'm home." "Oh, bro, hashem." Okay.
So,
I said, "I don't know what to do." And
she said, "Well, you're going to go to
law school now." I said, "I never
applied." She said, "No, I did."
Uh she got my transcripts, she got my
LSAT scores, and she applied. She wrote
the essays, and she applied to all these
law schools that I got into.
So I I was horrified and I said, "Um,
where am I going?" [snorts]
And she said, "Oh, Notre Dame." She
said, "You can go there for free. Get a
free law degree because your dad teaches
there." But she said, "You're going to
be in your old high school room and
you're going to have a um, you know, a
you have to come home with your father
from school. Uh, you can't go out. There
are no girls, no drinking, no smoking,
nothing. and at nine o'clock we're
having tea and pastry and you're going
to continue working until 11 when it's
lights out. And I said, I'm back in
hell.
So I said, you know, is is this what you
had in store for me? She said, well, I
told you a long time ago that you had
three options for employment. You could
be a doctor, a lawyer, or a plumber.
And I said, why a plumber? And she said,
'Well, remember the time where we had
some pipe problems in the kitchen and
you were bent down on your hands and
knees trying to fix the pipes and
everything? I said, "Yeah." She said,
"Well, I looked down and I said, "That's
the tus of a plumber." [laughter]
>> You the head for a lawyer and the tas
for a plumber.
>> Tus for a plumber. So after a year I was
uh reactivated and I went to MIT for uh
naval ship architecture and uh the first
ship I I designed um this was before
computers
and so we had to use a slide rule and
you know so the professor who was an
admiral old guy did the numbers himself
and he said your ship
um was buoyant for less than a minute
after it took a torpedo and it turned
turtle and the entire crew died.
What do you have to say for yourself?
So I looked at all the other young as
aspiring naval architects navy naval
architects there and I said um my men
died with honor and [snorts] he said no
Mr. They didn't they died screaming for
their mothers. So redesigned the ship
which brashem was good. Growing up um it
was a schizophrenic typical
schizophrenic Jewish life. My parents
were not orthodox. They were
traditional. So my mother had a glot
kosher kitchen.
Anything that came into that kitchen she
had to look at to make sure there was an
acceptable ha.
Um the meat had to come from a a kosher
um butcher shop uh to make sure that he
didn't put the thumb on the scale when
he cut cut the meat. I didn't believe it
until I saw it.
>> It actually happens.
>> Yeah, it actually happened. But we would
go out and have shrimp cocktail.
>> Interesting.
>> Or meat or chicken. I mean, we never had
pork ever. I never I've never had pork
at all.
Um, I've never mixed meat and milk. We
were always sharabas. I stay home and
um, but there was a little bit of
schizophrenia. I mean, we would drive to
the shaw with everybody else. It was
what I call a um, conservox
shaw. So we had a mita
everything but we would the parking lot
was closed and we would park down the
street along with everybody else. There
was no eye contact made, no Shabbat
shalom, [snorts] nothing, just head
down. And we would walk
to Shaw, heads held high like we were
virtuous, you know, we were we were shar
No, we weren't.
>> Did you Were you show Chabas in prison?
Is that when you started becoming more
observant?
>> What happened in prison?
>> I know I'm jumping a little bit.
>> No, no, it's okay. I
um
was asked initially to I disappeared for
six weeks. Nobody knew where I was after
my arrest. And um
the question I was asked before my
rendition,
I was I think I might have been the
first person to have been renditioned
before 9/11 and what happened with um
the Taliban and the um
ISIS guys that were that were al-Qaeda
guys that were treated this way. I was
asked two questions. um who who are your
team members, where did they where how
are they getting out of the country? And
I I don't know. Okay. And then they put
a list in front of me. This was within
the second day
uh of all the major Jewish leaders,
American Jewish leaders. They said,
"Just put a check next to them, all of
them." Uh I said, "Why?" And they said,
"Well, you're confirming their
association involvement with your
espionage activities." And I immediately
understood that this was an effort to
decapitate the American Jewish
leadership.
And so I said, "No, you don't mosa
another Jew. Maybe in a kosher bed den
you can tell the truth, but for the
goyam, you keep quiet."
So that night, I was knocked out, bag
over the head. I don't know where we
were. We're up in the mountains because
it was cold,
very cold. And I was in a stone cell, no
clothes. And for six weeks, you know, I
was asked the same questions. You know,
you going to sign, not. I knew that if I
signed, they'd kill me because you don't
want someone like me coming into the
court
beaten up, tortured, and um you know,
having had his confession, if you will,
or testimony coerced. So, I'm not going
to sign that under anything. So, for six
weeks, um my back was broken in four
places. I have a plate in my head right
now. Um, my ankles, my toes, my knees,
my hips,
fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders,
everything was broken. And I was raped
for six weeks during that whole time.
And uh, a rabbi Rav here in in Jerusalem
asked me, um, what were you doing for?
Well, I wasn't really doubting. I was
just asking God um to either have let me
die quickly or just keep my mouth shut.
And luckily he kept my mouth shut. Many
years many many years later um I was in
our house here in Jerusalem and the
Mossad came to see me and Esther Al
Shalom was sitting next to me. She I
hadn't told her about this.
She didn't know where all the injuries
came from, but I didn't she didn't press
the issue.
So, I'm I was asked to co-sign or
countersign a document that I had not
talked. They had already signed it. So,
I just, you know, turned the page. I'm
looking at what's there and it was
everything that was done to me.
So, I I asked them naively,
"How do you know this? How do you know
all this? They said, "Oh, well, we
signed off on it.
We You were Hefka, you know. We didn't
really think you'd live, and here you
are, so you have to sign this."
Um, this is why I'm under the protection
of the Shabbach and not the Mossad.
They clearly want, they still uh have an
issue with me. And it's not me
personally. It was a conflict inter
agency conflict between the organization
I work for LAM which is an activity of
the Ministry of Defense and the Mossad
competing agencies and they just used my
arrest as a means of destroying a
competing sister agency in Israel which
still exists by the way.
So
when they brought me back to to
Washington, my lawyers finally found me.
Um the judge just looked at me and said,
"I understand, this is in a seclosed
court room. I understand that you
slipped in the shower." And I said, "No,
your honor, I slipped twice."
He said, "Well, you're a smart boy. You
just keep that story."
So, um, after I was sentenced.
>> Wait, can could we just back up for one
second because I know like you're the
first spy I've ever met. Have you Have
you ever met another spy?
>> No.
>> Do you have any young children?
>> Official professional spy.
>> Yeah.
>> And um,
>> they can be pretty professional.
>> You know, my first espionage case.
>> What was that?
>> With your with your sister? [laughter]
>> No, actually it happened before then.
I'm just remembering it. I was a little
little little boy. I was losing my baby
my milk teeth at this point. And my
motheram said, "Put the your tooth in an
envelope under your pillow and the tooth
fairy will come."
So I woke up the next morning and uh
there was a quarter
and I said, "No, this this this it just
struck me as being inadequate."
So I came down the stairs with my dog
and I sat at the table and my mother
said, "What did the tooth fairy bring
you?" And I said, "Nothing.
the tooth fairy doesn't exist. And I saw
my father look at me and my mother
looked at my father and she said, "I
promise you the tooth fairy will come
tonight."
So
woke up the next morning and there were
two quarters there. [snorts] And then I
understood, okay, I I know this game.
Okay. So, I came down the stairs crying
and I slipped in up onto my seat and my
father's looking at me and my mother
said, "What did the tooth fairy bring
you?" I said, "I don't believe in the
tooth fairy." Um, she didn't bring me
anything. And my father put his hands
out because I he knows he's going to get
hell, looking at my mother, shaking his
head, and she looked at him and she
said, "The tooth fairy will come
tonight, won't she?" My father
[laughter] said, "Yes." So, the next
morning I woke up and there was a
dollar.
>> I'm rich.
>> I'm gonna buy comics. I'm going to buy
bubble gum. I'm going to buy I'm going
to buy all my friends Kool-Aid.
Everything is great for a It's rich.
>> Yeah.
>> So, I No, it's a $1.75.
>> Oh, right.
>> Okay. You know, you got to keep track of
these things. So, I came down and I got
up on my seat looking rather sad and my
mother uh said, "What did the tooth
fairy?" Like an interrogator. What did
the tooth fairy bring you last night?
And before I could say anything, my
father got up and he said, "The blankety
blank tooth fairy gave you a dollar last
night, didn't she?" I said, "Yeah,
[laughter] yeah, she did." So, I learned
the limits of deception at that point.
>> So, your career started early, but as
far as professional spies, you're the
first one I've ever met. And maybe later
you'll show us your exploding pen and
your shoe camera and all the cool
gadgets that we all know you must have.
But what what is espionage? What does it
mean? I mean, what did you do? What what
happened? I'm just like, I don't even
really understand what that even means.
What was the process? How
>> Yeah, let's let's rewind back there. So,
you're you know, you're in How did you
get recruited? This is the part I wasn't
recruited.
>> This is the part that I'm curious about.
>> Yeah. What happened
>> was I was uh placed
>> I was in the Middle East for quite a
while doing certain things. I was in New
York actually before that for quite a
while.
>> Well, you're designing ships at this
point. That's where we're back.
>> I wasn't at that point,
>> right? because the war on terror had
begun and because I was from Texas and
knew how to handle a gun and
didn't seem to care too much about
killing people. And I tried to explain
to the Navy guys
talking to me that, you know, if you're
a professional soldier or sailor, you
you have to be prepared to kill. And
they they didn't. They said, "No, you
seem to like to kill." And I said,
"Where did you get that?" They needed
bodies. So, you know, they put me down
as somebody they could depend on. So, I
was a year, year and a half in New York.
Absolute mayhem. No Miranda rights.
Nothing. Nothing. Just target eliminate.
And then I went to Europe for a while
and then the Middle East. Um,
>> working on behalf of the government.
Yes.
>> In the Navy. Yes. Doing missions.
>> Doing missions. Yeah.
>> Whatever mission they would give you.
>> Whatever they would give me. Okay.
>> Anything that you're allowed to talk
about?
>> No. I I don't think so.
>> Okay.
>> Um and that's for a very good reason.
>> Okay. I appreciate that. I don't want
the Shabbak or the Mossad after me.
>> That there there's some really bad
people out there who have long memories.
Um I didn't appreciate the US attorney
>> uh during my sentencing, informing the
whole world that I was the Israeli
intelligence officer that put together
the raid on the PLO headquarters in
Tunis in October 1985 that was designed
to kill Arafat. Somebody talked here and
alerted him.
>> Wow. And that came out there and
>> and I looked at the the prosecutor and I
said, "Thanks for putting a bullseye on
my back." Wow.
>> And because 91 of them of the uh 417
guys had died in the in the air strike.
And he said, "You don't have anything to
worry about. You're never getting out of
prison."
>> [snorts]
>> Well, when I came home, I was informed
on TV that uh the PA had put a $1
million bounty on my head. And um I
guess it was typical of me. I just kind
of sat there for a second and the
interviewer said, "Do you have anything
to say about that?" I said, "Yeah, I'm
I'm worth a little bit more than that."
[laughter]
>> You do have security outside, right?
>> Yes. I hope so. Well, thank God we all
believe in Hashem here, so we're
protected by that.
>> No, I I I do.
>> But you're you're you're serving
missions. You're doing
>> Okay. So, what happened was um
>> I was put Nobody knew I was Jewish.
I mean, I didn't eat pork. How did I
explain that? I'm a vegetarian.
>> Sure.
>> And nobody So, I'm weird. You know, I'm
a vegetarian. Okay, fine. Um,
I was put on the team that was handling
the USIsrael intelligence exchange
agreement
and we would, it's a quid proquo. We
would give information to Israel or
Israel would give information to us. We
would do evaluations respectively, hand
it back, whatever.
>> I apologize for someone that's a little
bit of unknown in this world. So, this
is in what part of the uh time frame is
this? In the
>> this was about 1983. So in the in the
early 80s there was something going on
between us and Israel.
>> Um something that you can explain to me
a little bit more about what was
happening at that time.
>> I mean it's it's it was publicly known
at the time that um we were the US I
have trouble with pronouns sometimes
that the US and Israel were exchanging
>> uh intelligence
>> okay
>> on various things. And um what happened
just before that was we in Israel
uh raided the Iraqi nuclear reactor.
Now my involvement in that I I cannot
confirm or deny. Okay? I I want to be I
don't like lying, but I don't like
telling stories that I'm not supposed
to. So um I can't I can either confirm
it or deny my alleged involvement in
this raid.
>> Okay. So right after that raid um Casper
Weinberger who was the then secretary of
defense and Admiral Bobby Ray Inman who
was had moved from the director of the
National Security Agency to the deputy
director of the CIA
ai of the worst order
um were outraged that we had used some
of the material from the intelligence
exchange to carry out the raid.
You're welcome. [laughter]
So, luckily my
involvement with that wasn't quite known
because there were there were a lot of
people involved with the exchange at the
time. So, they swore blood revenge. Why?
Because we the US the Israelis had um
angered uh one Middle East ally at the
time, Saudi Arabia. So what happened was
there was an undeclared intelligence
embargo that was enacted.
And by the way, this all came out in the
open. And this is why I can talk about
it when Admiral Bobby Ray Inman was
going to be nominated. I believe it was
for the Secretary of Defense.
and uh this issue came out and he went
postal on a press conference
explaining the whole thing. I mean if I
had said half of what he said I I would
have gotten additional charges
but he he he helped me. I mean he just
laid it all out as the genesis the besid
of what happened with my involvement
with the Israelis. So, I'm seeing, you
know, a list of things we're supposed to
exchange and I'm only I am only in
possession of a fraction of it. So, I
went up the chain all the way to the sec
secretary of defense's office saying,
"What the hell's going on?" And they
said, "Just uh you know, if they have a
problem with an enemy system, let them
lose a couple of airplanes and they'll
figure it out. You know, they're smart
Jews. They'll figure it out."
So, I understood what was going on.
And um eventually it got to be too too
much
and um I made contact
and um
it was clear that I had crossed a line.
So I uh basically made aliyah.
Um, I
had had citizenship long before it was
officially acknowledged that I had had
it. I had a two hood. I paid taxes,
everything. Um, did I receive a salary?
Yes. Just like CIA agents who received
two salaries, one officially and the
other one from whatever their cover
businesses, I paid taxes on it. I mean,
the whole nine yards.
And um
I'll give you an example of something.
Um at one point we got information. This
was before we had satellites,
reconnaissance satellites here, the
effect series in Israel. And so we heard
information that there was a massive
chemical warfare plant built in a place
called Samara in Iraq. This is during
the Iran Iraq war.
And um [snorts]
there was an official team coming to the
United States to determine whether that
was so.
But I was tasked to determine whether
there actually was something there. So
the team, we met in a safe house and the
team came to see me and said, "Well, we
were assured by everyone in the Pentagon
that these are just rumors."
Okay. So I took them into another room
where I had laid out the the mosaic the
pictures of the largest chemical warfare
plant in the world built by the Becttel
Corporation by the way that uh Casper
Weinberger used to work for. It was a um
you know insecticide plant. That was the
cover.
And uh I remember one of my colleagues
looked at this
incredible facility and kind of rolled
his eyes at me and he said, "You see,
Onathan, it's sometimes better to deal
with reliable ally, reliable enemies
than unreliable allies."
And um
we had to fly two aircraft on that plant
to verify it and we lost one of the
planes. And so
two families that I visited when I came
back was to apologize for the loss of
their
children, their husbands,
um because they died to protect me.
So you know there were no hard feelings.
I mean it's war. This is Israel. It's
war.
So, um, a spy,
it's very difficult actually sometimes
to remember who you are because, uh, my
boss Rafi,
not the general, not the Ramat Khal
Rafi. May his memory be a blessing, uh,
but, uh, the stunk that directed Lam at
the time. He was known as Rafie the
stinker
and um had a nasty habit of abandoning
Asians. I did not know that.
So
I was given my collection orders.
Uh basically all the documents
were supposed to have been given to
Israel under the terms and references of
the USIsrael intelligence exchange
agreement.
And a couple of times he went off to
Derek asking me for political
information, blackmail information that
could be used on political leaders in
Israel. And I said, "No." And he wanted
to know the um identity of American
agents in Israel. And I said, "That's
forbidden. I'm not going near that." And
it was lucky I drew that line because um
that you can get a death penalty for
that.
And uh he looked at me and said, "Okay,
you can you can do that. All right." But
he said, "One of them is going to kill
you." And one of them did. There was an
agent and a CIA agent on the Knesset
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
that um ratted me out.
Um if I if you ask if I had to do it
over, would I still do what I didn't?
And yes,
uh I am not a traitor.
Um my indictment says so. The indictment
said that I I was unauthorized, but I
transmitted illegally transmitted
national security information to a major
non-NATO ally, parenthesis Israel, and
in caps without intent to harm.
But a problem, two problems cropped up
in my life at the time.
One was the fact that uh there was a
Soviet spy in the CIA, you might
remember him, Aldrich Ames.
He was a mole,
who was ordered by the fifth director of
the KGB to blame me for all the then
ongoing deaths of American and Russian
agents uh and British agents, MI6 agents
that were dying in in Russia because of
his treason.
and um they compromised a low-level
Soviet agent here in Israel to kind of
prove the circle. You know, the
information came here and it got
transmitted somehow to the Russians or
the Soviets.
So, one of the prosecutors came to see
me at one point a long after I was
sentenced and he said, "Do you remember
when the judge had you stand up and ask
you if you had any remorse for all the
deaths you'd caused?"
I said, "Yeah, I remember that." He
said, "What did you say?" I said, "Yes,
I'm I I have remorse that there wasn't
one more."
He said, "Where was your mind? Where was
your head?" And I said, "My head, my
mind. I It was in Tunis. We missed
Saraphhat.
That was the whole point of the
operation."
He said, 'Well, that's not where the
judge's mind was. The judge's mind was
in the basement of the Lefortivo prison,
KGB prison in Moscow. And I said, "Why?"
He said, "Well, Alder James,
who had just been caught,
had gone into the judge's chambers
exparte. it was illegal. And it
described for the judge in excruciating
detail how one of the CIA agents,
General Igor Trechikov, had been fed
feet first into a furnace in front of
his family.
And I said, I didn't have anything to do
with that. And he said, well, we know
that now, but Ames was quite persuasive
in pinning everything on you.
So when the judge asked you, all he
heard was, "You were sorry you didn't
kill another US agent." He said, "Did
you notice how many security agents were
in the courtroom that day?" I said, "I
thought it was a bit excessive." And he
said, "That's because there were a lot
of CIA field operatives that had
volunteered to come in and kill you in
court
for what you'd done."
And I said, "I didn't have anything to
do with that." and he said, "We know
that now." So, Senator Deansini, Dennis
Deansini, who was then from Arizona, who
was then the chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, wrote a
letter to Clinton, President Clinton.
Um, it was signed by everybody on the
committee saying that I should be
released and sent home because I I was f
had been falsely accused in camera for a
crime I didn't commit. And Clinton's
response in writing, which I have, said
that we know that now, but that um Mr.
Pard had become too valuable um as a
bargaining chip with Israel. That's in
writing.
>> Wow.
So, the other problem I had was the fact
that I I don't know if you guys remember
Iran Contra.
>> No, Oliver North. Of course.
>> Oliver North. That's right. Well, one of
the trips that I came home uh here, I
was briefed into the program of selling
weapons to Iran at a profit and then
using the profit to arm the uh Contress
in Nicaragua, which was illegal. It was
illegal.
So, um okay, I did what I was, you know,
I'm a good soldier. I I opened up bank
accounts for them. This is where the
origin of my bank account in Switzerland
comes from. I
Yes, I opened up bank accounts for the
American participants
and um later in tax court after I was
sentenced without a
legal representative present, which was
kind of weird. Uh you're guilty by the
way in tax court and have to prove your
innocence. It's like the code Napoleon.
I come into this court in my jumpsuit,
orange jumpsuit. I just been given a
life without parole. I mean, it was. And
the three judges, all Jews, look at me
and say, "You know, Mr. Pard, you're in
a lot of trouble." I said, "Yeah, tell
me something I don't know. I just came
from federal court across the street."
So, they said, "Well, we know about this
bank account, but we don't know the
names. We have the numbers, but we don't
have the names. So, things could go well
for you if you give us the names.
and they said, "We have a document from
the bank that said you had no withdrawal
rights. You just deposited money, so we
know this isn't yours, but we want the
names." I said, "I don't recollect. I
can't remember."
They said, "Why? They didn't mean
anything to you. You're Israeli. Uh,
they're American." I said, "No, these
are patriots.
they didn't use that money for their
personal gain. And they said, "Well, it
was against the law." And I said, "Well,
what I learned in law school was the law
is an ass,
and this is the real world, so I'm not."
So the judges looked at me and they
said, "Well, Jonathan, for the next five
minutes, you're going to be a very rich
man."
And I said, "Why is that?" They said, '
Because we're going to
um
put you down as the owner of these bank
accounts. I said, 'But you just told me.
It's I I had no withdrawal rights. They
said, "We make the rules in this
courtroom." So they said, "For five
minutes, you're an extremely rich man."
So I asked for two things. I said,
"Could I have a cigarette?" [laughter]
So I got a cigarette and I'm smoking.
And I suddenly looked up at them and I
said, "Can I assign any of the money to
my mother or father or my family or is
that okay?" And they said, "No, Mr. P,
it's not okay. It's just a turn of
phrase that you're the owner of the
money." So, I kept asking for
cigarettes. So, when I left, uh, as the
door closed behind me, I heard the
marshall screaming that that son of a
uh, stole my pack of cigarettes.
I just put it straight down. And, um,
yeah. I I have to ask you um you know
because again hearing and speaking to
you with your amazing demeanor in terms
of you know just being so easy to speak
to good memory, calm, happy. I keep
bumping into
>> actually the funny thing about the
memory was they kept telling me in court
that I have a photographic memory that I
should never be let out of prison
because I can recall everything. And I
remember looking at the judge and the
judge looks said what? I said I don't
know why I'm here. I don't know my name.
I don't know why I'm here. I mean I was
joking and he said okay you know you're
you're not on Johnny Carson right now.
You know shut up. So
>> but but I'm curious like you know when
you found out the news I'd like to
understand that process you mentioned
earlier something I can't get out of my
head. Six weeks no one knew where I was.
I I'm trying to understand what that
means. I know there was a tremendously
long article that you did recently in
the past year where you discussed
>> me.
>> Yeah. Where you discussed the treatment
that you had, a broken tooth that
happened to you amongst other things.
>> Well, you have to understand the first
prison I went to, they couldn't beat or
rape the information out of me. So, they
put me in a special prison which was uh
150 meters down.
>> If you don't mind, where were you when
you first got arrested? Where was this?
Where?
>> In Washington.
>> Physically. You were in Washington.
>> Washington DC.
>> You were at home. You were in a condo.
You were in a hotel. What What happened?
>> Um I went to I had Let me back up for a
second. When I realized that the walls
were closing,
>> that's what I'm asking exactly.
>> I I went back to Israel through a
secuitous route
>> and uh I talked to Rafi at the time and
I said, "Look, um I've given I've given
you everything that was required. Now
reassign me. let me retire uh from the
Navy and just reassign me to Europe.
It's hard to believe this, but I was
actually selling weapons for this
organization, Lam, and they were taking
the money for other project. I mean, you
don't put a guy like me in that kind of
danger.
Um, be that as it may. Um, so he looked
at me and he said, "What's your code
name?"
I said, "Danny Cohen."
He said, ' Do you remember when I gave
you that code name in Paris? And I said,
'Yeah, and I told you, you know, like,
why did you give me that code name? You
know, you could call me Haimey Lipshits
for all I care, but why did you name me
Danny Cohen? He said, well, as we told
you, we had a Ellie Cohen in Damascus
and now we have a Danny Cohen in
Washington.
He said, "We told you that the risks to
the respective agents lives were the
same. We knew that if you were caught,
there was a high probability that they
would kill you."
So I said, "Yeah, and I told you at the
time that that was bad karma." [snorts]
So he said, "Uh,
remember I promised to get you out?"
I said, "Yeah, I remember that." He
said, "Well, that promise still stays."
It's a bald-faced lie.
But he said, "I'm going to tell you the
same thing we told Ellie Cohen
when he came here and sat right where
you are and said, um, the walls are
closing in. They're on to me."
He said, "Um, you have to go back for
one last mission.
Um, the Syrians,
in this case with me, the Syrians are
planning a surprise attack on the Golan.
We're not quite ready for that right
now, but there's a piece of military
equipment that they need from the Soviet
Union
um that they need to to get before they
decide to go forward with this um called
a standing start offensive.
And he said, 'The question you have to
ask yourself is whether your life is
more important than the lives of all
your fellow citizens and the deployed
army units on the Gulan.
And he explained some more things to me
about what could happen if this occurred
and I had to make a decision
and I said, "Okay, I'll go back." That's
what a soldier does.
>> Wow. At that point, you were able to
stay in Israel. Yeah.
>> And you could have avoided technically
>> everything. I would have just retired,
disappeared.
Yeah.
>> Wow.
>> So, I went back and I I I have to admit
there was a moment of hesitation on the
plane where I just for a moment, you
know, I just said, "No, I I have to
stay." And then the plane moved so it
was too late.
>> And you're you're married at this point.
>> Yeah.
>> For how long? Um
>> few years.
>> Few years. Yeah. Yeah. A few years.
>> Yeah. So you're heading back to
Washington.
>> Back to Washington.
>> Walls are closing in. He's sending you
on your final mission, so to speak,
saying it's important.
>> And And what And what happened was um
two days before I was arrested, there
were some Israelis in town to meet me.
They did not have diplomatic immunity. I
was very concerned about that, but they
decided to come see me for operational
reasons.
And um
I just had a feeling and I came back
very late at night and I pushed the
false ceiling up above my desk and there
was a camera.
So the alarm bells went off and my first
instinct was to run, not tell anybody,
just run right then. But I couldn't
because I didn't have the information
yet that was needed. It was a direction
left or right. Whether the equipment
coming out of the Soviet Union in
question was going to Libya, which was
to the right, or going to Syria, which
was to the left.
[sighs]
So two days later, I got the information
and I was arrested later that night
before I could transmit it.
Where were you when that happened?
>> In the parking lot.
>> In the parking lot where you live.
>> Where I worked? Where you worked?
>> I worked. So, some guy came up to me and
put a uh I could feel it was a shotgun
in the back of my head.
>> And I said, "Um, I sure hope you're
police." And the guy put an FBI badge in
front of me. I said, "Okay." He said,
"Just put your hands up." He took my gun
and he said, "Uh, got to come back with
me." I said, "No problem."
And um they're trying to interrogate me,
you know, like why are you doing this?
Why are you doing that? And I said,
>> where'd he take you to right then and
then?
>> To an interrogation room in my building.
>> You knew where you were at that point?
>> Oh, yeah. I knew that um the rabb I was
going down the rabbit hole.
And um so I had a red tipped cigarette
that was a cyanide tip cigarette. And
you know, I I just thought at that
moment, you know, Jews don't commit
suicide.
We buy retail.
>> Oh my god.
>> And you know, I just decided I'm not
going to go this route.
>> You had it on you?
>> Yeah. It was a pack of cigarettes. Yeah.
Red tip. I put a red tip on it to,
[laughter] you know, I'm not going to
give this to a friend of mine, you know.
Um,
>> remind me not to bum a cigarette for
smoke anymore. So, um, officially, so,
um, I realized it was it was over. So I
asked if I could call my wife at the
time and which they allowed and I mean
they're listening to me. She was part of
the operation
and um I gave her a code word on pasant
in passing. I gave her a code word and
she said um okay so goodbye and I said
yeah goodbye.
They didn't figure out what was going
on. They were listening to the
conversation, but it was very quick and
natural.
So, she dodged the uh FBI tale. She did
what she was trained to do and um
she warned the Israelis, get out
and she was supposed to go with them.
But this is why
usually they never have real husbands
and wives on teams like this because she
came back. She should have gone with
them. And when I saw her at the house,
they were ransacking the house. I looked
at her and I said, "Why are you here?"
And she said, "I couldn't leave you." I
said, "Well, we're both going to die
then." I said, "That doesn't make any
sense."
Um,
so
that night I knew the drill because I'd
done it. I' I'd conducted operations
like this. you you leave the agent this
under suspicion
free and watch where he goes, who he
talks to, what he does. So, I had a a
secret phone landline that was in the
apartment, which they never found. And I
called and I explained what happened
very briefly and they said, "Um, okay.
Um, call us tomorrow." Okay. So, I went
to work and I did what I was told to do.
This is after you were arrested.
>> Yeah. I I But I'm free,
>> right? Because this is the process.
>> The process.
>> I have to ask you, where's that hiding
spot?
[laughter]
>> So, um, you could say none of your
business.
>> I never believe where it was. I
>> I want to hear it, though.
>> No, no, no, no, no. Sorry. There's
there's some things in this line of
work.
>> You could just say none of your
business.
>> No, I wouldn't say that. Um,
>> well, that is, you know,
>> just I'd have to kill you if I told you.
That's all. [laughter]
So, um,
uh, the next night I get the call and I
said, "Okay, I've I've I've done what I
was supposed to do. I've confessed to
being a Pakistani spy.
It's called misdirection."
And I said, "I'm ready for extraction."
And that's when the ground fell out from
under me. And the voice said, "Uh, Rafi
never put together a rescue plan for
you, an extraction."
He said, "You're to come to the embassy
tomorrow." I said, "That's stupid. I
already confessed to being a Pakistani
spy." I mean, I had Pakistani money in
the house. I had fake tickets on PIA to
Islamabad. I had pictures photoshopped
of me with certain Pakistani generals. I
mean, it was all done. It was set. and I
passed my polygraph.
So much for the accuracy of a polygraph.
>> Well, you're a pro.
>> They're tricks. [laughter] Okay. Um, and
they said, "No, you you come in tomorrow
at this time." So, I did. And there was
only one tail behind me. Everybody else
was at the Pakistani embassy waiting at
a helicopter and overhead. So, we pulled
into the embassy and I, you know, just
looked around and everybody had come out
to see me and I said, "Uh, I'm home,
right?" Yeah, you're you're okay. And
then a few minutes later, the chief of
security came out whom I know, knew and
know, and he said, "Uh, Jerusalem wants
you to leave the embassy and come in the
front door." And I'm looking up this
driveway and there are hundreds of
agents and there's a sniper and a
helicopter. You know, I'm waving at him,
you know, all this crap.
And I said, you know, I'm going to die
if I go up there. He said, those are
your orders.
I said, why don't you just shoot me and
just say you thought I was a terrorist
and take my wife in. She was very sick
anyways. He said, "Take her in and
they'll they'll let her go."
He said, "No, we don't have orders for
that. You have to leave." So, just
before I got in the car, he held the
door and he said, "I need your last
report, left or right."
And I just Okay. I said, "Right to
Libya." And he I said, "Repeat that."
She did. And I told him some other
things which he repeated
and he said
I won't
ex tell you what I responded to that and
uh so they arrested me when I got out.
Um, since coming home, I've
been led to believe that there is a very
good probability that the person in
Jerusalem that ordered my expulsion was
a Soviet Asian.
They had to have me arrested
to protect a
do. So, I still don't know for sure. I
don't know who it is. Uh but um
there it's a wilderness to I mean to to
paraphrase
an author who wrote an interesting book
on the National Security Agency or no
such agency. It's a wilderness of
mirrors
literally.
So, um, eventually I went to this prison
and, uh, the commander looked at me, the
warden looked at me and he said, you
know, you see the grass, the sky, fresh
air. I'm thinking, what is the matter
with this guy who's a Goliath of a
former Marine? And he said, when you
come out, you'll be in two forms. You'll
either be alive because you've agreed to
cooperate or you'll be an old man in a
body bag. Okay? So
I just for the first time it was like a
bat call that came out of my mouth. I
said, "You know what? You don't run the
world. God does."
I don't know why I said it.
So he looked down at me and said, "Well,
we'll see."
So this elevator took me down very
slowly. I mean, it's a psychological
thing. They they want you to feel the
the boar, the pit. And I got down and um
there were 31 other men there. I never
saw them, but there were 31 doors and
they were all in there for the same
reason. They weren't talking.
And so they put me in this cell that was
three square meters. So you can figure
out how much space I had. Just put down
3 meter sticks by 3 meter sticks by 3
meter sticks. You couldn't stand up in
there. and slammed the door. Light never
went off. Uh, nothing to read, nothing
to write, no visits, no phone calls,
nothing. You're buried alive.
So, I sat there on this little tiny
plank that was the bed of concrete
and um I had my first conversation with
God.
>> [snorts]
>> And I apologized for not talking to him
ever before, but I said, you know,
things are kind of tough for me right
now. So there are no atheists in a
foxhole. I I just assume God had a sense
of humor, you know. You know, he made
women. He had to have a sense of humor,
you know. So whatever. Did I say that?
>> Edit that, Michael. [laughter]
>> Yeah.
>> No editing.
>> Yeah. Okay. No, no, don't don't edit it.
You know, it's who I am is what?
>> So this this is uh Sorry. Just so the
sequence of events, this is how many
days after you got arrested. this.
>> Oh, this is two years later.
>> This is two years later.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. This is the place that you were
going to spend the rest of your life.
>> My life in. So I I said to to Hashem, I
said to God that look, just like Araino
when he negotiated for the uh survival
of Sodom and Gomorrah, I said um look,
if I stop doing these 10 bad things and
I thought about it and I said eight
[laughter] and six and then I settled on
five and God agreed five and I start
doing these five good things
save me
and that was it. And so, um, the first
meal I had, I I threw up because the
meal, I don't know what it was. I I
hoped it was dog food because dog food
is sterilized.
Um, and it was the same meal I had three
times a day.
No, no variation.
And so, one day, uh, the door opened. I
never left the cell. There was a toilet
in there, a little toilet, a little sink
for water.
And uh they said, "Come." So I came out
and I first thing I said was, "What year
is it?" And it was seven years later.
And um I said, "Okay, are my mother and
father alive?"
Because they were very poorly at the
time. And they they said, "Um, yeah,
they're alive." So first time I said bar
hashem.
So I looked down the hall and all the
doors were open and I said what what
happened to them and they said they all
committed suicide. So I said I'm the
lone survivor and they said yeah we
can't afford to keep this place open for
just you.
So that was the second time I said
hashem.
So I got on the elevator and I literally
came into the light and guess what?
There's the same warden.
And I have a problem sometimes with time
and place.
This was the wrong time. And [snorts] it
was definitely the wrong place. I'm
shackled. I'm handcuffed behind my back.
And I just went up to him. I looked at
him and I said, "You see, God runs the
world, not you." And he knocked me out.
Broke knocked a tooth out of my head,
which I still have. And um I when I kind
of came to I was laughing.
The blood was all over me. You know, I
could taste it. And um he was trying to
finish me off and they were holding him
back.
I was smart enough not to say anything
to him at that point, but I just
thought, "Wow, I made that really
mad and I was happy about it." So the
next prison, the last prison I went to,
I had never heard of before either. It
was in the south in North Carolina. And
the first I got there and the the warden
said, "There are 5,000 inmates here.
Nobody's going home, so you're going to
wear this." It was a red t-shirt, so
you're condemned. He said, "Let me ask
you two questions. Um,
are you going to talk?"
And I said, "No." He said, "Good. Don't.
Your your time will go better. Don't
talk."
and he said, "Do you have a knife?" I
said, "What is this, a trick question?"
I said, "No, I don't." And he handed me
one.
And he said, "You're you're going to
need it today. Do you know how to use
that?" I said, "Yeah, I know how to use
one." He said, "Well, you're going to
definitely have to use it today. Don't
hesitate."
I said, "Okay." And he was right.
So, I spent the next 23 years there kind
of in a military section. My roommate
was a Delta Force. He was an assassin
and he also had been abandoned and
betrayed. So, we had a kind of a a bond
in common. And um we watched each
other's back. Uh they didn't lock the
doors,
so there were a lot of people getting
killed at night. So we put a trip wire
up and
one would stay awake in the dark with a
knife and then after an hour they'd wake
the other guy up and they'd switch. So
for 23 years I never slept.
I mean it was just what you had to do
there. And um some of the hardest time I
did was when they moved somebody in next
door to me by the name of Bernie Maid
off.
Now, I've known a lot of immoral people
in my life. I have been known also to
violate many of the laws of man and some
of laws of God [laughter] in the course
of my
storied career. But Bernie was the first
amoral man I ever met.
Amoral.
You might call him sociopath. I don't
know. But he was amoral.
and we did not get along at all.
Um, I had very little to do with little
to do with him. Uh, he couldn't do the
time and he was trying desperately to
get somebody to kill him.
And um I was sitting at the table with
two gangster disciple contract killers.
They're very dangerous people.
And I could sit with them because I'm
not a rat.
So, they were fine. We were talking and
Bernie came up and said um he used the
n-word. He said, "What are you doing
with these two?" Whatever.
And uh I said, "Oh my god." I looked at
the two guys and said, "Look, I just got
my clean shirt for the year, please. You
know, I don't want any blood on me."
They said, "No, don't worry." He said,
"He can't do the time. He's not going to
he's we're not going to touch him.
Don't worry."
So, at one point, um, he he baited me,
goated me, and he said something very
disrespectful about my wife, Esther.
And I just turned around and looked at
him, and I said, "What what did you
say?" And he repeated it.
You never insult a man's wife in prison.
Ever.
You don't You don't do that. But his
insult was way over the line.
And uh the same two guys pulled me off
him
um telling me, you know, come on, you're
smarter than this. He wants you to kill
him.
So he went to the hospital. You broken
sternum, broken arms. I mean, it was I
went I snapped.
And uh several weeks later, but nobody
ratted on me. It was strange. the the
captain called me in and um she looked
at me and she said, "A little bird told
me that uh someone looking just like you
uh put uh maid off in the hospital.
You want to respond to that?" I said,
"Does the little bird have a name?" And
she said, "I I'm not going to have him
killed. I I know what you're capable of.
I'm not going to have him killed." So
she said, "Just answer me yes or no."
And I said, "Captain, for as long as
I've known you, I've never lied to you."
Correct? And she said, "Yeah." I said,
"I'm not going to answer this question
then." And she said, "Okay." She said,
"In that case, uh, you tell the person,
she looked right at me who did this,
that if I catch him, he's going to do
six months in the hole on bread and
water." And I looked at her, I said,
"Why would you do that?" And she said,
"Because he didn't finish the job."
>> Wow.
>> I said, 'Well,
I'll tell him. I'll tell him. I'll pass
along the advice. He was universally
loathed.
>> In the end, he killed himself, I think.
>> No, no, no, no, no. He died. He was very
sick. He had a number of ailments. And
uh I remember when he had two sons who
died. One committed suicide. The other
one died of leukemia or cancer. And in
both cases he came to me and asked me
how do I say kadesh and what do I do?
And I told him with the first boy that
hung himself
um a troubled young man a troubled man
um I said you have to give money
um to Saddaka
to for the elevation of his soul.
And he said I'm not a you know
frier. I'm not going to do that. Why
should I give any money?
And I said, 'You have to.
You You have to do this. He said, I'm
not going to do it. So I did. I was
making 20 cents an hour in the factory
at the time. And I gave $5 to a charity
for the elevation of this boy's soul.
And I did it for the next son who died
of he wouldn't give a penny. Nothing.
nothing for his own sons. No,
that's that's amoral. That's not
immoral.
>> What happened to your What happened to
your roommate?
>> I'm still paying his legal fees.
>> He's still He's still there.
>> Yeah, he's completely innocent. I've
known a lot of men in prison who were
overly punished, but he's the only one I
know who was completely and utterly
innocent of the crime that he was crimes
that he was convicted of. He was out of
the country at the time. He had an
affair with his wife's best friend. The
best friend, of course, had to tell her
brother was an explosive ordinance guy
for the army. They made a bomb, went
off. his fingerprints were on the bomb
and uh he was out of the country and the
army refused to tell the court that he
had an alibi
because it was classified.
And so he got
more more time three consecutive natural
life sentences and the judge himself
said, you know, I I know you're
innocent, so let the guy go. I mean,
what's the problem? Well, that's
American justice. I'm sorry. So, uh he
was a bonafide noahide, by the way.
First one I ever met.
And uh from from birth, I mean, he was
genuine no hide, a genuine item. And um
I hope I can get him out. I don't know.
>> Do you have people that visit him on
your behalf? Is that allowed even?
>> Be careful about that, you know. I've
got to be really really careful about
that.
>> You You can't leave Israel, right? Is
that
>> No, I've I've left Israel many times.
Oh, you have?
>> Oh, yeah. For business. For business.
mostly uh Europe, Eastern Europe mostly.
>> You're not going to America though.
That's not
>> No. One of the reasons why I had to get
out of the country as fast as I did.
Yeah.
>> Was because uh we were told that the
incoming Biden administration was going
to indict me for obstruction of justice
asking for a life sentence. And it's now
it's a sealed indictment. So if I ever
decide to go back and there's no the
only reason I would go back to the
United States would be to get my parents
and move them to Haramu or Haretim or
something
>> to bury them in Kev.
>> I see.
>> Uh so there's no reason uh for me to go
>> if you don't mind because we're going to
need to wrap up soon and um I don't want
to to be [laughter] honest with you. um
because there's so many things that come
out of talking to you and you know I
don't know if it's ever going to go left
or right you know pun intended you know
in terms of the discussions um didn't
see that coming in terms of the
relationship and who you were with and
Bernie that story but I I'd like to know
if you can take us to the part where
because again I'm remembering as a kid
and the whole world was advocating for
you protesting for you and um it it
meant a lot for me and uh you know I I
could say on behalf of a lot of people
that are in my family, friends and
circle when we found out the news that
you know the redemption is coming and
>> we went through the process of you going
into prison. Can you take me a little
bit through the process of you getting
out in terms of what how did you hear
about it? What was that like for you?
Um, you know,
>> I I came up it just we don't believe in
coincidence as Jews, but it just so
happened that I came up for my first um
parole hearing, statutory parole hearing
at the time of the um political debate
over the JPOA with Iran, the joint
comprehensive nuclear agreement with
them. And um the first parole hearing
was a disaster.
And um my lawyers were telling the
assistant attorney general for national
security the fact that there were any
number of people including the former uh
head of the CIA that was advocating for
my release because I'd come up with a
number of technological developments
that would be good for the United
States. And the the guy on the TV, this
assistant secretary, assistant attorney
general, said, "You know, we don't care.
We don't care. You know, you're staying
in prison for the rest of your life."
And I looked at my lawyers and they
said, "Say whatever you want now. Just
don't curse." So I looked at the guy and
I said, "You know, the tragedy of this
situation is you hate me more than you
love the United States." And he went
berserk. Oh, my lawyer looked at me and
said, "You know, that was good. You got
him. You got him." So, the second
hearing came up about three, four months
later, and I just said, "Why am I
going?" I said, "Well, you have to."
Unbeknownst to me, the
Obama administration had decided to use
me as a means of embarrassing Israel.
and those people in on the Senate in
particular that were kind of backing
Israel's call for the United States not
to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran.
So, I show up to this hearing and the
first
conversation is, "Well, you're going to
be going to New York." And you know,
it's and I just looked at my lawyer and
I said, "What? What's he said, just be
quiet, just listen?" And um
Okay.
And I didn't know that that day on CNN
and everywhere else there was this
barrage of horrible anti-Israel
propaganda coming out from the
government that this man who got parole
today was responsible for the the worst,
you know, uh, treason in the world and,
you know, so many agents died. It was
just total lies, but it was meant to
embarrass Israel. Well, like Balam and
Balak, it kind of backfired.
So, the day before I was supposed to be
released,
I was called to the warden's office and
the secretary looked at me and she said,
"You know, I'm really sorry, Jonathan,
but um you're not being released."
Okay. So, I went back home steaming and
I called uh Esther.
She was my morah.
And I, you know, the worst thing you can
call an Israeli is a frier. That's the
worst thing. You can call him a
murderer. You can call him a two-timer.
You can call him anything you want. You
don't call an Israeli a frier. Those are
fighting words.
That's how I felt. So she said, "Okay,
be quiet. Be quiet. Do
whatever comes into your head." Which I
did.
And uh 2 hours later I was called back
to the warden's office and the secretary
looked at me and she said, "I am so
sorry. I switched the names. You're
leaving tomorrow at 7:00."
So this is the only braha I give to
people what I do for because what I said
because I know it works.
That's what I said and I it just came
into my head.
So there is there is there are two
things I would like to share with you or
or three things just if I could in
conclusion. One day um it was very snowy
and um the roads were impassible and the
captain came to see me and said you know
we don't have visiting today. The
cameras are off. They're all frozen,
solid, you know. But your wife is in the
visiting room, Esther. She walked 10
kilometers in the snow. You couldn't
even see the road. She just walked. And
he said, "My own wife would kill me if I
didn't let you meet." So
he took me into the visiting room. You
know, there you not supposed to touch
your wife. You know, nothing.
So, you know, um the captain just said,
"You can kiss her if you want. It's
okay. You know, nice a restrained kiss.
So, I said, "Okay." I kissed her. So, we
sat down. I had my arm around her and
we're watching the snowfall and I look
over at the
officer and he's snoring
and I know that the cameras are off.
I said, "Excuse me?" I went over to him.
I woke him up and I said, "Do you want
to make $1,000?"
And he said, "Um, what do you have in
mind?" And I said, "Just leave." I said,
"I know the cameras are off. Just stand
outside the door for 20 minutes. You
know, I keep locked the door." And he
looked at her and he looked at me and he
he said, "You know, if it were anybody
else, I said, I know you want kids." He
said, "If it were anybody else, I would
say fine, but he said, if she gets
pregnant, it's my neck." I because I I'm
going to lose my job.
I'm sorry. And I said, "Oh, it's okay.
It's fine."
So, I sat down. So, Esther looked at me
and she said, "What was that all about?"
So, I told her
and she hit me in the shoulder very,
very, very hard. And I said, "What did
you do that for?" She said, "$1,000.
That's all I'm worth." [laughter] And I
said, "It's all the money I have in my
all the years in prison working slaving
in a factory. This is all my money." So
that [snorts] this the second story was
um what happened. There was a a man, an
older guy who had broken out of every
prison he was sent in, never hurt
anybody. He was a serial bank robber,
very successful, embarrassed the police.
He was dying of pancreatic cancer and
they were not giving him pain
medication. and they wanted him to
suffer and boy did he suffer. So one
night um the guys came and got me and
said he wants somebody to kill him. You
you got to deal with him. I mean you
talk him out of it or something. I mean
you he never ratted on anybody. So he's
a righteous guy with us. So you don't
want something bad to happen to him. So
I sat down next to him on his bed. He
was crying and I held his hand and he
said, "Please kill me. Please, I'm
begging you. I can't take this anymore.
The pain.
So I looked at him and I said, "Listen
to me.
You know you're going, right?" He said,
"Yeah." I said, "You're going to be
before God soon
and you don't want to go down. You just
want to go up if you can. So you have to
live another day and another day." And
he said, "Why?" I said, "To bless God.
That's why.
And he didn't understand really what I
was talking about. And another friend of
mine who also was dying of cancer, but
they were going to let him go home on
compassionate leave. He had maybe a
month to live is metastatic. He isn't
going to be. He ripped the Vicodin patch
off his arm and it left a blue line
which meant another five years.
and he slapped it on the guy's neck and
the guy just kind of relaxed and we were
all stunned. I I looked at him and I
said, "What did you do? Are you crazy?
You're you're you can't you're about to
go home after God knows how many years.
You've been 35 36 years in prison. What?
Why did you do that?" He said, "I
listened to what you said to this guy
and he said, you know, I've lived a very
bad life. I've killed a lot of people.
I've done a lot of bad things. He said,
"Maybe
what I just did will look good in God's
eyes."
So, of course, within about an hour, he
was arrested. There was a rat. He was
arrested. And I the next day with
hundreds of inmates, black, brown,
oriental, white, whatever, were lined up
at the internal security office to plead
for this guy. So finally I I indexed up
and I I looked at the um officer and he
said, 'What are you doing in here? You
never talked to us and I said why I was
there and he said, "You see the shredded
paper?" He said I said, "Yeah." He said,
"I shredded it." He said, "I can't
charge him after what he did." He said,
"It was one of the most um altruistic
things I've ever seen in prison. So he's
going to go home in two days. we're
we're going to advance it and let him go
home. So, in two days, almost everybody
in the prison was lined up uh to say
goodbye.
Why? Because in an environment like that
where life is really really cheap, for
somebody to stand up and do something
like that with nothing to gain from it
um kind of gave us all hope in man.
So he died about three weeks later.
The last thing um I have to tell you is
one day Esther came to see me and she
had been sent by the cabinet,
BB's cabinet. Um I was surprised. I
said, "What are you doing here?" And she
said, "Um
Carrie, the Secretary of State had
offered to release you."
I said, "What's the catch?"
She said, uh, he wants 150 terrorists
with blood on their hands to be
released. And she said, "You can't come
home. If you agree to this, you're going
to stay here in the Midbar for the rest
of your life, free, but in the desert."
But she said, "Before you answer me," I
said, "Why? Why? Why? Why am I being
asked?" And she said, "By's putting it
on you.
It's up to you to decide whether this
deal goes forward or not.
I mean, I thought at the moment that's a
really horrible burden to put on me
because I know I'm never getting out
otherwise. But he also understood what I
was going to say.
So she said before you answer I want you
to understand that whatever you decide
whether you decide in prison to stay in
prison I will stay here with you or if
you decide to stay in the midbar as she
called it uh I will stay with you.
That's why over her grave on her stone
um kind of a half moon half circle is
the quote from Tahaleim. I knew you were
in your youth in the in the desert. I
loved you in your youth in the desert.
So she said, "What's your answer?" So I
said, "No."
She said, "Well, could you give me a
slightly longer answer because I have to
go back and and brief the cabinet." I
said, "Yeah, hell no. And she said, "No,
you know, you're an educated man." I
thought, you know, could you just give
me an educated answer? And I said,
"Okay, fine. There are three reasons.
Number one, it would devalue the life of
the victims. Number two, it would uh
lower deterrence. It would encourage
other murder other Arabs to murder Jews.
And thirdly, it would it would inflict
terrible pain on the families
that while they might want me out, not
this way."
So she said, "That's a very those are
very good answers, but it's not the
Jewish answer."
So I said, "Okay, what's the Jewish
answer?" And she said, "There are only
two ways you can come home. Either as a
met, you're dead, and we'll put you in
Knesset Israel, or you'll come home as
an old man and kiss the ground."
I thought why isn't there a third way
that I could come home as a young man
and just you know but that that's what
she told me she said I want you to
remember something go back to the
meagalim
they actually voted to stay in the
midbar
for their co
and she said we've been paying for that
ever since
so she said that is why you said no
because you don't want more pain and
suffering on the Jewish people because
of your decision to stay in the Midvar.
And I said, "That's the Jewish answer?"
And she said, "Yes." I said, "Okay, you
can put my put my name on that." But
that's why I kissed the ground when I
came back.
Um I it just seemed like the natural
thing to do.
Um, so
>> I'm really happy that you spent time uh
telling us about her because it was on
my mind a lot and I appreciate that.
>> Esther, you know, look what she did at
the end of her life. She did the
with my current wife.
She just had hours to live.
And you know when I asked her why why
did you do this?
You know I heard the words I was living
in dread hearing. She said, "I am I'm
going today
and I want you to be happy."
There was uh a moment when I was asked
to go up to the Golan Ramata Golan to
look at some things and um she insisted
on coming
and I said, "Sweetheart, you can't walk.
You know, you can barely breathe. You
know what?" She said, "I I I have to
go."
So I carried her
and she said, "Uh, take me up to the top
of this little hill," which I did. And
there's Syria on one side in Lebanon. I
mean, within a couple of meters, and we
have security around us, and she said,
"Um, look north." I look north. She
said, "What do you see?"
I said, "Uh, I see." I mean, the flags
were everywhere. And she said, "Look
further. What do you see?" And I said,
"Uh,"
and she said, "No, look with your
nephesh,
as far as you can see. What do you see?"
I said, "I don't know what she said."
So, she said, "Uh, I won't be around to
see it, but uh hopefully you will be.
So my parting gift to everybody is that
we should all be Zoha to see that what
she saw.
>> Amen.
>> Amen. Thank you so much for sharing.
Really really appreciate today and uh
wow. Thank you Dave for being here.
>> Thank you for the unbelievable
opportunity to be part of this.
>> This was amazing. This is uh by me as
the millions of people that bump into
you in you know usually am every day.
This was not a coincidence.
>> No, we don't believe in coincidence.
>> Exactly. We just don't.
>> I can't wait to give Sudaka and Leila uh
your previous wife.
>> Raisel Brahma. May her nishama have an
aliyah.
>> Amen.
>> And may all the Nishamas that are not
with us have an aliyah. And uh thank you
again for
>> it was my pleasure
>> your heroism for for thank you for being
who you are. Thank you for your
transparency. Thank you for your love of
life and for infusing that into this
session and this discussion
guys. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for
listening. Thanks for getting involved.
Uh I I can't ask for more. And uh thank
you Hashem for this opportunity for
being here today. And that's a wrap.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Wow, that was amazing.
>> [music]