Whatever Happened To Ya'akov Teitel?

כ"ו וחודש האחד עשר תשע"ג

Remember Ya'akov Teitel?  Everyone always used to ask me about him, thinking that everyone in the Shomron (Samaria) knew each other, especially if you were both native English speakers.

Go figure...

Well, nope.  Never knew him.  But, apparently, this has what's been happening to him.  The recent mention of him came and went very quickly.

Arutz 7: Court: Teitel Guilty of Two Murders
Teitel "committed the deeds ascribed to him out of full consciousness, and willingly chose their results."

Gil Ronen, January 16, 2013


The Jerusalem District Court convicted Yaakov (Jack) Teitel of two counts of murder and three attempted murders. The ruling upholds a plea bargain between the defendant and the State Attorney's Office. Teitel's victims were Arabs and his motivation nationalistic. He is one of a very small group of Jews convicted of terrorism against Arabs, in a country where thousands of Arabs commit terror acts against Jews annually.

Ever noticed how Jews are called "terrorists" and Arabs are called "freedom fighters?"  ...maybe not by Arutz 7, but pretty much by everybody else.

Normally, I would say that we shouldn't care. But in this case, it's not just goyim doing the name calling; it is misguided Jews.

The three judges, Tzvi Segal, Moshe Drori and Moshe Yo'ad Hacohen, decided unanimously that  Teitel's mental condition was irrelevant to the acts and that he was responsible for his actions.

The judges determined that Teitel enjoyed violence, and that he also had been cruel to animals.
 "These ideological and personality-related systems, combined with the precise planning and high sophistication that the defendant exhibited, in conjunction with the defendant's lack of a psychiatric history, show, at the required level of probability, that he committed the deeds ascribed to him out of full consciousness, and willingly chose their results."

How it was determined that "he enjoyed violence, and that he also had been cruel to animals," based on "the defendant's lack of a psychiatric history," I'll never know.

About one year ago, Teitel's attorneys signed a plea bargain with the State Attorney's Office. The District Court approved the deal and determined that Teitel did, indeed, commit the crimes he was accused of.

I guess they knew that Teitel wasn't going to get a fair shake, quit while they were behind.

Remember how Teitel was said to have confessed to the shootings at the Tel-Aviv gay and lesbian center?  It was later revealed that he could not have been in Tel-Aviv.  A neighbor of his had gone into labor, and so he was driving her to the hospital.  The hospital staff remembered him.

What does that tell you about the "system?"

Like several other cases in Israel, and abroad, I can think of, I do not believe that we will never know the full story behind Ya'akov Teitel.