24 Facts About Yaakov Teitel

Yaakov Teitel is an American-born Israeli religious nationalist, convicted for killing two people in 2009.

Yaakov Teitel was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he is currently serving.

Yaakov Teitel was born in 1972 in Florida, United States, and moved to Norfolk, Virginia, when he was a teenager.

Commonly known as Jack, Yaakov Teitel attended university and received a bachelor's degree in psychology, and in the mid-1990s, he began making regular visits to Israel.

Yaakov Teitel was arrested in August 1997 on suspicion of murdering a Palestinian shepherd, but was released, and the case was eventually closed due to lack of evidence.

Yaakov Teitel subsequently returned to the United States, where he took a computer course with Microsoft, and began working as a computer technician.

In 1999, Yaakov Teitel immigrated to Israel and moved to the settlement of Shvut Rachel, becoming an Israeli citizen under the Law of Return in December 2000.

In 2002, Yaakov Teitel met Rivka Pepperman, a British-born dance teacher originally from Broughton Park, Manchester, whose family had moved to Israel in 1981.

Yaakov Teitel was summoned by Israel Defense Forces for preliminary checks, but was exempted from conscription due to his advanced age, medical history, and familial state.

Yaakov Teitel was considered an outcast in the settlement due to his limited proficiency in Hebrew and reclusive behavior.

Yaakov Teitel hardly left his home, and did not regularly participate in services at the local synagogue.

Yaakov Teitel was arrested in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood on October 7,2009, while posting flyers praising the 2009 Tel Aviv gay centre shooting.

Yaakov Teitel attempted to throw away a bag he was carrying, but it was retrieved, and was found to contain two handguns.

Yaakov Teitel was then turned over to Shin Bet for interrogation, while special police units raided his home and the homes of his brother-in-law, parents, and mother-in-law.

Israeli police revealed that Yaakov Teitel, acting alone, confessed to a string of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks.

Yaakov Teitel confessed to having carried out a pipe-bomb attack against Ze'ev Sternhell, as well as the murders of a Palestinian taxi driver and a West Bank shepherd in 1997, a 2006 attempted bombing near the settlement of Eli, three bombings against police targets and a Christian monastery in 2007, and sending a booby-trapped package that injured a teenage boy to the home of a Messianic Jewish family in Ariel.

Yaakov Teitel confessed that he had planned to fly a remote-controlled toy plane containing explosives into the Tel Aviv gay pride parade, and that he planned a bombing against a Jerusalem gay bar.

Yaakov Teitel admitted that he planned to fire an improvised mortar against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but abandoned the plan over fear of injuring Jewish worshippers on the Temple Mount.

Yaakov Teitel was suspected of murdering two police officers in the Jordan Valley, and confessed to the gay centre shooting in Tel Aviv in 2009, though police stated that they were certain he was not involved in either.

All of Yaakov Teitel's arraignments were held behind closed doors, and a gag order was imposed on the case.

On 10 November 2009, the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office declared that Yaakov Teitel would be charged for the murder of the two Palestinians, incitement to racism, deploying explosive devices, and sabotage.

In February 2012, the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office and Yaakov Teitel's attorneys agreed to a plea bargain under which he would confess to two counts of murder.

Yaakov Teitel's attorneys confessed on his behalf, as Yaakov Teitel himself announced that he did not recognize the court's jurisdiction.

In January 2013, Yaakov Teitel was convicted on two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder, with the court rejecting the defense's arguments that he was legally insane.