JustASC

Ron Rosenbaum opines in Slate about the Madoff Affair:

On the other hand — second caveat — I don’t want to hear people, Jews or non-Jews, worrying that we can’t talk about Jewish financial crime without arousing cretinous anti-Semites. I think my credentials on this point have been established well enough by the 600-page book I edited on anti-Semitism, Those Who Forget the Past. Yes, Bernie’s a Jew, and he seems to have stolen a lot of money, but, as I’ve noted, stealing is not a genetically Jewish crime that Jews should be afraid to talk about. What’s worth talking about is how he got away with it. Which is where the fetish of “respectability” comes in.

Michael Hopkins, Chief Executive Officer of the JCC MetroWest, announced his resignation effective February 18, 2009.

Its board chair’s announcement is here and below:

Thursday, December 18, 2009

Dear Member:

“The winds of change blow through our life, sometimes gently,
sometimes like a tropical storm . . .
We can trust that change taking place is good.
The wind will take us where we need to go.”

With this reading and with mixed emotions, JCC MetroWest Chief Executive Officer Michael Hopkins announced his resignation this week effective February 18, 2009.
Michael has served the JCC community for 11 years, stalwartly focusing on our vision to be a premier Jewish social, recreational, cultural and educational center serving diverse
populations. (more…)

David Harris of the American Jewish Committee sniffed insensitivity to the Jews in this Times story on Madoff.  I’m not so sure. Here’s Harris’ letter to the Times today:

To the Editor:

In “Standing Accused: A Pillar of Finance and Charity,” your Dec. 13 Business Day article about Bernard L. Madoff, arrested in a major fraud scheme, there was a striking emphasis on his being Jewish. It was not just once, or twice, but at least three times before the article continued inside. Why?

Yes, he is Jewish. We get it. But was this relevant to his being arrested for cheating investors, or so key to his evolution as a businessman that it needed to be hammered home again and again?

I have read several accounts in The Times of the shenanigans of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, yet have no clue what his religion is, nor, frankly, do I care. Why should I? Unless he was acting in the name of his faith, which I assume he was not, what difference does it make? And if a profile is warranted and the governor’s faith matters to him, mention it and move on.

But to refer to the “Jewish T-bill,” “the clubby Jewish world” and the “world of Jewish New York” within four paragraphs near the top of the article on Mr. Madoff was over the top.

David A. Harris
Executive Director
American Jewish Committee

Wait a sec: Madoff’s Jewishness is extremely ”relevant to his being arrested for cheating investors,” and ”key to his evolution as a businessman.” It’s clear from the indictment, and not just the Times’ reporting, that Madoff built his reputation and the base of his pyramid scheme on his relationships with and contacts he built in the Jewish philanthropic world. It’s called an affinity crime, and is based on one member of a religious or ethnic group exploiting his ethnicity and social contacts to defraud others.  If Madoff were Catholic and some of his most prominent victims included the Archdiocese, Catholic University, and the Knights of Columbus, I would expect the Times to explore the religious milieu in which he operated.

Or to put it another way — let’s say Madoff wasn’t a crook but made news for being an honored humanitarian, a combination Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the very model of a tzadik. Wouldn’t we expect, and even appreciate, coverage of his Jewishness and the connections it had to his effectiveness as a philanthropist?

You can’t blame the Times for what anti-Semites will do with the fact of Madoff’s Jewishness, although you can point out how Madoff himself was an equal opportunity predator.

The Times has a piece about Mets reliever J.J. Putz’s name and the possibilities it raises among NY’s tabloid editors and unforgiving fans. And just as I predicted, in his offical welcoming ceremony,

 “Mets welcome J. J.,” [the CitiField scoreboard read], deftly avoiding the use, or misuse, of the player’s surname.

As for whether he took a razzing when he played in Seattle:

The columnists Steve Kelley of The Seattle Times and Art Thiel of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said they never heard Putz’s name used as an insult against him, either at the ball park or by letter writers and talk-radio callers in Seattle. Putz played for the Mariners from 2003 to 2008.

Putz said that he had rarely heard his name used derisively, even in high school in Michigan.

“Dude, I was bigger than everybody in high school,” he said.

The ADL has put out its list of “Top issues affecting Jews in 2008“:

Terror in Mumbai

Barack Obama’s Historic Victory

Iran Still the Antagonist

Israel’s 60th Birthday

The Global Economic Crisis

Anti-Israel Bias at the U.N.

Pope Benedict XVI: Catholic-Jewish Relations

Jewish-Hispanic Ties Strengthened, Immigrants Targeted

Jewish Groups, Courts Weigh In On Social Issues

ADL discusses the Madoff scandal under “Global Economic Crisis.” But where’s the Rubashkin kosher scandal? A glaring omission, especially since the repercussions of the Agriprocessors mess fall directly under ADL’s bailiwick — that is, how Jews are preceived by non-Jews. And it’s a conspicuous omission considering ADL boasts of “Strengthened Jewish-Hispanic Ties.” Hmm. Ask these guys.

JTA’s Fundermentalist blog and the LA Jewish Journal’s brand-new “Swindler’s List” (good one) are keeping tabs on the Jewish orgs. hurt in the Madoff scandal.

Both report that Hadassah lost $90 million — out of an endowment which was believed to be worth around $500 million.

This week in the NJJN, I break down the fallout from the Madoff investment swindle:

Earlier this year, when Eliot Spitzer still held the title of America’s most shameful governor, I urged the Jewish world to develop a universal standard for measuring the damage done to Jews by disgraced fellow Jews – what your bubbe and mine calls a shande fer de goyim. At the time, I thought we might calculate the shande factor in Abramoff Units. But that’s the old math. Today we’d have to measure calumny on the Madoff Scale.

The NJ guy who named his kid Adolf Hitler and was miffed because ShopRite wouldn’t put the name on a birthday cake tells the Times of London:

“They need to accept a name. A name’s a name. The kid isn’t going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did.”

So, on the bright side, here’s one white supremacist who acknowledges that Hitler did something wrong.

* The headline comes out of Jon Stewart’s hilarious essay ADOLF HITLER: THE LARRY KING INTERVIEW. You can read the whole thing here.

Bradley Burston of Ha’aretz writes about Madoff and the anti-Semites – saying the fallen financier both confirms their stereotypes while managing “to harm contemporary Jewry in ways anti-Semites could only dream about.” It’s a condemnation for sure from my former Forward colleague, although I’m not sure the Jew haters will catch its ironic tone.

Meanwhile, we can only hope all anti-Semites are as stupid as this New Jersey one, who writes:

Ask yourself this simple question: If this single jew could fool thousands of investors about an investment company that wasn’t real, for three decades, could several thousand jews fool the entire world about a “Holocaust” that also wasn’t real?

A New Jersey couple is upset that a local supermarket won’t inscribe a birthday cake with the name of their three-year-old son, ADOLF HITLER CAMPBELL. (more…)