November 26, 1986
Victor Vancier, [aka Chaim Ben Yosef] the "self-proclaimed leader" of the JDL in New York, was arrested outside the Penta Hotel with a tear gas grenade after a fire broke out in the tunnels under the hotel where the Soviet Moiseyev Dance Company, was staying. Vancier was charged with a federal weapons violation. (See October 27 1987)
February 9, 1987
Two JDL members disrupted the performance of Soviet pianist Lazar Berman at Carnegie Hall in New York by chanting, "Free Soviet Jews, Communist Nazis." Both were removed from the hall and charged with disorderly conduct.
April 1, 1987
Murray Young, a "suspected JDL member," was arrested for his involvement for two violent attacks that took place at the Metropolitan Opera and Avery Fisher Hall. Police confiscated "a cache of weapons and documents" from Young's home. Included among the weapons were: a semi-automatic machine gun, handguns, rifles and two stun guns, as well as ammunition, tear gas canisters, explosive powder, stink bombs and "detailed records about bombings directed at organizations affiliated with the Soviet Union." Young was charged with possession of a pistol silencer without a serial number, and later received a 5-year prison term. (See October 27 1987.)
May 8, 1987
Jay Cohen, Sharon Katz and Victor Vancier, all JDL members, are arrested in connection with six incidents, including the 1984 firebombing a car at the Soviet diplomatic residence in Riverdale, the 1985 and 1986 fire and pipe bombings of cars owned by a rival JDL member in Howard Beach, the 1986 firebombing at the stage door of Avery Fisher Hall before the performance of the Soviet State Symphony, and the detonation of a tear gas grenade at the Metropolitan Opera in September 1986. Authorities stated that with the arrests of the three, they had "solved all the significant JDL terrorist acts in the New York area. " (See October 27 1987.)
May 20, 1987
An arrest warrant for disorderly conduct was issued for Kahane in Overland Park, Kansas after he failed to appear at a hearing examining those charges in connection to a shoving match that Kahane had with two Arab men who attended a lecture he gave on November 18 1986. One of the men, Musa Shoucair, filed a civil suit against Kahane for $10,000 in damages for "assault, battery and outrageous conduct resulting in emotional stress" as the consequences of the incident."
May 31, 1987
Eight JDL members disrupt the Womens' Olympic Volleyball match in Florida between the U.S. and Soviet teams by sitting in the middle of the volleyball court and chanting, "One, two three, four, open up the iron door, five, six, seven eight - let our people emigrate." They were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct."
June 30, 1987
The outer shell of a grenade wrapped in aluminum foil and connected to four batteries and a clock was found in a garbage can at Lincoln Center in New York hours before the Bolshoi Ballet was to perform. Minutes before the device was discovered, an unidentified caller telephone United Press International and said: "Bomb. Lincoln Square Plaza. Death to Soviet dancers," and referred to JDL founder Meir Kahane.
October 27, 1987
Victor Vancier, the former National Chairman of the JDL, was sentenced to ten years in prison for bombing attacks at the Soviet diplomatic residence in New York and at Soviet cultural performances. A JDL co-defendant in the case, Jay Cohen, committed suicide on September 6 in his hotel room in the Catskill Mountains. Two other JDL members who were sentenced in the same case were Murray Young, described as a "bomb maker," who received a five-year term because he co-operated with prosecutors after his arrest. Young told the sentencing judge that he had engaged in violence because his grandfather had been beheaded in Russia. Sharon Katz was sentenced to six months house arrest and five years probation, and a $5000 fine for detonating a tear gas grenade. The three were sentenced for an incident in October of 1986 in which the opening night performance of the Soviet Union's Moiseyev Dancers was tear gassed. Vancier had previously justified the JDL's violence by saying that Jews must take extreme measures because "crazy Jews live longer."
January 23, 1988
Irv Rubin, the JDL National Chairman in California, taunted Muslim anti-Israel protesters at the Federal Building in Westwood, California. Police officers at the scene intervened in order to prevent any violence.
February 15, 1988
JDL National Director Irv Rubin denied responsibility for the bombing of the PLO's "Ship of Return" in Limassol, Cyprus. The "Ship of Return" was a PLO propaganda project aimed at evoking sympathy for convicted Palestinian terrorists who were expelled from Israel for their violent activities. An anonymous caller telephoned the Associated Press in Nicosia, Cyprus and claimed that the JDL in the U.S. was "responsible for the bombing in Limassol. Next time we will bomb it-with all the people on it." When asked about the bombing, Rubin stated, "I wholeheartedly applaud the bombing of the PLO-chartered ferry in Cyprus. It was a sacred, righteous act to defend the state of Israel. I am honored that our group was blamed. I would love to take credit for this action, but the credit belongs to people much more heroic than I and the JDL. " On a radio program several days before the ship was sunk, Rubin stated that he thought that "someone should sink the boat," and if people were aboard the ship while it was attacked, he "would not condemn the action. I am a Jew who understands what the PLO is about. Their total reason for being is to destroy the state of Israel.
June 1988
Rochelle Manning, a member of JDL who was then living in Israel, was arrested as she alighted from a plane in Los Angeles for her involvement in the letter-bomb murder of Patricia Wilkerson, a secretary working for the business rival of one of her JDL associates in Manhattan Beach, California. The bombing was not connected to the political program of the JDL, but was apparently part of a business feud between JDL member William Howard Ross and Brenda Crouthamel, who had no ties to the JDL. Both Rochelle Manning's and her husband, Robert Manning's fingerprints were found together with the materials accompanying the bomb. Robert Manning was previously convicted in 1972 for "placing an incendiary device" outside the home of two Arabs in Los Angeles. (See March 8 1994)
September 8, 1988
An anonymous caller to a new agency in France claimed responsibility in the name of the Jewish Defense Organization for vandalizing the offices of French right-wing extremist Jean Marie Le Pen. The vandals painted SS insignia, swastikas and the Star of David on the walls, broke furniture, and stole membership money from Le Pen's National Front organization.
February 17, 1989
Irv Rubin, National Chairman of the JDL in California, announced his group's intentions to disrupt the convention of a Holocaust revisionist organization, the institute for Historical Review (IHR). "If we can find [their] location, we'll bring at least 100 people," Rubin said. Describing his group's stance towards the IHR, Rubin declared, "You don't picket Nazis, you don't protest Nazis, you smash Nazis. "
March 4, 1989
JDL Chairman Irv Rubin stated that his group would hold a rally against a white supremacist rock concert called "Aryan Woodstock" in San Francisco. "We're going to rally with our people. [We want] such a large number that the skinheads will show their true colors and scamper away like cockroaches," Rubin said.
March 31, 1989
Jewish Defense Organization leader Mordechai Levy threatened to "meet violence with violence" if a projected Ku Klux Klan rally was to take place in Millville, New Jersey. "I don't like violence," Levy said. But sometimes, violence must be used. If the Klan marches, it will be opposed with force."
June 3, 1989
The JDO's Mordechai Levy and the JDL's Irv Rubin nearly came to blows at a Los Angeles airport press conference that was called by Levy to denounce the attack by four neo-Nazi skinheads against a Middle Eastern couple whom they mistook for Jews from La Verne, California. Rubin and several of his followers accosted Levy as he arrived in Los Angeles. The two spat in each others' faces and a Rubin follower tried to attack an innocent bystander whom he thought was a Levy sympathizer. The man, who happened to be Jewish, was holding a baby and chastised his attacker by saying, "I am a Jew, too, so let me through," as he walked down the hall.
August 11, 1989
The JDO's Mordechai Levy opened fire from the roof of his apartment building in New York on his arch rival, Irv Rubin, who was trying to subpoena Levy with a slander suit. After a 2 and ½ hour standoff, Levy surrendered to police. As the result of the shooting, a retired busdriver, Dominic Spinelli, was struck with gunfire in his leg. Levy was charged with four counts of attempted murder, one count of first-degree assault, and one count .of criminal possession of a deadly weapon.
October 18, 1990
40-60 JDL members pounded on the front door, trampled the lawn and left signs stating, "Deport Nazi Ensin!" and "No Mass Murderers in Mass.!" on the house of accused Nazi war criminal Albert Ensin in Stoughton, Massachusetts.
November 14, 1990
Nine days after the murder of Meir Kahane, a note was mailed to a television reporter threatening vengeance for the murder of the Kach leader. Threatening that "things will go boom in the night," the note reportedly contained a "hit list" which included prominent Jewish critics of Israel's policies and American Arabs sympathetic to the PLO. The note reportedly listed Rita Hauser, Chairperson of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East and a New York attorney who met with Yasir Arafat in 1988; Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, a professor at Dartmouth known for his support of Israeli and Jewish peace groups, and New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis. Others reportedly included on the list were former Palestine National Council member Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, former Arab League Ambassador to the UN Clovis Maksoud, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and Muhammad T. Mehdi, head of the National Council on Islamic Affairs.
In May of 1991, at the hearing of Sayyid al-Nosair, Binyamin Kahane disrupted the proceedings by jumping to his feet and screaming "Revenge, revenge!" in Hebrew. Supporters of Kahane further disrupted the court proceedings by chanting "Never again, never again!" and jostled with court officers as they were removed from the courtroom.
December 22, 1991
Responding to the acquittal of Sayyid al-Nosair for the murder of Meir Kahane, his son and leader of Kahane Chai, Binyamin Kahane, declared, "We vow that Sayyid Nosair will not see a day without fear until his very last day. "
(Note: On October 1, 1995, Nosair was convicted of Kahane's murder on seditious conspiracy charges.)
February 26, 1992
A bomb exploded at 2:07 a.m. outside the Syrian Mission to the United Nations. Damage to the building included a shattered plate glass window near its entrance and a two foot hole in its entryway. There were no injuries. Several hours later, an identical bomb was found inside a cardboard box within a telephone booth on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A note found with the first bomb was destroyed by the blast, but the second note read, "Free Syrian Jews." Later in the day, a man identifying himself as a member of Kahane Chai contacted the Associated Press and claimed responsibility for the bombing. Subsequently, the group made a statement denying responsibility for the bombing but did not condemn it. Binyamin Kahane, the director of Kahane Chai, made a written statement which declared:
"We hope this incident will serve as a warning and a deterrent to Syria and to Syrian-backed terrorists that the long arm of Jewish vengeance can reach them too."
January 5, 1994
Between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m., a bomb was placed outside a New York building that houses Americans for Peace Now, Habonim, Israel Horizons, and the Progressive Zionist Caucus. The bomb did not explode but was later defused by police . A second bomb, placed outside the building which houses the New Israel Fund, exploded but there were no injuries. Notes left with the bombs declared that an Jewish "civil war has begun. " The notes also spoke of the "spilling of blood in Israel" and criticized the Israeli Government as being "too liberal. " The notes were signed by the "Shield of David" and the "Maccabee Squad." A press release issued by Kahane Chai provided its traditional response subsequent to such incidents: the organization "denied responsibility" for the attacks, but "refused] to condemn the act."
February 10, 1994
JDL member Robert Manning was convicted of complicity in the 1980 letter-bombing death of a secretary in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 30 years. The letter-bomb incident had no connection to JDL activities but was instead an attack contracted by William Howard Ross, a fellow JDL member who had a long drawn out business dispute with the owner of the firm where the secretary worked.
March 8, 1994
The Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition by Rochelle Manning, wife of Robert Manning and both JDL members, to block her extradition to the United States in order to face murder charges. Rochelle Manning is to be re-tried on murder charges relating to the 1980 letter-bomb attack on a California secretary. On March 19 1994, Rochelle Manning died of a heart attack in an Israeli prison while awaiting her extradition to the United States.
June 9, 1995
Los Angeles, California - William Howard Ross, a member of the Jewish Defense League, was sentenced to life imprisonment for having enlisted Robert and Rochelle Manning to construct and mail a booby trap bomb to a local computer company with whom Ross had had a personal dispute. (See June 1988 and February 10, 1994 regarding the trial and sentencing of Robert Manning.