The Murder of Earl Krugel: Where's the Outrage?

On November 4, 2005, Jewish Defense League (JDL) member Earl Krugel was murdered in an Arizona prison. It was only his third year into a 20-year sentence at the Federal Correction Institution in Phoenix. The 62-year old Navy veteran and former dental technician was exercising when another inmate came up behind him and hit him over the head with a concrete block, killing him instantly. Why a loose cement block was just hanging around the exercise yard is still unknown. Authorities have been fairly tightlipped so far, but the investigation has reportedly focused on a white supremacist inmate.

Despite all the questions surrounding the case, the silence from the American Jewish community regarding Earl Krugel's murder has been deafening. Other than the JDL itself, not one Jewish group has called for an investigation. And they reacted in exactly the same manner after Rubin's death. The truth is that the American Jewish community has long been wary of associating themselves with the JDL, which they see as an obstacle to their own comfortable existence as non-threatening Jews. While Jews have shown concern in the past over the fate of Jewish prisoners housed with neo-Nazis and such, when it comes to the JDL, it seems that some Jewish lives are deemed more important than others.