The Jews Are All On Trial With Bernard Madoff

I attended a fairly large Bar Mitzva this past Shabbos. Hundreds of Jewish writers, editors, rabbis, scholars, lawyers, therapists, deans, foundation heads and opinion-makers were gathered together-none of whom seemed especially worried about the Madoff scandal. One intellectual said that “in the past, things had been a lot worse for the Jews.” The Director of a philanthropic foundation pointed out that “many non-Jews have also been responsible for financial cons and that non-Jews have also been victimized by Madoff.”

Few saw the Madoff scandal as necessarily a “Jewish” problem. They were mainly progressives, thinkers, sophisticated. They did not behave in such ways and they viewed themselves as the true Princes of Israel. If anyone was worried or ashamed, it didn’t show. I doubt that anyone at this Bar Mitzva had invested or lost money with Madoff. It was not that kind of crowd. But, it was Shabbos, we were at a simcha, and obliged to make merry. People were not supposed to be on worry-duty. And yet, a degree of slow-motion complacency, even denial, characterized the affect of those with whom I’d raised the subject. They did not seem to understand that we’ll all be on trial with Madoff, the innocent as well as the guilty, those who are poor, and those who are rich and greedy for more, those Jews who fight for justice for Palestinians and those Jews who fight for justice for religious settlers.

Currently in London, there is a display of cartoons at the Political Cartoon Gallery in London which focuses on Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western media. Many of the specific tortures that Saddam Hussein visited upon his own people and that Palestinian terrorist leaders have visited upon their Christian and Muslim populations, are now depicted as something that Israelis do to Palestinians…Continue reading on Chesler Chronicles >>