Israeli Rabbi, Three Other Orthodox Jews, Acquitted of Abduction Charge

Rabbi Binyamin Mendelsohn and three other Orthodox Jews were acquitted in District Court here today of charges of complicity in the 1959 kidnaping of Yossele Shumacher, when the prosecutor repudiated the testimony of his chief witness as completely false.Yossele Shumacher, who is now about 10, was abducted, allegedly by ultra-Orthodox persons who feared that his parents may not give him a religious education. He has been missing since 1959, although Israeli authorities have been searching for him on three continents.

The embarrassed prosecutor, Ezra Hadaya, asked for and received dismissal of the charges against the four members of the Agudat Israel collective village, Kommemiut. He said his witness, Yitzhak Kugler, had called him last night and confessed that his testimony against the rabbi and the others was “a concoction of fact and fancy. ” The court promptly ordered that Kugler, a former member of Kommemiut, be tried for perjury. The prosecutor conceded that his case had been based mainly on the testimony of Kugler.

The prosecutor told the court he also would ask cancelation of the proceedings against Rabbi Mendelsohn on a separate charge of kidnaping and holding another youth, Yisroel Vinnik. The rabbi had testified that the boy was brought to Kommemiut after his divorced mother and her common-law husband had reached an agreement to try to obtain a loan for housing from Orthodox sources with a threat to enter the child in a Christian mission.

Members of the Agudah executive told the press that a Parliamentary probe would be sought because of the “unusual zeal” evinced by police in arresting the four Kommemiut members “on the flimsiest evidence.”