Esther Pollard, the wife of Jonathan Pollard, passed away at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center. She had been rushed to the hospital on Saturday after her health deteriorated. She had breast cancer and was also fighting off Covid-19.
The funeral will be held on Monday at Har HaMenuchot Cemetery in Jerusalem at 4 PM.
Esther Zeitz was born in Montreal, Canada. She and Jonathan Pollard actually met in 1971 when they were both teenagers on an Israeli youth program. They had discussions about their mutual love for the land and people of Israel, but then returned to their homes – he to South Bend, Indiana, and she to Montreal, not even dreaming that they would meet again.
While in prison, Jonathan shared his own thoughts on his marriage in a message to a Jewish magazine from his prison cell in Butner, North Carolina. “We are taught that a wife is an eizer k’negdo, a helpmate to her husband; she complements and completes him, facilitates his agenda. We also have the concept of bashert, two people meant for each other. These concepts don’t go far enough in describing my feelings for Esther. She is my bashert, but much more than that. She is my eizer, but much more than that. She enables me to live this kind of existence with hope for now and for the future.
“Esther allows me to get up every morning in this devastating environment and to feel hope, to know that Hashem gave me a wonderful and loyal wife, and to live each day believing that in the wink of any eye He will bring me home to her.”
Jonathan Pollard’s words summarize the essence of Esther, the consummate Eishet Chayil, Woman of Valor, the Jewish wife who brought about the greatest miracle in this tragic tale.
MK Bezalel Smotrich has requested that the Knesset session opening be delayed this afternoon, to allow government representatives to be at the funeral and pay their proper respects.
