Simcha Jacobovici

Simcha Jacobovici (born April 4, 1953) is a Canadian-Israeli journalist, documentary filmmaker and New York Times best-selling author.

Simcha Jacobovici's parents were Holocaust survivors from Iași, Romania.

He was born April 4, 1953, in Petah Tikva, Israel.

In 1962, the family relocated to Canada.

He earned a B.A. in philosophy and political science (with honors) from McGill University and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Toronto.

As an early advocate of airlifting Ethiopian Jews to Israel, he wrote an op-ed piece on the subject for New York Times and made his first documentary, Falasha: Exile of the Black Jews (1983).

The Economist credited Jacobovici's documentary as one of the factors leading to the 1984–85 Israeli airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.

Jacobovici's film on the Arab–Israeli conflict, Deadly Currents (1991), won the Genie Award for Best Documentary, a gold medal at the International Documentary Festival of Nyon, and was the runner-up for the Peace Prize at the 1991 Berlin Film Festival and was the only documentary screened in both Israeli army bases and Palestinian Refugee Camps.

The 1994 film, The Plague Monkeys resulted in the closure of a level 4 lab in Toronto, Canada.

James, Brother of Jesus highlighted an ossuary in the private collection of an Israeli antiquities collector, Oded Golan.

Golan was accused of forging part of the inscription on a 2,000-year-old bone box/ossuary.

Jacobovici and Hershel Shanks (founding editor of Biblical Archaeology Review), stood by their story.

Jacobovici has made three documentaries with James Cameron, The Exodus Decoded (2005), The Lost Tomb of Jesus (2007) and Atlantis Rising (2016).

In 2008, a conference made up of renowned scholars took place in Jerusalem to discuss the thesis of Jacobovici’s film.

By the end, a minority of scholars backed the thesis, another minority rejected it and the majority argued that the subject has to be studied further.

The proceedings of the conference were published by James H. Charlesworth under the name [https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6745/the-tomb-of-jesus-and-his-family.aspx ''The Tomb of Jesus and His Family?

In 2012, after 7 years in an Israeli court, Golan was exonerated.

His most controversial claim is the identification of a tomb in Jerusalem as that of Jesus of Nazareth and his family in the Talpiot Tomb.

In 2012, Jacobovici investigated a Second Temple-era burial cave in Armon Hanatziv with a camera mounted on a robotic arm.

Along with James Tabor, he claimed that the 2,000-year-old cave may be the burial site of disciples of Jesus.

Such identification has been rejected by many scholars.

Jacobovici hosted three seasons of The Naked Archaeologist on VisionTV in Canada and The History Channel in the United States.

Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls'' (Eerdmans)] (2013).

Over the past decades, Jacobovici has engaged in what he calls "investigative archaeology".

From 2015 to 2018 he was an Adjunct Professor of religious studies at Huntington University, Greater Sudbury, Ontario.

Jacobovici is a three-time Emmy winner for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.

His filmmaking awards include a Certificate of Special Merit from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a Gold Medal from the International Documentary Festival of Nyon, two US CableACE Awards, a Royal Television Society Award, two Gemini Awards, an Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, two Gold Dolphins from the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards, a Jack R. Howard Award from the Scripps Howard Awards for In-Depth National and International Coverage, the Norman Bethune Award from the Canadian Medical Association for Excellence in International Health Reporting and, from the Overseas Press Club of America, two Edward R. Murrow Awards and a Carl Spielvogel Award.

In 2017, he was awarded the Gordon Sinclair Award, Canada's highest achievement in Broadcast Journalism, from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

Working with Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson, in 2020 Jacobovici completed the 6 part series Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (CBC, Epix, BBC, Fremantle) as Showrunner/Series Director''.

Enslaved is the most comprehensive television series ever made on the subject.

It tells the epic and tragic story using a modern day quest for sunken slave ships as the springboard to the larger narrative.

Enslaved is being broadcast in 147 countries garnering record ratings and outstanding reviews.

Enslaved was nominated for two NAACP Image Awards, including Best Director and Series and won 3 Canadian Screen Awards.

It won a "Buzzie" for Best Historical Series at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers.

It was also honored for Outstanding Achievement by the Impact Doc Awards and was named Best Documentary at the International Filmmaker Festival in London.

As part of their anti-racism campaign, Enslaved has been screened in the United Nations and the European Parliament.

Paris Match has called Enslaved "One small step for man…One giant leap for civil rights!"

His 2022 book, Enslaved: The Sunken History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, written with Sean Kingsley, with a preface by Brenda Jones, was published by Pegasus in New York and distributed by Simon & Schuster worldwide.

He is presently (2022–2023) Showrunner/Series Director on The Science of Avatar, a 4-part non-scripted series for Disney+/National Geographic.

Several of Jacobovici's films have sparked controversies.