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Help to Hunter: In the tradition of “Tikkun Olam”?

By Eric Fingerhut · August 11, 2008

A Jewish Democratic leader says the financial help Fred Baron gave to John Edwards's former mistress could be classified as one of the acts of "Tikkun Olam" that the Dallas lawyer been doing for many years.

Marc Stanley, chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council and a Dallas lawyer, called Baron "an exceedingly generous person" and said he "supports more people and causes than any individual I've ever met .... only because I've never met Bill Gates."

Noting that Baron has hosted a number of events sponsored by Dallas Jewish organizations at his home, Stanley said Baron is motivated not by the expectation of getting anything in return but by the highest aims of Tikkun Olam, or building a better world. Baron's assistance to Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young, another former campaign aide who has been named as the alleged father of Hunter's child, "really could" be seen in the same tradition, Stanley said.

"I have seen Fred help individuals for 20 years," said Stanley. "Andrew Young worked for him. I am confident Fred felt [Hunter] was part of the [campaign] team. It was not unlike Fred at all."

Stanley said Baron had bought a house in North Carolina at the start of the presidential campaign and allowed campaign staffers to stay there. Baron's assistance to Hunter and Young was designed to help them relocate and avoid the attention of reporters purusing the Edwards scandal story. Baron apparently did not know of Hunter's involvement with the former Democratic presidential candidate.

"I'm sad to see him caught up in this whirlwind," Stanley said.