Irv Rubin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since December 2005.

Irving David Rubin (April 12, 1945 – November 13, 2002) was chairman of the militant Jewish Defense League from 1985 to 2002. Rubin was born in Canada, but after experiencing widespread anti-Semitism in his home city of Montreal, he and his parents and sister moved to the neighborhood of Granada Hills, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, with a large Jewish population. He attained United States citizenship shortly thereafter, and served as a sergeant in the United States Air Force until he was honorably discharged. Before joining the Libertarian Party, he was an active Republican, and served as a page at the 1964 Republican National Convention, at which Barry Goldwater was nominated to run for the presidency.

His followers view him as an outspoken Jew who directly confronted anti-Semites, with the intent of demonstrating that he would not silently countenance anti-Semitism. Many critics thought of him as a terrorist and a racist for saying such things as "It's too bad that Mr. Ashley wasn't blown up" and "I applaud those who took such actions. I think these people have a righteous place in the world" on the bombing of the home of revisionist historian Dr. George Ashley.^[1]

More moderate Jews viewed him as an atypical activist: Rob Eshman, the Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles characterized him as follows: "In the solar system of Jewish life, Irv Rubin is Pluto." [1] He was a staunch supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. Rubin became the successor to JDL founder Rabbi Meir Kahane, after the latter moved to Israel in 1985 and formed the Kach Party, which was eventually outlawed by the Israeli Government as "racist." Kahane briefly held a seat in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament).

When Alex Odeh, the local chairman of the pro-Palestinian American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) was killed by a bomb in his Santa Ana, California office in 1985, chairman Irv Rubin was suspected, and further antagonized his opponents by saying that "Odeh got what he deserved." However, the organization has insisted the attack was committed by others, the FBI was unable to prove its original allegations against the JDL, given that the original suspects in the case fled to Israel. The crime remains unsolved. The investigation of Rubin was headed by FBI special agent Mary Hogan, the same agent who signed the affidavit accusing Rubin of planning to destroy government property and other targets, some 15 years later.

On December 12, 2001, Irv Rubin, JDL Chairman, and Earl Krugel, a member of the organization, were charged with conspiracy to bomb private and government property. The two allegedly were caught in the act of planning bomb attacks against the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California and on the office of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, who is Arab-American. The two were arrested as part of a sting operation after an FBI informant named Danny Gillis delivered explosives to Krugel's home in L.A. .

The JDL claims that Danny Gillis struck a deal with the FBI to neutralize the JDL by infiltrating the organization and arranging criminal charges of its leadership.^{[citation needed]} However, according to the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Gillis was a former JDL member who joined the organization due to conflicts with white skinheads. [2]

In November 2002, while imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles [3] awaiting trial, Rubin allegedly cut his own throat with a jail-issued safety razor and tumbled [4] off an 18- to 20-foot balcony. The injuries from the fall he suffered resulted in his death at Los Angeles County Hospital several days later. [5] Some people consider the circumstances surrounding his death to be suspicious [6]. Some suspect that he was actually murdered just as his co-conspirator was three years later, and Rubin's wife has demanded an investigation into the situation. [7] But defense attorney Mark Werksman said that Rubin had been despondent for months, losing 40 pounds, and that the pressure of an upcoming trial "may have pushed him over top." [8] The Bureau of Prisons refused to release videotape, despite the fact that virtually all his visitors report that the entire facility is monitored by video-cameras. The Rubin family has been unsuccessful in pursuing a wrongful death suit.

On February 4, 2003, Earl Krugel, Rubin's first lieutenant, pled guilty to conspiracy charges stemming from the plot. This plea was later withdrawn by the presiding Judge, and he was charged with additional crimes which, if convicted, could result in a 55-year imprisonment in a Federal Penitentiary. The plea bargain was apparently reinstated in late September 2005, and the 62-year-old Krugel was sentenced to 20 years in federal detention [9]. Part of the plea agreement demanded that he reveal the names of all JDL activists involved in the 1985 bombing. On November 4, 2005, he was killed by an inmate after having been transferred to a Phoenix federal prison. By the most commonly accepted account, another inmate struck Krugel on the head from behind with a cement block.

See also: Jewish Defense League