Ancient JDL history
Ah yes, the late 1990s: how long ago they seem:
February 26, 1992: A bomb exploded at 2:07 a.m. outside the Syrian Mission to the United Nations. Damage to the building included a shattered plate glass window near its entrance and a two foot hole in its entryway. There were no injuries. Several hours later, an identical bomb was found inside a cardboard box within a telephone booth on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A note found with the first bomb was destroyed by the blast, but the second note read, "Free Syrian Jews." Later in the day, a man identifying himself as a member of Kahane Chai contacted the Associated Press and claimed responsibility for the bombing. Subsequently, the group made a statement denying responsibility for the bombing but did not condemn it. Binyamin Kahane, the director of Kahane Chai, made a written statement which declared: "We hope this incident will serve as a warning and a deterrent to Syria and to Syrian- acked terrorists that the long arm of Jewish vengeance can reach them too."
January 5, 1994: Between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m., a bomb was placed outside a New York building that houses Americans for Peace Now, Habonim, Israel Horizons, and the Progressive Zionist Caucus. The bomb did not explode but was later defused by police . A second bomb, placed outside the building which houses the New Israel Fund, exploded but there were no injuries. Notes left with the bombs declared that an Jewish "civil war has begun. " The notes also spoke of the "spilling of blood in Israel" and criticized the Israeli Government as being "too liberal. " The notes were signed by the "Shield of David" and the "Maccabee Squad." A press release issued by Kahane Chai provided its traditional response subsequent to such incidents: the organization "denied responsibility" for the attacks, but "refused] to condemn the act."
February 10, 1994: JDL member Robert Manning was convicted of complicity in the 1980 letter-bombing death of a secretary in Los Angeles. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 30 years. The letter-bomb incident had no connection to JDL activities but was instead an attack contracted by William Howard Ross, a fellow JDL member who had a long drawn out business dispute with the owner of the firm where the secretary worked.
March 8, 1994: The Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition by Rochelle Manning, wife of Robert Manning and both JDL members, to block her extradition to the United States in order to face murder charges. Rochelle Manning is to be re-tried on murder charges relating to the 1980 letter-bomb attack on a California secretary. On March 19 1994, Rochelle Manning died of a heart attack in an Israeli prison while awaiting her extradition to the United States.
June 9, 1995: Los Angeles, California - William Howard Ross, a member of the Jewish Defense League, was sentenced to life imprisonment for having enlisted Robert and Rochelle Manning to construct and mail a booby trap bomb to a local computer company with whom Ross had had a personal dispute. (See June 1988 and February 10, 1994 regarding the trial and sentencing of Robert Manning.)