Harry Shapiro (criminal)

Harry Shapiro, pleaded guilty on March 20, 1997, to federal charges that he had planted a pipe bomb at a Jacksonville, Florida, synagogue. Shapiro, formerly inmate #19669-018, was released from federal custody on February 17, 2006.[1]

Shapiro was 31-years-old at the time of his plea and admitted "using an explosive to threaten a foreign official, internationally protected person and official guest of the United States Government." Earlier, on Feb. 13, 1997, about three hours before former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres was supposed to speak in support of the Oslo Accords at the Jacksonville Jewish Center, Shapiro called the Jacksonville Sheriff's office claiming to be a member of American Friends of the Islamic Jihad and warned of two bombs at the center. The building was evacuated and searched, but no bombs were found. Shapiro told his rabbi and a co-worker at the gas station where he worked of his plan to prevent Peres from speaking, but his claim was dismissed until a gunpowder laden pipe was found nine days later by children playing at the Center; it was then detonated by the police. Per his own words, Shapiro told the court March 19: "I placed gunpowder in a pipe. I placed it in a house of worship. I threatened a life of a human being with it. I called 911 and issued a threat to keep Mr. [Shimon] Peres from speaking." (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 28, 1997.) As part of his plea he avoided the charge of using an explosive in the commission of a crime, which carried up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

As reported in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, (January/February 2001 issue, Pages 71-72, quoted above) Mr. Shapiro's crime was a hoax to protest and stop Shimon Peres' lecture. "...[H]e staged a phony bombing of a Jacksonville synagogue where Shimon Peres was to speak on behalf of the Oslo accords." This position was supported by reports in the media at the time of the event, (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 28, 1997) asserting Shapiro's defense attorney's claim that Shapiro did not intend to injure Peres or the audience of 1,500;" ...that he had made an inoperable device. 'It was important for Mr. Shapiro to make clear that, in his mind, he never intended to hurt anybody,' defense attorney Hank Coxe told the Florida Times-Union after the hourlong hearing. The fact that the device did not explode or might not have been functional was not a factor in the federal charge, [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Devereaux said."

Analysis

Shapiro was profiled in a chapter entitled "Jacksonville, Florida, 1993-1997" in Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry by Samuel G. Freedman, theorizing that the crime was committed as a result of Shapiro's theo-political leanings as a practicing Orthodox Jew. Based upon interviews with Shapiro, Freedman concluded that Shapiro identified with "Rabbi [Avraham] Hecht's theology," which according to Freedman, "completed a circle for Harry. Years ago, Gush Emunim had taught that God granted Eretz Israel to the Jews; then Meir Kahane demonstrated how one could hate Jewish leaders in the name of loving the Jewish people; and now Harry understood the penalty for disobeying divine commandment, 'The Torah is our deed to the land,' Harry put it. 'Who is man to give it back?'...Never able to join the battle against Arabs in Eretz Israel, Harry decided to carry it against a Jew on American ground."