The head of Israel’s security services–whose name is never used publicly–reported fully to the Israel Cabinet today about the Yossele Schumacher case. The entire, regular, weekly meeting of the Cabinet was devoted to that report, and to questions by the members of the Cabinet.
The Cabinet expressed high praise for the security services for retrieving the 10-year-old boy, discovered in the home of an ultra-Orthodox Jew a week ago in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. The boy is now at the home of his parents, Alter and Ida Schumacher, at Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv.
According to a spokesman for the Cabinet, the security chief revealed many, heretofore unpublicized details connected with the case of the boy who was abducted in 1959, after zealously Orthodox persons feared that his parents would not educate him with sufficiently strict Orthodoxy.
The security chief described activities by “fanatic factions” involved in the case, told of some anti-Government actions by some persons. He implicated a famous Hassidic Rebbe. “Many of the disclosures were most revealing, and not known publicly despite the spate of publicity given the case,” said the spokesman.
Meanwhile, Yossele is scheduled to appear before the Jerusalem District Court here tomorrow, as a witness for the defense in a case arising out of his abduction. He was subpoenaed by the court at the request of attorneys for Zalman and Rachel Kutt, a couple arrested several weeks ago at the ultra-Orthodox village of Kommemiut.
The Kutts are charged with knowledge of his abduction, but the defense contends he had left Kommemiut before the Kutts came there. It is not certain that Yossele will be permitted to testify. His parents object to his use as a witness on the grounds that such an experience might be psychologically harmful to the child.
In another development on the Yossele case the attorney for the child’s parents here announced the Schumachers will sue Rabbi Zenvel Gertner, of Brooklyn, in whose home the boy had been apprehended, for the suffering undergone by the parents.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
