Jewish Extremist Is Freed After Being Held for 5 Months in Church Arson
Image by Getty Images
An accused Jewish extremist with dual Israeli and American citizenship was released from an Israeli prison after being jailed without charges for five months.
Mordechai Meyer, 18, of the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, was set free Monday after being under administrative detention since August for his suspected involvement in an arson attack more than a year ago on a Baptist abbey in Jerusalem. He was released hours after three suspects, including two minors, were charged in the attack on the Dormition Abbey, Haaretz reported.
The Shin Bet security service ordered Meyer’s jailing immediately after a firebombing by alleged Jewish terrorists killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents in the West Bank village of Duma.
As a condition of his release, Meyer must remain under house arrest at night and may not enter the West Bank. His attorney called the requirements “an earthquake.”
“A man sat in jail for five months for nothing,” the attorney, Itzhak Bam of the Honenu organization, told Haaretz. “We will demand a reconsideration of all the administrative orders and administrative detentions that were apparently issued on the basis of the Shin Bet’s erroneous information.”
In a statement, the Shin Bet said Meyer “belongs to a Jewish terror organization, some of whose members have been served with serious indictments. The basis of his administrative detention was the immediate risk he posed as a member of this organization, and as someone who was involved in its activities.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
