Jason Blaze Odeh convicted of aggravated murder of Yelena Gerenberg

BySARAH BEN-NUNJULY 22, 2026 13:26Updated: JULY 22, 2026 16:02The Central District Court in Lod unanimously convicted Jason Blaze Odeh on Wednesday of the aggravated murder of Yelena Gerenberg, ruling that he bought a knife and gasoline two days before carrying out a calculated plan to kill his 27-year-old close friend.A three-judge panel comprising Deputy Court President Ami Kobo and Judges Michael Karshen and Merav Greenberg found that Odeh murdered Gerenberg on the night of August 24, 2022, after becoming increasingly angry over her repeated refusal to turn their friendship into a romantic relationship.Odeh admitted stabbing Gerenberg to death but denied that the killing amounted to aggravated murder. The central dispute at trial was whether he had planned the killing or acted spontaneously after alleged provocation and while in a disturbed mental state.The court rejected his account in full.An illustrative image of an individual with handcuffs. (credit: INGIMAGE)“The totality of his actions leaves no room for doubt that he planned her death in advance and wanted her to die,” the court wrote in its opinion.Court convicts Jason Blaze Odeh of femicide Odeh and Gerenberg met through a mutual friend in 2018 and became particularly close during the COVID-19 pandemic. They spent significant amounts of time together and regularly went on trips.Odeh repeatedly sought a romantic relationship with Gerenberg, but she told him that she viewed him as a brother, the ruling said. The court found that he became increasingly frustrated by what he saw as an unequal relationship in which she did not return the affection and attention he gave her.Two days before the murder, Odeh purchased a folding knife with a 10-centimeter blade and filled two 1.5-liter bottles with gasoline at a gas station in Jaffa.The knife was kept open in the driver-side door of his car, close to his seat and concealed from Gerenberg’s view, making it immediately available for use, the court found.Odeh initially lied to investigators about when and where he bought the knife, claiming that he had owned it for more than a month and used it on hiking trips. He admitted purchasing it two days before the murder only after investigators showed him security-camera footage.The judges also rejected his claim that he routinely carried gasoline for trips, finding no reasonable explanation for why he would need three liters of spare fuel for a planned drive to northern Israel.On the day of the murder, Odeh drove Gerenberg to the Peres Academic Center in Rehovot, where she studied nutrition, and later accompanied her to the Weizmann Institute of Science.The pair had planned to travel to her sister’s home that evening. Instead, Odeh stopped in a dark and isolated section of the southern parking lot at the Rehovot train station.He then pulled out the knife and stabbed Gerenberg at least 11 times in her neck, back, and chest.Injuries to her hands showed that she had tried to defend herself. Odeh continued stabbing her despite her screams and attempts to resist, leaving her with no chance of survival, the court found.Rather than call emergency services or drive her to a hospital, Odeh left the parking lot shortly before 1 a.m. and drove to an isolated field near Rehovot.He pulled Gerenberg’s body from the car, placed it behind a bush and poured three liters of gasoline over it. Her blood was later found on a box of matches in the car’s trunk.The court concluded that Odeh had moved on to the second stage of his plan and intended to set Gerenberg’s body alight. For an unknown reason, however, he did not ignite the gasoline.The judges rejected as “false and illogical” his claim that he poured gasoline over Gerenberg to determine whether she was still alive, noting that he had already testified that he realized she had died while they were still in the car.Her body was discovered by a passerby at approximately 5 a.m. on August 25.On the way home, Odeh discarded Gerenberg’s bag, computer and telephone, along with his own electronic devices. The items were never recovered.The court found that he had sought to conceal evidence, including communications that could have provided a fuller picture of their relationship and contradicted his account.After returning home, Odeh wrote an apology note to his mother and swallowed dozens of painkillers in an attempt to take his own life.At trial, he claimed that Gerenberg had insulted and slapped him during their conversation in the car, causing him to experience a “black screen” from which he emerged to find her dying while he held the knife.The court found that the alleged slap and provocation had not been proven. Even had Gerenberg spoken impatiently or insulted him, the judges said, it would not come close to the legal threshold required to reduce his responsibility for the killing.Courts rule Odeh is 'solely responsible' for 'cruel and merciless' murderThe judges also rejected a defense psychiatric opinion suggesting that Odeh had acted impulsively because of a personality disorder, finding that it relied largely on his own unreliable account and failed to address the evidence of advance preparation.They instead accepted the district psychiatrist’s assessment that Odeh was not psychotic, understood his actions and retained the capacity to plan.“The defendant is solely responsible for the murder,” the court concluded. “The murder was cruel and merciless.”Prosecutors said the conviction reflected “the extreme severity of the planned murder of a woman whose only ‘offense’ was refusing to have a romantic relationship with him.”Ahead of Wednesday’s ruling, Gerenberg’s sister, Nadya Aminov, appealed to the public through the Michal Sela Forum to attend the hearing and stand with the family.Aminov wrote that Gerenberg, who was killed at 27, would now have been 31 and had dreamed of becoming a clinical dietitian, completing a master’s degree, marrying and becoming a mother.Aminov, who has since had a daughter of her own, wrote that every milestone was accompanied by the knowledge that her sister should have been there to share it.“Do not let Yelena become another name in a court file or another headline that disappeared,” she wrote. “She was a whole world.”Arguments on Odeh’s sentence are scheduled for October 7. Aggravated murder following planning or substantial deliberation carries a mandatory life sentence.Follow us on Google