Anne Pollard, in poor health, arrives in Israel

Pollard turned to Israeli consulate for help; Israeli officials found her in bad health and difficult economic conditions in her NY apartment.

By HERB KEINON
Jonathan Pollard 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Jonathan Pollard 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Ann Pollard, the first wife of Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life term in US prison for spying for Israel, arrived in the country on Monday afternoon in poor health and broke, after turning to the Israeli Consulate in New York for help.
Pollard, who was arrested with her husband in 1985 and served 40 months of a five-year prison term for being an accessory to possessing classified documents, first turned to the consulate in Los Angeles in August and requested assistance.
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According to the Prime Minister’s Office, she then disappeared, only to reappear last week in New York. When officials from the consulate visited her apartment, they found that both she and her father were ill and impoverished, according to sources in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu set up a team, headed by cabinet secretary Tzvi Hauser and including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Jewish Agency officials, to bring Pollard and her father to Israel and provide for their needs.
Netanyahu said that “Israel has a moral obligation” to help her out, and would do so, according to his office.
Lieberman released a statement on Monday night saying that “we did the best that we could to help on this matter because Ann Pollard’s place is in Israel, as is Jonathan Pollard’s.”
Ann Pollard was released from prison in 1990 and was soon after served divorce papers from her husband. She lived for a period in Israel in the 1990s, but then returned to the US. Jonathan Pollard married a second time in 1993, to Esther Pollard.