The Gordin Cell

A knock at the door suddenly turns the placid lives of Michail and Diana Gordin upside-down. One Sunday morning Jacob Londin, an agent handler for the Russian intelligence (SVR) who manipulated their lives for many years, appears at their doorstep on a quiet street in Tel Aviv. Michail and Diana both immigrated to Israel in the early 1990s from the USSR. It had seemed to them that their grim and terrifying contact with Londin had ended. They hadn’t heard from him for six years. Now he is back unexpectedly, bearing a message that is hard for them to swallow: he wants their son.

Israeli born Eyal (Alexander) Gordin is twenty. He has no idea that his parents were spies. An Air Force officer in a high-security post, he is currently stationed at the Air Force's main HQ and recovering from battle injuries sustained in Lebanon. He loves his country, has an all-Israeli girlfriend and tries to force his family to speak Hebrew in an effort to erase their ethnic background, which he finds an embarrassment. His parents, his grandmother Ninaand elder sister Nati (Natalia) emigrated from the USSR in 1990. Eyal has always tried to remain faithful to Jewish-Israeli patriotic ideals, though this has not always been easy. Now, he faces the cruelest test of all: Russian intelligence wants him; his parents’ and sister’s fate depends upon his cooperation, while the SHABAK, the fearsome internal security service, tests his family allegiance. Will Eyal Gordin betray his parents?