Bernard Madoff Didn't Just Hurt Jews: He Was an Equal Opportunity Swindler

With thanks to my friend and fellow Jew, esteemed TV writer Allan Manings, who co-wrote the title for this piece, I was reading a front page article in the Los Angeles Times today, both intrigued and offended by writer Duke Helfand's unbalanced reporting to the effect that Bernard Madoff had done the unthinkable. He had cheated his own kind -- members of the Jewish Faith. Indeed the headline read, "Madoff an Outrage to L.A.'s Jewish." While it may be true that an enormous percentage of those individually affected were in fact Jewish, there were plenty of other decent people who lost big money as well.

And even if that weren't the case, isn't it racism or religious intolerance of the worst kind to presume that those from the same background ought to have a level of superior goodness towards one another? Or that it's somehow not as bad to wrong an outsider? Why should Jews be any more surprised that one of their own is less than honorable? Are we not subject to the same failings of other humans? Do we see articles written in a like manner when a Christian con man makes off with money from folks who share the same faith? Did the headlines during the Charles Keating scandal refer to his having pilfered the life savings of a lot of Christians? Or that the U.S. Senators involved in the wrongdoing were Christians as well?

Similarly, Gays have been known to screw one another (no pun intended), not only in the bar scene where young flirtatious types seek sugar daddies (or mamas) only to shed them when they no longer profit from the association. The entertainment industry is strewn with gay men in casting and production capacities, who have long been known to effect discriminatory practices on actors known to share the same sexual proclivity.

Whether these gay TV and Film honchos are still closeted and don't want suspicions about them revealed or are already "out" and don't want accusations of favoritism to be pointed in their direction, these are not noble characteristics. Nor should either of these two categories of gay production personnel be congratulated or excused for practicing the purported "strictly business sensibility" that an audience will not accept a gay actor playing a straight man -- a custom they are believed to engage in more often than even their heterosexual colleagues.

So, why is it a more onerous "desecration of God's name and the Jewish people who worship God," as Rabbi Elliot Dorff of the American Jewish University in Los Angeles said. Would it be less a sacrilege if Madoff had done the same to a strictly gentile clientele?

While it's incredibly sad and a lot of attention has been focused on the Jewish people who were ripped off, how about non-Jews like Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet of Access International Advisors, a financial manager so upset that he committed suicide in his Manhattan office. Or one of his gentile clients, Liliane Bettencourt, reportedly France's richest woman. Not to mention churchgoer Nicola Horlick, head of Britain's Bramdean Alternatives? Or the organizations and institutions, which have lost a combined $22 billion, such as:

- Fairfield Greenwich Advisors, $7.50 billion
- Tremont Capital Management, $3.30 billion
- Banco Santander, $2.87 billion
- Bank Medici, $2.10 billion
- Ascot Partners, $1.80 billion
- Access International Advisors, $1.40 billion
- Fortis, $1.35 billion
- Union Bancaire Privee, $1.00 billion
- HSBC, $1.00 billion

Plus large companies, which lost substantial amounts such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Nomura Holdings, BNP Paribas or Aozora Bank. It's hard to believe that all these entities are owned by Jews nor that it would somehow be more disgusting were they so.

However, Rabbi Jonathan Klein of the Progressive Jewish alliance told the Los Angeles Times "Madoff does not represent the Jewish people, not even remotely." The rabbi presumably never heard of folks like Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel.

It's time to stop these generalizations and work towards bringing all citizens together, and not simply classify cultural groups in a manner that foments derision and possibly hatred. This is the same sort of crap instituted against all Muslims because of the horrible events seven years ago in New York and at the Pentagon and since. It is why Barack Obama, in spite of the shortcomings of the current administration, lost most of the southern states by big margins. It is why Jews are now being maligned even more worldwide as they are further branded with the Shylock moniker.

If someone perpetrates something bad, he or she should be held accountable and judged accordingly. It is neither better nor worse if he/she does it to those outside or inside his/her perceived community.

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas!

Michael Russnow's web site is www.ramproductionsinternational.com

Comments

[schill1961]

Please..I wish everyone would chill on this jewish stuff. Maddoff screwed his clients and a large portion of them happen to be jewish. Do not let any theories grab a foothold as they are extremely dangerous. He was an individual who was a con artist, unique only in the amount of money and high profile clients he was handling. He should have behaved ethically across the board and he didn't.

[fratricide08]

To the author of this piece: Well said!

[Intelligentia]

Mr. Russnow, your article is valid; however, there are people in our society looking for an opportunity to stick it to the Jew. Maddoff gave some that opportunity. It's no different when the media portray all Blacks as criminals when one Black person does something bad. For example, when a Black journalist, Jason Blair (sp?) was caught fabricating stories, the first thing one White newspaper executives claimed was that if it was not for Affirmative Action(AA), Mr. Blair would not have been hired in order to do what he did. Blair gave the executive an opportunity to attack AA. However, the executive forgot that before Blair, there were many White journalists caught fabricating their stories. Now, in the Jewish context, some Jews, like the Rabbi, just want the Jewish haters to know that the Maddoff scam was not a "Jewish conspiracy to suck" the gentile of all his money, and that, in fact, Jews suffered more. I do not think that the Rabbi was saying: if Maddoff was going to scam anyone, why not gentiles only. Nobody should blame Jews for thinking as a collective, it's self-preservation, not a sense of superiority. After all, it was not long ago that Harvard would not allow Jews to be admitted into its law school, until Brandeis (sp?). So, let some Jews set their own record straight: Maddoff may be a Jew, but he did not do it in our name.

Another issue, please tell Israel, thread softly in Gaza.

[Saynomore]

The Israeli airforce has just indiscriminately bombed a slum -- the Gaza strip -- killing 155 impoverished Arabs and woundings hundreds more. However, the Rabbi's won't be outraged by this; instead, it is the loss of jewish money that "desecrat's God's name and the Jewish people who worship God" ..... two sides of the same rancid, bloody, supremicist coin.

[schmuckwithearlaps]

Interesting comment. I am sure you do not spend much time wondering where the people of Gaza might be with better leadership that can control provocative attacks on their neighbor. Tragic loss of life, not a reason for an anti-semitic rant. As for Madoff, he was the figurehead for a group of hundreds if not thousands of so-called investment advisors who demanded a 30% return when most of us were not breaking even. When the whole truth comes out it will be clear that these investment advisors pocketed most of the missing fifty billion, and most of these people never have seen a Rabbi face to face.
How does one compare the inhumanity of bombing civilians with the inhumanity of wiping out charities because of greed and deception? I am sure some people have easy answers to those questions.
Didn't someone named Dante try to classify all of this hundreds of years ago?

[Lucas702]

The gays, the Christians, Muslims but especially the Jewish religion has always need stories/ incidents like these to rally thier folks.
You know, "we all have to rally together because an outside force has done some injustice to us, and sticking together is all we have." blah blah blah ( sad face, roll the eyes).. except this time it wasn't an outside force. it was one of your own. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Stay tuned.

[janmarie]

Thank you for writing this. Everything written so far has been so one-sided.

[nancytheragingliberal]

"If someone perpetrates something bad, he or she should be held accountable and judged accordingly" Your comment is wonderful, however, do you ever see anyone held accountable at the higher levels? No, it is only the "Little people" who are held to that standard, not w.'s "Have and have mores." W.'s band of theives, warmongers, liars, incompetents will never see one minute of jail time. Meanwhile, millions of dead men, woman, and children lie dead under the ground. Greed is not good and people will change their ways and come to the conclusion that there are more important things in life, other than possessions. What has gone on, unchecked, in the last eight years is an outrage.

[gageeandbaba]

I dig your article, but it is true that Jewish people help other Jewish people as well has African Americans and Euro Americans. I find it offensive that the people writing about 'hurting fellow Jews" think that somehow they are more special than the rest of us. That is the kind of thinking that reflects badly on Jewish people. I was watching the BBC and they were doing a story on Israeli illegal settlements, and the one woman basically was condoning stealing people's lands saying that it was always the Jews'. Says who? If there wasn't a community conscious movement with SOME Jewish people, than why don't American Networks do stories like the BBC?