Omri Assenheim

Omri Assenheim, a 2020 fellow of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, is an Israeli docu-investigative filmmaker, and non-fiction author. For the last 13 years, Assenheim worked for UVDA, a weekly investigative and documentary program on Israeli TV, Channel 12 (the Israeli "60 Minutes"). Assenheim began his career working as a print journalist at Ha'ir and later at Ma'ariv, where he specialized in investigating the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). During his first year at UVDA, Assenheim became the youngest recipient of the Sokolov Award, the highest award for outstanding journalism in Israel, for his investigative reports on a classified IDF experiment carried out on soldiers in attempt to develop an anthrax vaccine. In November 2012, Assenheim's first book, TZE'ELIM, was published, revealing an Israeli plan to assassinate Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein and the resulting political-military scandal. The film he directed based on his book won a gold medal at the 2014 New-York Festivals - World's Best TV & Films. In 2016, Assenheim's groundbreaking investigative-documentary about a man whose two wives had died mysteriously 15 years apart led to the reopening of a police investigation and ended with a double-murder conviction. Later in 2016, Assenheim published his second book CATCHING A MURDERER to articulate this story. The same year, his piece about the National Institute of Forensic Medicine prompted the State Prosecution Ombudsman to publish a special investigation report. On 2018, Assenheim's investigative piece about former head of the Shin Bet, Jaacob Peri, revealing dishonesties about his military service, led to Peri's immediate resign from the Israeli Knesset. In 2019 CATCHING A MURDERER was converted into a theater play at "Habima"', Israel's national theater. The play, CAUASE OF DEATH: UNKNOWN won the best Israeli play of the year award. Assenheim is married to Inbal, and is the father of four boys