April 2, 2009 | 5:53 pm

Israel’s Lieberman questioned by police

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Only in Israel would a political leader be sworn into office one day and questioned by police as part of an investigation into bribery and money laundering the next. So was the case for Avigdor Lieberman, the new foreign minister, today. From a The New York Times article that also discusses that ax murder in the West Bank:

Mr. Lieberman caused an uproar on Wednesday, his first day as foreign minister, declaring in a blunt speech that Israel was not obligated to continue an American-backed peace effort with the Palestinians, started at a conference in Annapolis, Md., in late 2007.

The police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the interrogation did not come as a surprise, but was coordinated with the incoming minister several days in advance.

Mr. Lieberman is part of the new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu and his conservative Likud Party, which was sworn in late Tuesday. Mr. Lieberman leads the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu party, an important partner in the governing coalition and the third largest party in Parliament.

Critics of Mr. Lieberman were outraged at the outcome of the recent coalition negotiations that put his Yisrael Beiteinu party in charge of the Ministry of Public Security, which is responsible for the police.

The new public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, is highly regarded as a former deputy commissioner of the national police. Nevertheless, police officials expressed surprise when Mr. Lieberman, the party chief, took the unusual step of turning up at Mr. Aharonovitch’s inauguration ceremony on Wednesday.

The police have been investigating Mr. Lieberman’s business dealings for 13 years, but he has never been charged. He has frequently railed against the police, accusing them of persecution.

Mr. Aharonovitch said Thursday that he had no intention of intervening in the investigations of public figures. Mr. Lieberman’s office said that he fully cooperated with the police investigators. The police spokesman said that the investigation is continuing, and that Mr. Lieberman would be questioned again.

Here is a link to a story about Lieberman’s comments Wednesday about Israel’s peace policy. After the jump, a critical ad from JStreet:

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April 2, 2009 | 2:52 pm

When Israelis were drug lords

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Ten years ago, the Israeli mafia dominated Ecstasy drug trafficking. Lisa Sweetingham unravels the international web in her new book, “Chemical Cowboys,” about which I interviewed her for next week’s Jewish Journal.

What I found most interesting about our discussion of Israelis and Ecstasy was the use of atypical mules for the smuggling of pills cooked in Europe. Sweetingham mentioned “stripper couriers and haredi teens and Midwestern-looking folks.” Wait ... haredi teens?

Yep. This in-depth story from the Miami New Times tells a lurid tale. Here’s a shorter explanation from a 2004 expose from Haaretz on kingpin Oded Tuito and the Ecstasy trade:

In addition to the strippers, Tuito also made use of young ultra-Orthodox Jews, whom he recruited by word of mouth in New York yeshivas. He believed—and rightly so, as it turned out—that the U.S. authorities would not suspect yeshiva students dressed in the traditional black garb and therefore would not check their luggage at the airport in New York.

Talk about bad for the Jews.

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April 2, 2009 | 2:14 pm

Anti-Zionism or Anti-Semitism?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

You may have noticed in the comments below the KPFK post or those regarding Pat Oliphant’s goose-stepping, shark-toothed cartoon last week this frequent complaint: “To use ‘antisemitism’ as a response to all things that negatively reflect upon Judaism is cowardly and wrong.”

I generally agree that some Jews are far too quick to label as anti-Semitism any painful criticism of Israel. I wouldn’t, however, discredit my argument, as this commenter did, by next referring to Israel as an “apartheid state.”

Anyway, Andrew Silow-Carroll, the editor of the New Jersey Jewish News, has a great column this week in which he provides a worksheet for determining when criticism of Israel crosses over into anti-Semitism. “Use it,” he advises, “whenever you are not sure if what you are reading is anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic, or an editorial in Ha’aretz.”

Of the 10 questions, here were my five favorite:

B. To whom does the commentator compare Israel’s military?

  1. The Rebel Alliance in Star Wars
  2. The United States in Vietnam
  3. The French in Algeria
  4. The Gestapo in Hell

C. How soon does the word “Holocaust” appear in the comment or essay?

  1. Not at all
  2. In the first paragraph, right before “Once the Jews were oppressed, now they have become…”
  3. In the first sentence, contained in quotation marks
  4. In the paragraph about Palestinian casualties, but with a lower-case “h”

D. On which network is the commentator most likely to appear?

  1. Fox News
  2. CNN
  3. NPR
  4. Al Jazeerah

E. To which of the following does the commentator compare the pro-Israel lobby?

  1. The National Rifle Association
  2. Skull and Bones
  3. The Trilateral Commission
  4. The Elders of Zion

F. How does the writer refer to Hamas?

  1. “An Islamofascist terror outfit”
  2. “Gaza’s democratically elected government”
  3. “An unfairly maligned social service agency”
  4. “My good friends Khaled and Ismail”

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April 2, 2009 | 10:57 am

Ax-swinging Palestinian kills Israeli teen, wounds young boy

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“Lansky,” the Meyer Lansky biopic starring Richard Dreyfuss, wasn’t much of a film, which was disappointing because the famed Jewish mobster was such an interesting character. But one jarring scene from the film (the trailer’s above) stuck with me: A young Meyerle happens upon a gang of Polish villagers as they attack an elderly Jewish man, stomping and kicking him until one of the villagers grabs a nearby ax and ends it all.

Considering Poland’s history of anti-Semitism the circumstances Lansky was born into in 1902, a story like that wasn’t necessarily apocryphal. And if it was for Lansky, it no longer would be for a 7-year-old Israeli boy who yesterday was attacked in his West Bank village by an ax-swinging Palestinian. Yair Gamliel, whose father was among three members of the “Bat Ayin Underground” convicted of attempting to bomb a Palestinian girls’ school seven years ago, was only injured. Sixteen-year-old Shlomo Nativ wasn’t so lucky.

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April 2, 2009 | 3:29 am

Ordination stripped from Episcopal priest who claimed to be Muslim too

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This is not an April Fool’s joke: The Episcopal Church has defrocked a Seattle priest who refused to recant her statement that she was both Christian and Muslim.

I wrote about the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding’s announcement when she made it, to much shock, two years ago. Now The Seattle Times reports Redding is finished, at least as an Episcopal minister.

Here’s why and what’s next for Redding:

The Rev. Kendall Harmon, the canon theologian with the Diocese of South Carolina who also runs the traditionalist blog TitusOneNine, said Redding should be commended, on one level, for having the integrity to be upfront about what she believes.

But what’s at stake is central to the church, he said. “To be a Christian is to be a Trinitarian and worship Jesus. If we’re not clear on that, we have nothing to offer in our witness.”

Though Muslims regard Jesus as a great prophet, they do not see him as divine and do not consider him the Son of God.

Redding does not believe that God and Jesus are the same, but rather that God is more than Jesus. And she believes that Jesus is the Son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine — because God dwells in all humans.

Harmon points to the contrast between the Rhode Island bishop’s discipline of Redding, and the position held by the former, now retired bishop of the Olympia Diocese in Western Washington who said he regarded Redding’s dual faith as exciting in its interfaith possibilities.

“We are internally incoherent on a massive scale,” Harmon said. “What does it say about a church that you can be in Rhode Island and have that treatment, and be in Olympia and have another treatment, if it has to do with something this central?”

(skip)

In any case, Redding is moving on.

She’s co-written a book, just published, called “Out of Darkness Into Light: Spiritual Guidance in the Quran with Reflections from Christian and Jewish Sources.”

More than 200 friends showed up at Town Hall Seattle last week to mark the book’s publication, the 25th anniversary of her ordination as an Episcopal priest, and to celebrate “her movement into the next phase of ministry as both Christian and Muslim.”

Redding is starting to write her memoirs and hopes to get a contract.

And she’s working to establish Abrahamic Reunion West, a nonprofit institute to bring together the Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

And the rest of it?

“As frightening as it is,” she said, “I’m willing to let God be in charge of this path of mine.”

(Hat Tip: HolyWeblog)

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April 1, 2009 | 5:36 pm

Moses is departing Egypt

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Every year, new Passover guides are published. The Facebook Haggadah was only a matter of when.

Thanks for the link, Guy.

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April 1, 2009 | 3:56 pm

In Madoff affair, Jewish Community Foundation finds it did nothing wrong

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Promptly after Jewish Community Foundation learned it had lost its $18 million investment with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, the nonprofit that manages the funds of some of Los Angeles Jewry’s blue-blood nonprofits created a special committee to investigate itself. The special committee reported today that the foundation did nothing wrong.

“The Special Committee’s work was exhaustive and subjected the Jewish Community Foundation to unprecedented levels of self-scrutiny and self-examination into the massive fraud perpetrated upon our institution and other innocent investors,” Marvin I. Schotland, president and CEO, said in a statement. “We undertook this comprehensive effort and release this summary of findings out of an unwavering commitment to continuing disclosure and accountability that we have stressed since the outset of these events.”

I previously reported much of what appears in the nine-page executive summary (download the PDF here).

Opportunities to recover funds, short of possibly up to $500,000 from the Securities Investment Protection Corporation, appear minimal. The committee’s nine recommendations concern investment-vote approval and general governance. Such as No. 5: “Investment of CIP [common investment pool] assets in funds managed by or affiliated with Investment Committee members shall be prohibited.”

Surprisingly, that wasn’t previously one of the committee’s policies. However, the Jewish Community Foundation’s in-house police reported that “no conflicts of interests or special considerations [were] found.” Though David Polak, then chair of the investment committee, invested personally with Madoff and recommended the common investment pool do the same, he received no “considerations or favors.” Neither, the committee reported, did the two other foundation board members who invested with Madoff.

This was not the case for J. Ezra Merkin and Stanley Chais.

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April 1, 2009 | 3:23 pm

London gets more bus ads favoring God

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Last month, Eli Lipmen spotted a bus ad in London that stated, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.“

The ad was a direct response to Richard Dawkins’ anti-God bus campaign. And it looks like the Russian Orthodox Church has joined in the fight against the great atheist.

Eli just sent me this photo, also snapped on the streets of London.

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April 1, 2009 | 2:09 pm

Madoff feeder Fairfield Greenwich charged with fraud

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Just spotted this news on an Wall Street Journal electronic newsboard in our building’s lobby:

Massachusetts securities regulators charged Fairfield Greenwich Group, a major feeder fund for Bernard Madoff, with fraud, saying the company breached its fiduciary duty to clients by failing to provide promised due diligence on its investments.

An administrative complaint filed on Wednesday by Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin alleges a “profound disparity between the due diligence that Fairfield represented to its investors that it would conduct with respect to Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and the due diligence it actually conducted.”

Separately, U.S. Marshals in Florida Wednesday seized Mr. Madoff’s two boats—a 55-foot luxury yacht and a smaller vessel.

The complaint said the firm misrepresented its “degree of knowledge and comfort with respect to Madoff’s operations.”

The charges, not criminal, are the first regulatory action against a so-called feeder fund, a fund that gained access for investors to Mr. Madoff. About $7 billion of Fairfield’s assets were invested with Mr. Madoff.

“Investment advisers have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients under law,” Mr. Galvin said. “The allegations against Fairfield in this complaint outline a total disregard for such responsibility which helped the Madoff scheme to stay afloat for so long.”

Galvin’s argument is the same that some attorneys made when I asked them whether Jews should sue Jews, or whether Jewish communal organizations should sue a partner in the community who invested their money with Madoff.

I’m curious also the implications these charges have for Stanley Chais and J. Ezra Merkin, who were considered two of Madoff’s primary fund feeders.

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