Is it Good for the Jews? Whatever You Do, Don't Blame Oprah

First Bernie Madoff. Now this. The sweat-o-meter at the B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League has to be in the red zone.

By "this" I don't mean Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip, Hamas' rocket attacks and the predictable fallout of increased hostility all around; specifically, if history is any judge, a sure beneficiary will be amped-up anti-Semitism in some parts of the world.

I'm talking about Herman Rosenblat and his romantic made-up story about the Holocaust, a concentration camp and his wife of 50 years, Roma. This is like Einstein pumping up his academic credentials. Why do it?

Mr. Madoff makes Jews look bad, according to a story in the New York Times - whose self-conscious Jewish owners didn't used to print Jewish stories a few decades ago - because he reinforced the anti-Semitic stereotype of the greedy, plotting, thieving financier.

Fortunately, for reasonable people, the former hedge fund magician-turned-Ponzi has plenty of WASPy company, even just in the last six months. The fact that his ruse ruined some outstanding Jewish charities along with hundreds of other people and secular organizations is a tragic sidebar reality of his con.

But reason often doesn't prevail and, at a minimum, according to the Times story, quoting the web site for Israel's daily, Haaretz, "The anti-Semite's new Santa is Bernard Madoff."

Then along comes Mr. Rosenblat, who actually did survive the Buchenwald concentration camp, which you'd think would be a tale hair-raising enough to get him a book deal, as it has for many other Holocaust eyewitnesses. But, apparently for fame and some potential fortune, he folded in fictionalized pieces that added a more Hollywoodesque ending, starting with his wife feeding him apples from outside the camp fence to their operatic reunion on a New York blind date a dozen years later.

Historians, other Holocaust survivors and those - Jewish or not - who never want the Hitler years to be repeated were horrified that one fake concentration camp story would only give Holocaust deniers ammunition.

When the truth dam burst, Mr. Rosenblat showed an ongoing talent for fable by claiming that the apple thing was really just a dream and, urged on by his mother in another dream, he just wanted to remake his history "to make good in the world" and bring "good feelings to a lot of people."

Well, who wouldn't want that? Mr. Madoff, apparently.

When Mr. Rosenblat was exposed this last week as lying about the whole apples thing, the truth embarrassed the publisher of his fairytale book (Penguin Group), his agent (Andrea Hurst), his ghost-writer (Susanna Margolis) who suspected the story was an apparition but didn't call him on it, and the producer (Harris Salomon) of a film based on Mr. Rosenblat's version of events. It being the movies, Mr. Salomon just said he'd switch it to a fictional story. The real life phony script isn't remedied quite so easily.

Mr. Rosenblat's most famous fleeced victim, and the one mentioned most prominently, however, is Oprah Winfrey, who had him and his wife on her show. Ms. Winfrey anointed the apple/camp/reunion saga as "the single greatest love story" she'd witnessed in over two decades of Tom Cruise couch-jumping and many other expressions of inspirational romance on her show.

His agent even cited the appearance on Oprah is somehow being evidence that the tale was true. "It did not seem like it would not be true" after that, Ms. Hurst told the NY Times.

The ADL and other concerned agencies will try to sort out the bad news for the Jewish community in all of these events. At a minimum, the answer to the "is it good for the Jews?" question is quite clear in the Madoff and Rosenblat scandals.

But I'm here to defend Oprah. Don't blame her just because she's famous. Oprah, whose hugely successful business did not depend on the Bernie Madoff mirage but on successfully mining and showcasing people's emotional veins every day of the week for 22 years, is, after all, as the tabs say about other stars, just like us. Once in awhile she gets fleeced.

The last time, when author James Frey was busted for making stuff up after Oprah blessed him on her show, she made Frey come back on the air and whipped him for it. We'll see if Mr. Rosenblat shows up on Oprah in a hair shirt.

Criticize her, if you have to, for her ubiquity, her confessional approach to life, her diet or her love life. But no scapegoating Oprah allowed on this one.

Follow Phil Bronstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PhilBronstein

Comments

[mulegino]

I've heard of preemptive war and preemptive programming but this is the first time that I've seen preemptive victimhood.

[larry278]

There are anal retentive people in every race & religion. Let Jewish anal retentives worry about Madoff & books about Europe's survivors getting canceled. Jewish people don't have the world monoply on Schmendricks or gonifs. There are people who see fakes as simply fakes, not Jewish or gentile fakes. Only the alte cocker worry that Madoff is Jewish/American. Madoff is simply an American thief who preyed upon wealthy Jews among other wealthy people.
Madoff also preyed upon the wealthy regardless of religion or ethnic group. Madoff was catholic about his swindles.
Maybe it's time to organize an anti-defecation league for the anal retentives of all religious persuasions & ethnic groups. Madoff was a super successful thief, period. The USA is a paradise for swindlers. There is an abundant supply of suckers, rich suckers of every stripe.
The next super successful swindler could well be a gentile from Kansas. The next author of a supposedly fact based book which is really fiction & is shown up as a fraud & has his book was set for publication pulled by Oprah & the suckered publisher could be a Swiss Calvanist. For the 100th time, Jews don't have a monoply upon fakes.

[Einstein44]

Point blank - There will always be good and bad people in every RACE !

[Bulbul]

Why worry about Oprah at this time of crisis ? What if she loses a handful of fans, does it matter in the scheme of life ? Did she lose her whole fortune in Madoff ?
NO
Let us worry about the ordinary people who lost their life support, trusting is not their fault. Daydreaming about high return , perhaps !
Oprah is a survivor, give ot take a few billions or a handful of fans.

[newzworthy]

You should be more concerned about the backlash towards the Jews. Oprah - she's Oprah, she's untouchable man.

[faithnj]

Be concerned about the Jews, sure. But it's unfair to say that Oprah is untouchable. She's human, and I can't understand why people keep blaming her to the ends of the earth over the lies of others. Human beings are failable. The media builds you up and they can take you down. Right now, it almost looks like she should disband her bookclub, if she's going to be blamed for every lie told in print.

[DaveinNorthridge]

Let's try to remember the old adage: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." As Tally Lass correctly notes, Oprah's flaw is that she's gullible, and the real problem here is that apparently so is her research staff, which is also powerless. The cautionary tale here, however, is about the masses of people who see Oprah as an infallible witness -- I suppose you'd call it the Oprah cult. Folks, do your own research occasionally?

[SouthJerseySteve]

Oprah fans are just as gullible as "Ditto Heads" or think every word or crap coming out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth is the 2nd Coming of you-know-who.

[toocoldout]

Oprah's track record is pretty good when you consider all the thousands of shows she's done dealing with personal stories. Anyone that covers trues stories as frequently as Oprah does will be fooled many times. Look at Jason Blair in the NY Times and the recent scandal over publishing a fake letter by the mayor of Paris. Look at Stephen Glass who fooled the New Republican. All of these people will no doubt be fooled many times again. It doesn't make them gullible, it just means they're not psychic.

[TallyLass]

Her choices are questionable, seeing as how this isn't her first or second time being conned. Maybe she should get out of the business of telling other people what to read. I read a lot and I never knew I needed a talk show host to tell me what to read. Jews are just like everybody else. There's some good, some bad. Some honest, some crooks etc. You get my point. Why is this shocking?

[toocoldout]

Between her book club, her magazine, and her show, five days a week, for a quarter century, Oprah has publicized tens of thousands of personal narratives. When you promote that many, of course many will turn out be less than 100% factual. It's just the nature of the business. The fact that she's only been burned twice in a quarter century is quite impressive actually.

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

I give Oprah credit for encouraging her fans to read. While the books she promotes aren't usually high brow literature it's a step or three above People mag, The National Enquirer and Harlequin Romances that are the standard fare for some of Oprah's fans.

[ESerafina42]

This is also a woman who gave her imprimatur to "The Secret." Repeat after me - GULLIBLE.

[mcthfg]

You're right - because Oprah doesn't have millions of dollars and research assistants who could have done a little digging...

[dcoxucla]

she shouldnt have to be CSI to all the guest on her show