Those who hold Madoff accountable are called “anti-semitic”–unless they are his victims, such as those awaiting bone marrow transplants (remember those folks?).
–Staff 2
The Madoff betrayal: Life imitates anti-Semitism
By Bradley Burston
For the true anti-Semite, Christmas came early this year.
The anti-Semite’s new Santa is Bernard Madoff. The answer to every Jew-hater’s wish list. The Aryan Nation at its most delusional couldn’t have come up with anything to rival this:
The former chairman of Nasdaq turns out, also, to be treasurer of the board of trustees at Yeshiva University and chairman of the university’s business school. Rich beyond human comprehension, he handles fortunes for others, buying and selling in a trading empire that skirts investment banks and other possible sources of regulation. He redefines avarice, knowingly and personally bilking charities and retirees in the most classic of con games.
Even better, for those obsessed with the idea that Jews control finance, entertainment and the media, is the idea that Madoff’s greed was uncontrollable enough that he targeted fellow Jews, even Holocaust survivors, some of them his own friends, as well as Israeli companies who insured Jews, including Holocaust survivors.
The beauty part, for the anti-Semite: Madoff’s machinations, which could have been put to use for the sake of humanity, have directly harmed Jewish welfare and charity institutions.
He has managed to harm contemporary Jewry in ways anti-Semites could only dream about. He has sapped the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles of 11 percent of its endowment, or more than $6 million. In the words of prominent educator Avraham Infeld, he “obliterated” long-standing charitable foundations for Jewish causes in Israel, Eastern Europe and North America.
Along the way, Madoff assured the story enormous play, not only with the scale and the impudence of the scheme, but with his A+ roster of celebrity victims, among them Stephen Spielberg, Elie Wiesel, and billionaire real-estate tycoon, media mogul, commentator and former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Mort Zuckerman. A senior U.S. senator is one of his client-marks, as well as present and past owners of professional football and baseball teams. (More…)
See also: Did Madoff Move $100 Billion to Israel?
Who is Bernie Madoff, the man behind the 50 billion fraud? by Christopher Bollyn
