JERUSALEM (JTA) — A U.S.-born Jewish terrorist serving two life sentences for killing Palestinians has asked the Israel Prison Service to leave jail for his son’s bris.
Jack Teitel, a Florida native, has been in an Israeli jail since his arrest in October 2009. He was sentenced in 2013.
The bris circumcision ritual will be held Saturday morning, requiring that Teitel be granted a furlough for the entire Shabbat. His family lives in Shvut Rachel, a West Bank hilltop settlement.
“Thousands of terrorists have been released home in the past few years — I’m merely asking to be present for my son’s brit,” Teitel told his attorney, Azriel Friedenberg of the Honenu organization, according to Ynet. “I’ll go back to prison later. I expect to receive this small bit of compassion at the very least.”
The request submitted Sunday by Friedenberg asked that Teitel “be allowed to take an irregular vacation for the bris ceremony considering the exceedingly special circumstances” and said he would “consent to every condition” mandated by the prisons service.
Teitel attended the bris of a son born two years ago that took place on a weekday within the prison facilities.
Along with killing two Palestinians and attempting to murder five Jews and Arabs, Teitel also assembled a package bomb that seriously injured the son of a messianic Jew in Ariel and set up a pipe bomb near the home of prominent left-wing professor, Zeev Sternhell.
The crimes occurred between 1997 and 2008, some while Teitel was in Israel as a tourist. He made aliyah in 2000.
Teitel had admitted to all the crimes, but said he did not recognize the court’s authority.
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