The Real Lesson for Madoff's Chosen People

I've been thinking a lot about the situation surrounding Bernie Madoff, who stands accused of building a Ponzi scheme that may have defrauded investors of upwards of 50 billion dollars, among them, many Jewish institutions and individuals. The following comes from the blog of friend of Sinai/former congregant, Larry Gellman, who currently resides in Tuscon, Arizona. I think his observations are, as they say, "spot on." His piece is reprinted with permission.


As Bernie Madoff sits in his Upper East Side apartment ordering take-out, the rest of the Jewish world is reading, writing, watching, listening to, and forwarding emails, blogs, letters, articles, editorials, and commentaries regarding the lessons to be learned from his now-notorious Ponzi scheme.

Facts are emerging at a snail's pace but the opinions are flying around like Weatherbeater at a paintball match. Due to my intense interest and involvement with pretty much all things Jewish, I am in the path of most of them. Here is a brief accounting of the issues in no particular order except I'm saving what I consider to be the most important for last.

I have received and (since I chair two Jewish organizations myself) have written letters to donors, employees, clients, and volunteers to make sure they know that Agency X had no money invested with Madoff. Depending on the organization, this was due either to conservative investment policies, due diligence, or dumb luck.

A few of my friends have written or forwarded emails bemoaning the fact that the Madoff affair has brought the anti-Semites out of the woodwork again. This link will send you to one article:

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said there had been "an outpouring of anti-Semitic comments on mainstream and extremist Web sites."

"Jews are always a convenient scapegoat in times of crisis, but the Madoff scandal and the fact that so many of the defrauded investors are Jewish has created a perfect storm for the anti-Semites," said Abraham Foxman, ADL national director.

Some friends have sent emails making sure I know how embarrassing it is that Madoff is Jewish. Others have voiced their disgust over the fact that Madoff stole money from fellow Jews and Jewish charities.

Those friends and the ADL have a point, but they need to get over it. This is a sad, even tragic, occurrence. But no one has become a Jew hater over this and there is no one left for us to feel embarrassed in front of other than ourselves. We live in America in 2008--Thanks God.

Meanwhile, no one has talked much about what I consider to be the most fascinating statistic--that all the victims Madoff personally recruited were Jewish and, despite the numerous warnings and red flags, they all stuck it out until the very end. Madoff did have institutional victims who were brought in by hedge fund managers but all of the individual investors and foundations were people he met at all-Jewish clubs or through charities where he was personally involved.

These customers represent a small minority of American Jews but they are unique in their wealth, their influence, and their visibility as leaders of legacy Jewish organizations. They were attracted to Madoff because he came highly recommended by other wealthy, highly-regarded members of the community and because Madoff himself was a Member of the Tribe (MOT).

I use that term advisedly and for a reason because, thankfully, it applies to an ever-shrinking number of Jews in America. It reflects an approach that served and sustained American Jews well for decades as our parents fought to break down discriminatory barriers and to have full access to every opportunity, job, school, neighborhood, and country club in the U.S.

Those were times when there was real anti-Semitism and a big chunk of the American dream was off-limits to our people. It was a battle that needed to be fought.

The good news is that our parents won. And because they did, our generation and our children are full participants in everything this great country has to offer with a range of choices and options that our parents and grandparents couldn't possibly begin to understand. Ironically, pretty much the only restricted institutions that remain are those Jewish clubs (like the ones where Madoff was a member and sought his prey)and schools that are closed to non-Jews.

We now live a world where, according to a recent survey, 44 percent of Americans say they have changed their religion at least once during their lifetime. A generation ago, nobody changed religions--we were born Jewish or Christian and we stayed that way and married that way whether we liked it or not. A few generations before that, most people never moved more than a few miles away from their birthplace and they usually took on the occupation of their fathers.

But now, for the first time in history, American Jews have unlimited choices. We are free to marry whomever we want and live, work, and go to school wherever we want. Most Americans are taking full advantage of this amazing range of new choices. The MOTs wring their hands and call it assimilation. The rest of us are thrilled to be so free.

Most of us still value The Community and we certainly want to derive benefit from The Wisdom--we are just moving beyond The Tribe.

The fastest growing group among Christians are people who describe themselves as non-denominational and by far the largest group of Jews are those who describe themselves as Just Jewish. More than 90 percent say they are proud to be Jewish but they tend not to gravitate to the synagogues, Federations, pro-Israel organizations, and all-Jewish clubs that their parents helped build.

Instead they shop for practices and wisdoms that make their lives more meaningful and better. But the tribalists haven't gotten the message. Ten years ago, a number of Jewish organizations became obsessed with promoting "continuity" which was a buzzword that really meant they were scared to death of rising intermarriage rates. That's because it was assumed that if a person intermarried, they and their children were lost to Judaism forever.

In fact, our synagogues and Jewish day schools are full of kids from families where only one parent is Jewish and the other has not converted. It is not unusual for a family to have a Passover seder in the spring and a Christmas tree in the winter. In some of those families, BOTH parents are Jewish. Only in America.

More and more people are doing more and more Jewish but they'd never consider themselves Members of the Tribe. And most of them would never invest all their money with a man whose methodology was sketchy and whose results were being questioned by a wide range of smart objective people just because he belonged to Jewish clubs and gave to Jewish charities. Some may call that assimilation. I call it common sense.

Which brings me back to Bernie Madoff and his victims. All of his victims were Jews but not all Jews were victims. In a perverse way, that is the exact opposite of what is often said about the victims of the Holocaust.

In Madoff's case, only the tribal Jews were willing to invest and to keep all of their money in a situation where red flags were being waved like crazy all over the place.

As Exhibit A, I submit this article from Time Magazine:

The article, entitled "How I Got Screwed By Bernie Madoff," was written by investor Robert Chew. He explains that all of his money and that of his wife's entire family (more than $30 million) was invested with Madoff.

But look at what he says:

"The call came at 6 p.m. on December 11. I had been waiting for it for five years...
I think everyone knew the call would come one day. We all hoped, but we knew deep down that it was too good to be true, right?"

Which brings us back to the original question: Why did so many smart people give Madoff all their money and sit back and do nothing when it became clear--or at least seemed likely--that he was reporting unrealistic results?

Part of it was human nature but I believe a bigger part was related to the rules of the game governing Members of the Tribe--the Chosen People at the Jewish clubs and charities where a select group of their friends and associates were also invested with Madoff. There are certain unwritten rules that go along with membership in that group. The first is that you never criticize Israel in public and the second was apparently that you don't question Bernie Madoff. To question Madoff would have been an affront to the other members and particularly those respected tribal leaders who got them in the door in the first place. Never mind the facts and never mind the gnawing feeling described by Robert Chew that this wasn't going to end well.

The Madoff catastrophe has left the Jewish community reeling financially and emotionally. It has also been jarring for many of us to realize that a fellow MOT could do this to his own.

But the major positive lesson that might be learned is that it's time to move beyond tribal thinking for our own good. We can't and shouldn't abandon the idea of community and a shared responsibility for each other's welfare. But we live in an open, pluralistic world where the true value of Judaism is now reflected by our wisdom, ethics, and values--not by our need to stick together and blindly trust only our own. Most American Jews realized this a long time ago. Hopefully more of our Jewish organizations and their leaders will finally get the message.

“To Bigotry No Sanction, to Persecution No Assistance” George Washington's Letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island (1790)

As we prepare to swear in our forty fourth president, I’ve been thinking about a most extraordinary correspondence between Moses Seixas, the warden of Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshu’at Israel, better known as the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, and George Washington, the newly elected first president of the United States.

The transfer of power in the U.S. is an orderly, entirely unremarkable, affair, a fact we often take for granted, but which among the family of nations, is rather unusual. As we enter this season of celebrating our representative democracy, I wanted to take us back to the very beginning. Even then, the value of the free expression of religion was an expressed goal (thanks to my father, Richard S. Cohen, for reminding me about these important documents).

Seixas wrote Washington on August 17, 1790, and welcomed him on the occasion of his first official visit to Newport. Washington’s visit to Newport was largely ceremonial—part of a goodwill tour Washington was making on behalf of the new national government created by the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. Newport had historically been a good home to its Jewish residents, who numbered approximately 300 at the time of Washington’s visit. The Newport Christian community’s acceptance of Jewish worship was exemplary, although individual Jews such as Aaron Lopez and Isaac Eliezer were unable to obtain full political equality as citizens of Rhode Island. The Jews of Newport looked to the new national government, and particularly to the enlightened president of the United States, to remove the last of the barriers to religious liberty and civil equality confronting American Jewry.

Moses Seixas’s letter on behalf of the congregation – he described them as “the children of the Stock of Abraham” – expressed the Jewish community’s esteem for President Washington and joined “with our fellow citizens in welcoming [him] to New Port.” The congregation expressed its pleasure that the God of Israel, who had protected King David, had also protected General Washington, and that the same spirit which resided in the bosom of Daniel and allowed him to govern over the “Babylonish Empire” now rested upon Washington. While the rest of world Jewry lived under the rule of monarchs, potentates and despots, as American citizens the members of the congregation were part of a great experiment: a government “erected by the Majesty of the People,” to which they could look to ensure their “invaluable rights as free citizens.”


Seixas expressed his vision of an American government in words that have become a part of the national lexicon. He beheld in the United States “a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship: - deeming every one, of whatever nation, tongue or language equal parts of the great Governmental Machine: – This so ample and extensive federal union whose basis is Philanthropy, mutual confidence, and public virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the Great God, who ruleth the Armies of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the Earth, doing whatsoever seemeth [to Him] good.”

Seixas closed his letter to the president by asking God to send the “Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness into the promised land [to] conduct [Washington] through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life.” He told Washington of his hope that “when like Joshua full of days, and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life, and the tree of immortality.”

Not surprisingly, it is Washington’s response, rather than Seixas’s epistle, which is best remembered and most frequently reprinted. Washington began by thanking the congregation for its good wishes and rejoicing that the days of hardship caused by the war were replaced by days of prosperity. Washington then borrowed ideas – and actual words – directly from Seixas’s letter:

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.

Washington’s concluding paragraph perfectly expresses the ideal relationship among the government, its individual citizens and religious groups:

May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

Washington closed with an invocation: “May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.”

The letter, a foundation stone of American religious liberty and the principle of separation between church and state, is signed, simply, “G. Washington.” Each year, Newport’s Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, now known as the Touro Synagogue, re-reads Washington’s letter in a public ceremony. The words are worthy of repetition. (The preceding is taken, in large part, from the web site of the American Historical Society, http://www.ajhs.org/).

Rabbi David B. Cohen

Second from right, Helen Padway is a former president of Congregation Sinai, published poet, and member of "The Sparks", a Wisconsin based poetry performance ensemble. Her poetry has, of late, graced the pages of the Sinai News.






I saw God at the Public Library Coffee shop

where they proselytize library rejects, donated books, and coffee. The books are second hand,

in good shape and easy to buy.. There was a stack of books near the cup, right at God's elbow.

I was shocked. Wasn't God all knowing all seeing, immutable, aware of all, controlling all and infinite? Why buy second-hand books?

I tried politely to scan the titles without stretching my neck too far or spilling my coffee

but the figure was so luminous that all the letters were obscured in a rainbow haze. God looked up and smiled, I smiled back but still had no answer.

Some good reading here but
I am puzzled by your popular culture, though I like the fair trade coffee.

She filled her backpack with the books and left.

God is right the coffee is good.



- Helen Padway

More Manipulative Media Against Israel

(Reprinted from the website of honestreporting.com)

On November 4, Israeli forces destroyed a tunnel near the Gaza border that was to be used by Hamas to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The AFP (Agence France-Presse) photo below shows the apparent aftermath. (Caption: A man sifts through rubble after Israel's overnight operation.)



Is AFP the victim of a staged photo? Did Hamas deliberately place a toy rabbit on top of the rubble for propaganda purposes? Or, worse, did AFP's photographer collude in this deception? After all, the bright pink rabbit appears to be clean and remarkably unscathed considering it has supposedly emerged from the rubble of a Palestinian home.

We asked a veteran professional photographer for his opinion. He expressed his concerns to our Backspin blog that the photo may even have been manipulated due to question marks over the motion of the toy, the lighting and the size and angle of the shot. He stated:

My gut feeling was that it was electronically manipulated. But I've seen situations where props like teddy bears or dolls were brought in and laid down next to a scene to create an effect. This brings to mind photos of Qana that included a Mickey Mouse doll. The pink rabbit is a child's toy, and anything that smacks of a child is a cynical use of photography. It's propaganda that Hamas wants, and the photographer is either going along with that in agreement or because he knows the image will sell.

We e-mailed AFP's Jerusalem bureau chief asking for an explanation but he failed to respond. While it may not be possible to prove definitively that this image is staged, based on previous examples and this image itself, there remain enough concerns to relay to AFP.

Please send your considered comments to AFP asking for a proper explanation - go to AFP's contact page - http://www.afp.com/english/afp/?pid=contact - select "Contact photo department" and refer to Marco Longari's photo #83566485 of 5 November.

From Generation to Generation...

I receive a weekly newsletter from American Public Media called, "The Writer's Almanac." Garrison Keillor, of "Prairie Home Companion" fame, edits selections of poetry, as well as stories about authors and poets. Last night, just a few hours of the closing "Ne'ilah" service of Yom Kippur, I read the following poem, by Leonard Nathan. It called to mind a famous Hasidic story, which I've transcribed below. I think both the poem and the story have something to say about the state of our relationship with Jewish tradition. Read them. Let me know what you think. In your estimation, how do the poem and the story relate to our current situation? Does one of them more closely describe where we are today?


Truth


by Leonard Nathan, z”l


As children in the schoolroom game


whisper from one end of the class to the other

and garble the message they pass on or change it


beyond recognition, so we


pass on the truth of our kind.




My father heard it from his, something


vaguely involving God, and his father


heard it from his, and so on back


to Abraham, and so father


passed it on to me, but God had dropped out.




And so my son heard it, a wisdom


found inside a Chinese fortune cookie:


"Be good and hope," which he will pass on


to his son, but maybe with good


missing or hope, maybe with love added.



Though love was never meant to mean so much.


"Truth" by Leonard Nathan from The Potato Eaters. © Orchises Press, 1999.





When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov, saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion for the same reason to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say, "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer." Again the miracle would be accomplished.
Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say, "I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient, and the miracle was accomplished.
Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God, "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient."
And it was sufficient. For God made man because He loves stories.

From Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim

A Greener Yid: The Shofar as Environmental Call to Action

I am a technophile, a first adopter, and a lover of all things “gadgety.” From my first Palm Pilot, to my current Blackberry, I love ‘em all.

Imagine my surprise, then, to read, in JTA (the Jewish Telegraphic Agency), that Judaism brought to the world the first wireless technology. And not only that; the Shofar, the article points out, is among the “greenest” technologies ever.

JTA, in "Seeing Green in the Shofar and its Call to Action," offers:

Is green the theme of the shofar this Rosh Hashanah season? In a year of sustainability and carbon footprints, high gas and hybrids, the shofar is the simplest, most eco-friendly method of reaching the Jewish community with a vital message.

The shofar, if you pause to think about it, is a rhapsody in green. Lightweight and easily transportable, it sports no moving parts -- the shofar blower, or ba’al tekiah’s, own mouth becomes the mouthpiece. Yet it's dependable enough to deliver the complex musical message required to begin a new Jewish year.

A totally natural product, its availability is a byproduct of an already ongoing ancient enterprise -- sheep herding.

Powered by one human, and empowered by a congregation, the shofar requires no batteries, power cord or transformer. When we hear it, we are the ones who become transformed.

Back to the Future...

In the moments before their b’nei mitzvah, long time Sinai congregant Laura Waisbren told her children: “There are just a few times in life you get to have your entire world assembled before you for a celebration.” At the whirlwind of Michael and Sophie’s becoming b’nei mitzvah yesterday begins to subside, I now see just how wise those words truly are.

On Sunday, my mother shared with me a synagogue bulletin article I had written just after I celebrated becoming bar mitzvah. Reading my own pre-adolescent words, I was struck by how eerily they captured sentiments I hold dear even today.

Yet, those early thoughts challenged my own sense of life-narrative. When people ask when I decided to become a rabbi, the story usually begins at sixteen, when I spent half a year in Israel as a high school exchange student. In light of this now uncovered article I wrote at thirteen, it may well be time to reexamine that assumption! At the risk of self-plagiarizing, permit me to share it with you:


“BETTER THAN CHICKEN SOUP - by David Cohen

Most people think they would probably enjoy the rabbi's job. The fact is that there is a lot more to being a rabbi than conducting services, socializing at the Oneg Shabbat, being a leader, and attending a variety of meetings. There is a lot more.

A few weeks ago Debra Fields (ed. The rabbi’s daughter) and I had the opportunity of observing one of the less joyous tasks of a Rabbi. The Junior Youth Group had made New Year's greetings for the hospital patients, and the two of us went with Rabbi Fields and Rabbi Rosenberg to distribute them.

When we arrived at Middlesex Hospital, I was scared. Not that anything was to go wrong, but I did not know what to expect. The first room we came to, I said to myself - "Well, here goes." We stepped in and the Rabbi introduced me and then himself. He told the patient that we were from Anshe Emeth (Synagogue) and that I was a representative of the Junior Youth Group. Suddenly, it was time for my big line. I said "Happy New Year" and that I hoped she was feeling better. She thanked me and we left. Gee, this was easier than I thought! Many of the patients were very appreciative of the time and effort that went into the greetings cards we handed out. One man was even too touched to speak. Another elderly woman said "they were more beautiful than a Rembrandt" and then she added "and I have seen a Rembrandt." The Rabbi later told me it was not the quality of the artwork that made her say that.

Throughout the trip I felt that I had never before known what the Rabbi does during the week. Many patients had said that the only person besides their families to visit them was their spiritual leader.

On leaving each room I realized how good it felt doing things for other people. Even at the end, however, I felt an uneasiness -going into someone's hospital room. At one point, for instance, we were in a man's room and I had said something and he just stared at me. The Rabbi sensed something was wrong and continued the conversation. What a lifesaver! I was about to collapse right on the spot.

I felt very good about the whole trip after it was over. I was very proud of myself and the projected effort made by our Temple to perform Mitzvoth.

While many of the things we do are important, nothing compares to getting out to accommodate the needy. I think all the members of our Youth Group are worth their weight in Jerusalem stone when they work to make something for the needy or disabled. Not only that, but their cards were the best medical treatment since chicken soup!

About a week later, I unexpectedly had the opportunity to be on the receiving end of this same mitzvah. Lady luck had struck again, and guess who became a patient in the hospital - Me! How the tables have turned. I could now understand the feeling of being alone in a hospital, although not for long. Like the nice guy the rabbi is, he found out and came right over to visit me. Nevertheless, while everyone is very nice, a patient can't help being a little scared, for it can pretty lonely, especially at three in the morning. I was lucky, for during the day I had lots of visitors. Even though my medicines made me tired, I was still very happy to have them, for I remembered that many of the elderly had no visitors at all and were really lonely.

I hope the Junior Youth Group will be thoughtful enough to deliver some of their "Rembrandts" again. They are cheaper than medicine, and make the patients feel so good!

(Synagogue Bulletin editor's note: 13 year-old David Cohen lives in East Brunswick, and has just celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. We predict he will not only be a great Rembrandt, but a Sholem Aleichem as well!). “

Well, history reveals that the Rembrandt prediction was way off base, but I like still tell stories, some even by Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem.

Should my seventh grade essay inspire you to consider doing a mitzvah, our Chesed Committee arranges for congregants to visit other homebound congregants. Please consider doing the mitzvah of “Bikur Cholim”, which though it’s often translated as “Visiting the Sick”, it also means spending time with those who are lonely and could use some human companionship. It would make a tremendous difference for someone in our community.

Julie joins me in hoping that 5759 is a wonderful year for you and yours,

Rabbi David B. Cohen

( David B. Cohen, age eleven, won a set of World Book encyclopedias, from the syndicated columnist, "Ask Andy.")