Suspected Jewish terrorist claims membership in Yad L’achim

By ICEJ News

10 Feb 2010

The Hebrew daily Ha’aretz reported on Wednesday that suspected Jewish terrorist Yaakov (Jack) Teitel recently told his interrogators he was an active member of anti-missionary group Yad L'achim for five years. The ultra-Orthodox group has gained notoriety in recent years for its actions against Messianic Jews, whom it perceives as a "sect" seeking to convert Jews to Christianity. Teitel, a resident of the settlement Shvut Rachel, was charged last November with murdering two Palestinians and attempting to murder three people, including leftist Hebrew University Professor Zeev Sternhell and Ariel teenager Ami Ortiz. Ortiz, from a family of Messianic Jews, was gravely wounded by a bomb packaged inside a Purim gift basket in March 2008. Teitel admitted to placing the bomb, and called the Ortiz family "missionaries trying to capture weak Jews." Teitel admitted he was connected to the organization during an interrogation several weeks after his arrest, saying he had been involved in “rescue operations” to deliver Jewish women who were living with Arab men. Yad L’achim is denying that Teitel was connected to their organization.

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