Founder of settlers movement jailed

JERUSALEM, Dec. 15 (JTA) — An Israeli court has sentenced one of the co-founders of the Hebron settlers movement to six months in jail. Rabbi Moshe Levinger also received a six-month suspended sentence and a fine of about $2,300 for assault and disturbing the peace three years ago in Hebron. Levinger was convicted of disturbing Muslim prayers at Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994 and of blocking an army commander from entering Kiryat Arba, a settlement located near Hebron. In 1990, Levinger served three-and-a-half months of a five-month sentence for killing an Arab shopkeeper in Hebron during a 1988 stone-throwing incident. Prior to that, he also received a four-month sentence for assaulting an Arab family and insulting an Israeli soldier.