An Illinois-based phone company shut down a voice mailbox it rented to the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect. The mailbox had an anti-Israel outgoing message, according to Mordechai Levy, national director of the Jewish Defense Organization. Since a Neturei Karta contingent visited Tehran in December for a Holocaust denial conference hosted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the JDO has run what it calls “Operation Screwball” aimed at ostracizing the small, anti-Zionist Chasidic group. The JDO published on its Web site the phone number of Emily Trone, manager of Eagle Teleconferencing Service. Trone decided to take down the Neturei Karta’s voice mail after receiving more than 100 calls Monday, she told JTA.

“People started threatening me,” she said. “Since it was obviously distressing to so many people, we decided to take it down.” “They use these as propaganda lines to get people to come to their activities,” Levy said of the Neturei Karta. “We want all of their helping of Islamic terrorists to come to an end.”