Mendel Levi

In many ways, Yanky Ostreicher, a 53-year-old frum father of five and grandfather of 11 has been suffering for almost a year the worst fate imaginable for a Jew from Boro Park. He has been held without charges in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, as the only Jew and the only American among the 3,200 inmates in Palmosola, one of the most notorious prisons in South America. Since his arrest on June 3, 2011, Ostreicher has been kept in a legal limbo, and US diplomats say they can do little to help him. At least 15 court hearings have been scheduled, but only three have taken place. At a bail hearing last September Ostreicher’s lawyers presented convincing evidence to a Bolivian judge of his innocence of any wrongdoing. But just six days after the judge ordered that he be released, and his family paid his bail, the release order was countermanded and the judge re-assigned, while Ostreicher was left to rot in jail.