JustASC

Great local twist to this story, about a naked statue that is offending middle school parents in Delray Beach, Florida.

The sculpture, of three naked people representing the liberation of Ethiopian Jewry, was originally commissioned by the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ and a casting still marks the entrance of their headquarters (and my newspaper’s!) in Whippany. Above, the sight that greets me every morning.

There’s a difference between the Florida nude and ours, however: The NJ version has a fig leaf covering the adult male figure’s impressive genitals, added following complaints after the statue’s unveiling in 1993.

Highlights of the Palm Beach Post story  after the jump: (more…)

Forget the “a few bad apples” defense. The NJ corruption story is inspiring demands that Orthodox authorities examine the ways their communities encourage or inspire a disdain for state law. This is Mark Charendoff of the Jewish Funders Network in the Jewish Week:

Is it possible that there is something in the Orthodox community in general and the haredi community in particular that creates fertile ground for this type of fraud? I’ve too often witnessed, here and in Israel, a perverse notion that we few who feel bound by the laws of God are free to flaunt the laws of man. That the seriousness with which we hold halacha (or, Jewish law) forces us to view state law as trite, flawed – unimportant at best, a nuisance at worst….

Is it really possible that we, as Orthodox Jews, believe that we can create better societies and more caring communities by avoiding raspberries for fear that they may have bugs in them while not holding ourselves to even the basic standards of law and decency? Is it really possible that we believe we are in greater danger from women appearing at the pulpit than from rabbis appearing at a perp walk? Perhaps it is time to stop waiting for the perfection of the world that will come along with the building of the Third Temple and engage in perfecting ourselves and the communities we live in.

I quoted Brad Hirschield’s blogpost below when I disagreed with him, so I only think it fair to quote him again when I think he gets it exactly right:

When any group believes that they are a law unto themselves, abuse is sure to follow. Whatever happens in this case, that issue must be addressed by members of the community. If they don’t, and ethnicity is allowed to trump ethics, then they will have nobody to blame but themselves for the anger directed against them.

This is moment in time, both because of these events and where we stand in the Jewish calendar – just days before Tisha B’av , when the tradition invites introspection. I hope that the community has the moral courage to undertake such introspection and those outside it have the sensitivity and discipline to allow them to do so without being humiliated.

My friend Rabbi Brad Hirschfield objects to the initial press coverage of the NJ corruption probe:

When a headline reads, “N.J. officials, N.Y. rabbis caught in federal money laundering, corruption sweep”, one expects a story which describes that event. In this case however, no mention is made of any rabbis actually getting arrested. Despite plenty of details about various politicos being taken into custody, there is nothing about rabbis.

This may be a big deal, but the headline and the story don’t match – where is the info on the rabbis? This kind of coverage actually borders on Jew-baiting, and it potentially says something at least as ugly about the author/editors as it does about those who committed any crime.

I think he jumped the gun — the Feds had not released the names of the suspects when the first stories hit the ‘Net.

Brad also objects to the Star-Ledger’s description of the Syrian-Jewish “enclaves” in Brooklyn and Deal as “tight-knit, wealthy communities’:

Enclaves”? “Tight-knit, wealthy communities”? Could it be that the Star Ledger harbors deep resentment against Jews who they see as over-privileged, stand-offish people who operate as a law unto themselves?

Is this the paper’s moment to celebrate how “those people” will now get their comeuppance? If not, why describe the community in classically anti-Semitic ways…? 

And yet the Syrian-Jewish communities are famously tight-knit, proudly preserving their traditions and valuing their insularity from even the larger Jewish (Ashkenazi) community, let alone the non-Jewish world. As for “wealthy,” take a look at the houses in Deal. Those ain’t bungalows.

I would hope, however, that developing coverage of the case doesn’t merely emphasize the particularity of the Syrian-Jewish community, but is careful to show the ways that an understanding of the community sheds light on the case. I think a discussion of ethnicity and religion in a story is fair game if it can be shown to be relevant — for example, the ways in which Bernie Madoff preyed on fellow Jews in his country club circuit, or the way Thomas Etheredge is alleged to have targeted members of his church in an investment scheme in Wichita.

It’s hard not to cringe when you see so many Jewish names in a story about crime. And even the most innocuous report is going to be jumped on by jubilant anti-Semites. All the rest of us can do is remind the world that every ethnic group has its crooks and schemers — and that we don’t shy away from saying so.

After the jump, the Justice Department’s press release on today’s arrests.

According to the release:

Law enforcement personnel, with the assistance of a cooperating witness, first infiltrated a pre-existing money laundering network that operated internationally between Brooklyn, Deal, N.J. and Israel and laundered at least tens of millions of dollars through charitable, non-profit entities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.  

Among those charged:

Eliahu Ben Haim, of Long Branch, N.J., the principal rabbi of Congregation Ohel Yaacob in Deal, N.J. in Deal, N.J., charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity.

Saul Kassin, of Brooklyn, N.Y., the chief rabbi of a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York, charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity.

Edmund Nahum, of Deal, N.J., the principal rabbi of a synagogue in Deal, charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity.

Mordchai Fish, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a rabbi at a synagogue in Brooklyn, charged with money laundering of proceeds derived from criminal activity. His brother, also a rabbi, was charged as well.

Arye Weiss – operated cash house from his residence in Brooklyn for Haim money laundering transactions; charged with supplying $300,000 in cash.

Yeshayahu Ehrental- operated cash house from his office in Brooklyn for Haim money laundering transactions; charged with supplying $300,000 in cash.

Schmulik Cohen – operated cash house from his residence in Brooklyn for Haim money laundering transactions; charged with supplying $850,000 in cash.

Levi Deutsch, an Israeli living in Israel who, according to the Complaints, was a high-level source of cash from overseas for funding the bank checks that passed through charitable entities.

Moshe “Michael” Altman, a Hudson County real estate developer who, according to the criminal Complaints, “washed” more than $600,000 in dirty checks to cash for the cooperating witness through charitable, non-profit entities.

Binyomin Spira – operated a cash house from a bakery in Brooklyn

Yolie Gertner – acted as a cash courier for Fish money laundering transactions, charged with moving $185,000 in cash

David Goldhirsh – acted as a cash courier for Fish money laundering transactions, charged with moving $100,000 in cash

Abe Pollack – operated cash house from his office in Brooklyn (which he shared with Naftoly Weber) for Fish money laundering transactions, charged with supplying $125,000 in cash

Naftoly Weber – operated cash house from his office in Brooklyn

Additionally, money laundering charges were filed against Shimon Haber and Itzak Friedlander, associates of Michael Altman. 

(more…)

Craziest detail of the NJ corruption bust, from the Star-Ledger:

The wide-ranging investigation also charged Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, of Brooklyn, with “conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant, at a cost of $160,000 to the transplant recipient,” according to federal authorities.

Rosenbaum began meeting with the FBI informant and a female undercover agent in 2008. The pair– who were posing as a businessman and his secretary– told Rosenbaum they were willing to pay to find a donor for the woman’s fictitious critically ill uncle.

Rosenbaum said he had 10 years experience brokering deals between U.S. patients and people in Israel willing to donate body parts, according to the complaint.

“I am what you call a matchmaker,” Rosenbaum said, according to the complaint.

Rosenbaum allegedly said he would need half the money up front and the other half after the donor was flown in from Israel. He also warned the pair that buying and selling human organs is against the law.

“Let me explain to you one thing. It’s illegal to buy or sell organs,” Rosenbaum said, according to the complaint. “So you cannot buy it. What you do is, you’re giving a compensation for the time.”

Writing in the New Republic, David Billet of Commentary dismantles a new book that says Einstein was hardly a Zionist and would have, according to the publisher, “favored a non-religious state that would welcome Jew and Palestinian alike.

The book — Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East, by Fred Jerome — emphasizes Einstein’s dissents from the Zionist mainstream and ignores his assents — or relegates them to an appendix, writes Billet.

He adds:

Jerome’s larger purpose is to bring to bear Einstein’s moral authority upon the cause of replacing Israel with a binational Palestine that would rescue the Jews from the crimes of statehood.

Read Einstein on Israel, and this is what emerges — a fairly utopian vision of Jewish culture, combined with a real-world understanding of what the Jews needed in the wake of the Holocaust and would need to survive; discomfort  with the subjugation of the Arabs but still able to ask Nehru to support the ”right of the Jews to continue the upbuilding of their ancient homeland without artificial restrictions.”

In other words, a lefty Zionist. It’s not an oxymoron. Israel’s critics like to pretend they don’t exist, because it would clash with their vision of Israel as the new South Africa, or historical anachronism.

Nearly every country fails to live up to its founding ideals or contains internal contradictions that cannot be justified or reconciled. But according to supporters of the binational state, only Israel must solve these conflicts by dismantling itself.

Holy Mackerel! (We’ll have more on this as it develops, including a report from the US Attorney’s press conference being held at noon).From the Star-Ledger:

N.J. officials, N.Y. rabbis caught in federal money laundering, corruption sweep

by Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger

Thursday July 23, 2009, 9:00 AM

NEWARK — A New Jersey assemblyman and the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus were among public officials arrested this morning by FBI agents in an international money laundering and corruption probe that includes rabbis in the Syrian Jewish communities of Deal and Brooklyn.

Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean), Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell and Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega are among those already brought to the FBI building in Newark. Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini has also been arrested.

 A total of 30 people have been taken into custody, officials said.

 The arrests are the result of a two-year FBI and IRS probe that began with an investigation of money transfers by members of the Syrian enclaves in Deal and Brooklyn. Those arrested this morning include key religious leaders in the tight-knit, wealthy communities.

 The federal investigation then expanded into a public corruption probe.

 No indictments have been released, though court appearances are expected later today in U.S. District Court in Newark. Nearly 20 people have already been led into the FBI building in Newark as the sweep continues to unfold in two states.

 Agents also raided religious institutions to make arrests and collect information.

The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the IRS took out at least three boxes from the Deal Yeshiva, as students were arriving at school. The Deal Yeshiva, on the corner of Brighton and Norwood avenues, is a prestigious religious school in town.

 Authorities also searched the Ohel Yaacob synagogue on Ocean Avenue in Deal and removed several boxes. 

The Jewish Week’s Jim Besser gets past the sanctimony (”Are you saying, Mr. Obama, that an Israeli Jew doesn’t have right to live anywhere in his own capital?”) to ask some important strategic questions about Netanyahu’s tussle with the White House:

This week’s U.S.-Israel diplomatic dustup over building additional Jewish housing in east Jerusalem may have as much to do with domestic politics in the Jewish state – and a desire to mobilize American Jews to oppose additional U.S. pressure – as with any shift in Obama administration policy.

Publicly raising its disagreement over Jerusalem may “focus the American Jewish community, which is mostly opposed to settlements, on the fact that when the U.S. demands Israel cease building settlements that includes Jerusalem,” said Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman.

And touching the Jerusalem nerve may help galvanize Evangelical Christians, many of whom have a growing commitment to preserving Jerusalem as Israel’s unified capital, to oppose new administration peace pushes.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) calls the Obama Administration’s objections to a new housing project in East Jerusalem “racist.”  A ZOA release quotes Netanyahu as saying,

“[I]n recent years hundreds of apartments in Jewish neighborhoods and in the western part of the city have been purchased by – or rented to – Arab residents and we did not interfere. This says that there is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the western part of the city and there is no ban on Jews buying or building apartments in the eastern part of the city. This is the policy of an open city, an undivided city that has no separation according to religion or national affiliation. We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and purchase in all parts of Jerusalem. “

 Adds the ZOA:

“In this context, it is astounding that the State Department would tell [Israeli] Ambassador [Michael] Oren that Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem would change the neighborhood’s demographic balance and harm its Palestinian residents. This is the sort of racist language that was once used here in America in support of a policy of excluding African-Americans from white neighborhoods.” 

According to Americans for Peace Now, however, Netanyahu and ZOA got their facts wrong. They quote Israeli lawyer Daniel Seidemann:    

Virtually all of West Jerusalem is off-limits to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem in terms of their ability to purchase property. This is because most of West Jerusalem, like most of Israel, is “State Land” (in all, 93% of land in Israel is “state land”). Under Israeli law, to qualify to purchase property on “state land” the purchaser must either be a citizen of Israel (Palestinian Jerusalemites are legal residents if the city, not citizens of Israel) or legally entitled to citizenship under the law of return (i.e. Jewish). This means an Israeli or a Jew from anywhere in the world can purchase such property in West Jerusalem, but not a Palestinian resident of the city. (Technically, by the way, these are actually not purchases but long-term leases.)

 With respect to the small amount of private land in West Jerusalem, legally there are no limitations on Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem purchasing in such areas. Similarly, there are no legal limitations on Palestinian residents of Jerusalem renting in West Jerusalem. However, Danny (who is extremely familiar with East Jerusalem and its residents) does not know of a single case of a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem residing in West Jerusalem, either through purchase or rental of property. (This is distinct from Arab citizens of Israel, a small number of who do live in West Jerusalem). The reasons for this are social, cultural, and economic, and as far as State Lands go, legal.

 In addition, it should be emphasized that the ban on purchase of property on “State Lands” by Palestinian residents of Jerusalem extends to East Jerusalem. Not only are Palestinian Jerusalemites barred from purchasing property in nearly all of West Jerusalem, but they are also barred from purchasing property in the 35% of East Jerusalem that Israel has expropriated as “state land” since 1967, and on which Israel’s East Jerusalem settlements have been built. This means that in more than 1/3 of East Jerusalem, Israelis and Jews from anywhere in the world have a right to buy property in Israeli settlements, but not Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, including the very residents whose land was expropriated to build these settlements.

A small number of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have rented apartments in some East Jerusalem settlements (principally French Hill, Pisgat Zeev, and Neve Yaacov – all settlements that are so far “east” that they are increasingly less attractive to Israelis). This does not appear to reflect any political agenda to move to these areas, but rather is a byproduct of the severe housing shortage that exists in Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. And it should be noted that these are short-term rentals from their Israeli owners (as opposed to formal leases by the titular land owner, the government of Israel, to Palestinians).

UPDATE: Ron Kampeas has analysis, and an expanded refutation of Netanyahu’s position, at JTA’s Capital J blog.