Rabbi: Kick Madoff out of the Jewish people
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, religious leader of Temple Beth El in Stamford, Conn., wants Bernard Madoff excommunicated. Here's the rabbi's letter to Malcolm Hoenlein (not sure why this is a job for the Conference of Presidents, but we can discuss that another time) making the case for such a drastic step:
Malcolm I. Hoenlein
Executive Vice Chairman
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Dec. 23, 2008
Dear Mr. Hoenlein,
I call upon the leadership of the American Jewish community, specifically the Council of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations -- which includes both lay and rabbinic groups -- to initiate action leading to the excommunication of Bernard Madoff.
Such a move would be unprecedented in the annals of American Jewry, and by its scope and power, perhaps in all of Jewish history. But never before has one man done such damage to individual Jews, Jewish organizations and Judaism itself. His actions were a betrayal of trust of an unprecedented degree. An overwhelming and overpowering statement of condemnation is essential. A clear message needs to be sent to others who might also be involved in similar schemes, to the Jewish public seeking moral leadership and to the public at large.
There have been many who have done more harm to Jews. To my knowledge, Madoff has not killed anyone (update: Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet committed suicide on Tuesday, after the hedge fund he operated lost $1.4 billion because of Madoff). But the foundations and charities he has harmed irreparably will prevent people from getting needed health care or educational assistance, will likely keep Jewish youth from rediscovering their identities and aged Holocaust survivors from recording their stories. Mark Charendoff of the Jewish Funders Network described it to “The Forward” in near apocalyptic terms, as "an atomic bomb in the world of Jewish philanthropy.” An apocalyptic crime calls for an unprecedented response.
But the greatest damage done by Madoff has been to Judaism itself.
David Harris of the American Jewish Committee wrote in a letter to the New York Times of his concern that the Times’ coverage of Madoff had placed a “striking emphasis on his being Jewish.” But the Times is hardly alone in drawing that connection: Google “Madoff” and “Jewish” and 295,000 Web links already appear. The ADL called this a spike in online anti-Semitism. So we have a situation where Jews are being blamed for a crime that has disproportionately harmed Jews. I can understand why Jewish organizations are jittery about anti-Semites having a field day on this matter, but the most effective way to address it is through a clear repudiation not only of Madoff himself, but of the anti-Judaic nature of his acts.
Abraham Joshua Heschel said that in a free society, some are guilty; all are responsible. On so many levels, beginning with that commandment about not stealing, Jewish tradition abhors what Madoff has done. Unless we Jews raise our voices louder than anyone else in condemnation of these acts , we are not only giving credence to all the false images being perpetrated by the anti-Semites, but we are perpetuating what the ancient sages dubbed a “hillul ha-shem,” a desecration of God’s name.
Rabbis have employed excommunication often over the centuries, particularly in chasing down husbands who refuse to grant religious divorces to their wives; but usually the impact has been localized. In medieval times, it was used as a political weapon against alleged heretics, like Spinoza and some Karaites. In our time this tool has lost its clout, simply because the Jewish community lacks unity, and because rabbinic sanction has little impact outside the ultra-Orthodox world.
But Madoff’s crimes cut across the Jewish spectrum - like a hatchet, not a scalpel. Hadassah reportedly lost $90 million; the Robert E. Lappin Foundation of Boston, which sent twenty of my community’s teens to Israel for free two years ago, was forced to shut down. Imagine if all the organizations represented by the Council of Presidents were to come together and say, flat out, that Madoff has done irreparable harm to Jews and Judaism and that he is not welcome in any synagogue, JCC or Federation event anywhere. No rabbi will marry him or bury him. No organization will make excuses for him. He is to be cut off. Period.
The mechanism for excommunication would need to be devised from scratch, along with the precise consequences. There would need to be a degree of rabbinic and lay cooperation that we’ve rarely if ever seen among Jews in this country. We are in uncharted territory. But to this point, the response of the organized Jewish community to this scandal has been tepid at best, likely because many fear the anti-Semitic backlash that, ironically, will only be exacerbated by continued tentativeness. Most of those directly impacted by the scandal were blameless save for their blind faith, but too many traveled in the same social circles that honored this man for all the wrong reasons; too many proclaimed his genius. Those images are what will remain unless American Jewry recognizes that there is something rotten that must be exorcised from our culture and from our midst. Some have said that what we need is the equivalent of a moral bailout. What we certainly need is resolute action.
Ultimately, it’s not because of the anti-Semites that this needs to be tackled head-on. Our own children are watching us. If the communal response to Madoff is concerted, unified and reasonable, this could be American Jewry’s finest hour. If not, it will be the continuation of our worst nightmare.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
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I think “Ima Gentile” is missing the point. What has many of us so incensed is that Bernard Madoff’s actions hurt so many others… and yes they hurt people who were Jewish, but they also hurt people who were not. The end result of Mr Madoff’s greed and duplicity is that he harmed CHARITIES. Notice-- he didn’t just harm hedge fund managers who now won’t be able to go to the Bahamas-- he harmed well-meaning Jewish people who were his friends, people who ran charities, and sincerely thought they were making a good investment with him that would make their charities better able to help more people.
Now, those charities have been forced to close or curtail their services. Most Jewish charities do not just help Jews-- American Jewish World Services, for example, sets up schools in countries like Rwanda (not exactly a hub of Jewish activity) and gives food to people in countries world-wide, whether they have Jewish populations or not.
Ima seems to think the issue for us is “Madoff hurt his own people.” No, Madoff hurt the poor, the needy, the homeless, the kids at Boys and Girls Clubs, and yes some organizations that do in fact cater mainly to Jews. I for one am furious about what he did, and find the media focus on alleged “wealthy Jews” quite unfortunate. Jewish philanthropists, whether wealthy or not, try their best to serve as many of the needy as possible. Mr Madoff only served his own needs, and the fact that his actions feed into old (and false) stereotypes about Jews saddens many of us. I agree with the rabbi who wrote the letter: this man has no right to call himself a Jew-- Judaism has requirements about ethics, commpassion, mitzvah, about making the world a better place. Mr Madoff’s lack of compassion and his lack of ethics make him a disgrace, and organized Judaism doesn’t need someone like him.
Could it be that the Almighty used Bernie Madoff as the messenger to deliver a message to the money changers ?
How does that story go regarding the Temple and the money changers?
I agree with Rabbi Hammerman that Bernard Madoff should be ex-communicated and exiled from Jewish communiites and Judaism throughout the world. Although I neither think nor believe he would care; apparently according to what I have read, he is not a member of any synagogue. Still, I believe the gesture of excommunication-exile is the proper course of action to be taken by Jewish communities in The United States, Israel, and around the world. It is for example what the Catholic Church and other communities would do, and would show a coherent Jewish response. In addition and in response to “Ima Gentile,” I think that Bernard Madoff is an embarrassment not just to the Jewish community as a whole and to Judaism as well; I think the Madoff is an embarrassment to humanity as well and is a poor excuse for a human being. I think he deserves to rot in jail in miserable isolation for the rest of his life, and from a legal perspective, I believe that exactly that will happen. I hope it does.
--Kurt D. Steinbach
Memphis, Tennessee
I agree with Rabbi Hammerman that Bernard Madoff should be ex-communicated and exiled from Jewish communities and Judaism throughout the world. Although I neither think nor believe he would care; apparently according to what I have read, he is not a member of any synagogue. Still, I believe the gesture of excommunication-exile is the proper course of action to be taken by Jewish communities in The United States, Israel, and around the world. It is for example what the Catholic Church and other communities would do, and would show a coherent Jewish response. In addition and in response to “Ima Gentile,” I think that Bernard Madoff is an embarrassment not just to the Jewish community as a whole and to Judaism as well; I think the Madoff is an embarrassment to humanity as well and is a poor excuse for a human being. I think he deserves to rot in jail in miserable isolation for the rest of his life, and from a legal perspective, I believe that exactly that will happen. I hope it does.
--Kurt D. Steinbach
Memphis, Tennessee
I’m very excited about this statement.
Messages like this protect the jewish trademark.
While the Rabbi speaks about principle,
his statement sends a message that Jews
do NOT stand for financial greed and deception.
Such a message also deter jews from engaging
in future madoff-like actions. Jews need to
remain aware that they walk around with the
jewish trademark, and the biggest danger to the
trademark is to have anything they do be interpreted
as falling into the stereotype.
I’m Jewish, but I absolutely agree with Ima Gentile. Indeed, Hoenlein sounds like he is only concerned about the harm caused to Jews.
Hoenlein’s train of thought, even though others may agree to it, sounds very ugly to me. First of all, how do you make somebody “un-Jewish” after they have been born Jewish? What other nation un-naturalizes its natural born? And what is the point of out-casting a bad person into the general society—does the general society deserve “receiving” all these bad people?? Isn’t it bad to throw your own dirt onto others? Hoenlein’s train of thought is ugly because it shows a lack of a sense of responsibility for fellow Jews and for the general society.
Madoff will be prosecuted in a criminal court, and if convicted guilty he will be sent to prison and forced to pay a fine. Upon the completion of this burden he will be given a chance to return to the society. That is how criminal activity is dealt with in modern civilized society. But this idea of out-casting people who are no longer liked is really an evil and pre-civilized way of thinking, that has done a great deal of harm to the Jewish society.
If Hoenlein speaks up now, where was his courage to speak up before when Madoff was ripping all these people off?
Ima Gentile writes “As a gentile, allow me to comment on what I perceive to be the essence of Rabbi Hammerman’s letter. Rabbi Hammerman seems to condemn Madoff because of what he did to Jews and to Jewish charities.”
No. You are missing his point completely.
The question Rabbi Hammermann is answering is not ‘what should happen to Madoff because of his crimes?’ but rather ‘what should be the response of the organized Jewish community to Madoff?’ which is something rabbis ought legitimately be expected to comment upon.
Did Madoff hurt non-Jews? By the thousands, see:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,472866,00.html
But he also (and primarily, I think it is going to become clear) hurt Jews and Jewish organizations, and that is what Rabbi Hammmermann is responding to, which is completely appropriate.
Marat BN writes: “First of all, how do you make somebody “un-Jewish” after they have been born Jewish?”
You don’t. Excommunication won’t make Madoff not-Jewish. It will merely set the terms of the Jewish communities non-engagement with him.
Jews have historically dealt with those amongst themselves that endangered/harmed the Jewish community as a whole in this way. A famous case:
“[Baruch] Spinoza became known in the Jewish community for positions contrary to normative Jewish belief, with critical positions towards the Talmud and other religious texts. In the summer of 1656, he was issued the writ of cherem (Hebrew: חרם, a kind of excommunication) from the Jewish community [..]. Righteous indignation on the part of the synagogue elders at Spinoza’s heresies was probably not the sole cause for the excommunication; there was also the practical concern that his ideas, which disagree equally well with the orthodoxies of other religions as with Judaism, would not sit well with the Christian leaders of Amsterdam and would reflect badly on the whole Jewish community, endangering the limited freedoms that the Jews had achieved in that city. The terms of his cherem were severe. [..] It was never revoked.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Spinoza#Controversial_ideas_and_Jewish_reaction
Marat BN also writes: “Madoff will be prosecuted in a criminal court, and if convicted guilty he will be sent to prison and forced to pay a fine. Upon the completion of this burden he will be given a chance to return to the society. That is how criminal activity is dealt with in modern civilized society.”
No, that is how criminal activity is dealt with in modern, secular society. Madoff will surely be subject to the process you describe, and no one (including Rabbi Hammermann) has suggested that he will not or should not be.
But inside the our large, modern, secular society are a whole bunch of smaller communities: blacks, whites, Latinos; straights, gays; the elderly, the young; Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, etc. ... and Jews.
And as a religious community, Jews have their own religious Law. (Catholics, too: they call it ‘canon law.’ And Muslims: ‘shari’a.’) Religious Law regulates the relationships between individual members of the particular community, and between members of the community and the entire community.
Assuming the charges are true (and there are reports that he’s confessed) Madoff has acted in such a way as to egregiously harm the Jewish community. They must respond to that in some way. Rabbi Hammermann has suggested a response, and made the case for it being the appropriate response. I agree with him.
Madoff will probably also go to jail, but that will be the response of the larger, secular society; it is also an appropriate response.
In sum, this is a ‘both/and’ situation, not an ‘either/or’ situation, which Rabbi Hammermann could perhaps have made clearer.
Best, Schneider
If you guys excommunicate Madoff, please point him toward the nearest Catholic Church. We Catholics are pretty good at forgiveness.
maggie
I, too, am not Jewish, but I grew up within a large, vibrant Jewish community, and my parents had many friends, other couples, with whom they spent much of their socializing time, and I had many Jewish friends during my childhood--before I moved thousands of miles away. Perhaps this is the reason that Rabbi Hammerman’s near-final comment, “Our own children are watching us,” jumped out for me.
All of us who are parents know that young people listen to what you do for a long time before they decide if they are going to listen to anything you say. For this reason alone, I believe that some sanction (I am not familiar with Judaism’s ecclesiastical measures that could be brought to bear) that would impress upon the children, who are indeed watching, that would call out what must be called “sin.” A failure to act could have very serious consequences for their formation as Jews, for their self-understanding and their connection, and commitment, to their Jewish community and congregation (I am Catholic, so I ask forgiveness for not knowing how one refers to the congregation with whom one gathers on the Sabbath).
In her very flippant comment, ("magdalyn c. prossii") said, “If you guys excommunicate Madoff, please point him toward the nearest Catholic Church. We Catholics are pretty good at forgiveness.” It is true that, to put something rather complex in simple terms, we are taught that “what cannot be excused must be forgiven.” But this is not the sort of forgiveness that Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” (Bonhoeffer was a clergyman who openly opposed Hitler; he spent years in one of the camps, and one of Hitler’s final orders before going into “the Bunker” was that Bonhoeffer be hanged--and he was.) If you’ve heard the term “sack cloth and ashees,” you will have had an inkling of what “penance” was sometimes required before the penitent’s sin was absolve.
I have a bedrock conviction about the Jewish community which leads me to conclude that any member who perpetrated such a transgression would be called to account if the victims were Jewish or if they were not. But I believe that Mr. Madoff should be called to account by whatever means are set out in the sacred sources of the Jewish people. I’d like also to express my personal regret that so many people and worthy organizations and foundations have been decimated by this man’s actions. Avarice attempts to work its way with us whether we are of modest or lavish means, and this is a particularly good “teachable moment” for demonstrating this to our children.
Mary Wagner
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Ima Gentile
12/26/08 08:29 PM
As a gentile, allow me to comment on what I perceive to be the essence of Rabbi Hammerman’s letter. Rabbi Hammerman seems to condemn Madoff because of what he did to Jews and to Jewish charities. It is Madoff’s crimes against Judaism, not his crimes against against society as a whole or against humanity that draws the wrath and ire of Jews. The question we non-Jews have is this: would you be incensed if Madoff’s alleged crimes had been committed primarily against another religious or ethnic group? From all the commentary I’ve read so far, I believe the answer to this is a resounding “no.”
As a confirmed misanthrope I do not like being narrowly labeled as an anti-Semite. It strikes me a grossly unfair, but I doubt if the labelers are concerned about what I consider fair. But let me say this: If the perception is that Jews are more concerned about their own welfare than they are of the other members of society then I can only say that “caveat emptor” must be the attitude of society to Jews. You can call this anti-Semitism if it makes you feel good - and I think it does - but it’s just plain old common sense.
In any event, to any truly righteous Jewish readers of this blog, “Happy Hanukkah!”