I’ll be picking up my mother-in-law in a few minutes for our regular weekly lunch at the JEA. Yes, her dementia continues to unravel her memory and self-identity, thanks for asking. But she still remembers that every Thursday I pick her up at 12:15 and that lunch costs five dollars a person. (She insists on paying. Call me a schnorrer all you want – you try arguing with her.)
I’m not quite sure how it breaks down, but I figure five bucks a plate for thirty seniors doesn’t cover the food, the staff and the facility costs. But that’s the beauty of the Jewish Federation – it plugs the holes in the services the community needs most – like providing its warm, hilarious, heritage-carrying seniors a nice meal a few times a week. Some of us give a little, some of us give a lot, some smart people invest those shekels and all of us enjoy the safety net.
And now the biggest Jewish douchebag of all time has fucked it up. The JPost reports that Bernie Madoff’s greed has delivered a “major massive shock” to the Jewish philanthropic system, with $600 million in losses estimated before anyone’s really done any complex math – some are expecting a 20% reduction for the Federation in 2009. But hopefully we won’t be eating sock soup on Thursdays just yet:
“People who are starving are going to have to continue to be fed,” Avraham Infeld, president of the collapsed Chais Family Foundation, told the Post on Monday. “That means every other kind of Jewish expenditure is going to have to move aside in order to allow welfare to take place for the aged and the poor.”
I’m just so depressed and disgusted that someone even has the power to dupe people this way and have such a far-reaching effect. Worse yet, the motherfucker has his bail restrictions loosened to the equivalent of tying a piece of licorice around his ankle and continues to waltz around Manhattan and as far as his property in Connecticut during daylight hours.
How are we supposed to defend ourselves when anti-Semites sneer that Jews DO in fact cheat the world and get away with it? How can we explain to our children that one of our own screwed us worse than our enemies ever could?
Jewlicious blogger The Middle says it well:
I guess that just as we take pride in Jewish Nobel prize winners, we have to include thieves like Madoff in our recognition that Jewish life is multifaceted. Along with our successes, we have failures, people who disappoint and also those who commit crimes.
And it’s going to be a long time before our tribe recovers from this one.
like Marcia Fine says, major shanda here
His crime was imitating the Social Security Administration without using armed thugs to collect premiums (aka the IRS). There’s one poor sap who lost 7 BILLION by himself in this scam. It sucks to have been hit by Hurricane Bernie. We haven’t heard the last of this!
if he was imitating SSA how come he never sent any checks to my bubbe & zayde?
My Mexican-Irish Catholic friend agrees, there is a special place in hell reserved for people who steal from charities and all groups that help people in need.
What did he do with all the money he stole? Can we liquidate all his stuff and give it to charity? A Manhatten appartment and Conn. home could buy a lot of lunches. Meanwhile I guess we all have give more thsi year to make up for this guy. Maybe he should have to go arround the country and work making lunches etc. for these various charities. Actually have to look at the people he hurt. I think special creativity is called for punishment for this sort of crime.
I agree, Cathy! HE should have to wear a freakin’ hair net and serve saltless green beans for the rest of his life!
He didn’t send a check to your bubbe because they didn’t participate in the scheme. Ponzi schemes use new money to pay the profits of the old money. As long as new money is coming in then the scheme will persist.