New Voices magazine (Spring 2009) looks at Jews and Money, and the features on the theme include an interview with J.J. Goldberg, the former editor of the Forward and now the paper’s editorial director. The interview is titled “Why it matters that Madoff is Jewish.”
Why does it matter that Madoff is Jewish? According to Goldberg, it “matters because he operated through a network of Jewish associations. His Jewish communal involvement was part of his scheme. In a larger sense, [it matters] because of the long association of Jews and Wall Street and finance. It figures into anti-Semitic mythology. His being Jewish is relevant in some way that I think most people can’t put their finger on. It’s relevant because his story seems to be a fairy tale come true. It’s exactly what everybody has in the back of their minds. Jews and polite gentiles don’t want to talk about it because it reinforces anti-Semitic stereotypes. Stereotypes are exaggerations of truth, frequently unfair but very rarely unfounded.”
Madoff has been sent to prison for two million years; but federal authorities are still interested in other figures who might have been in cahoots with the overthrown king of the Ponzi scheme, according to a Bloomberg story today.
Only Madoff’s accountant, David Friehling, has been charged so far in connection with the Madoff fraud.
Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York and an ex-federal prosecutor, tells Bloomberg: “Investigators’ first focus will be on whether those around him either from the start or over time had actual knowledge of the fraud. Investigators are at least skeptical of the claims of those around him that at no point did they know of the fraud or its dimensions.”
