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Some Jews fear Madoff case stokes anti-Semitism
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| Contributor | The Sunset Provision |
| Last Edited | The Sunset Provision Dec 25, 2008 11:17pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Website - Yahoo News |
| News Date | Friday, December 26, 2008 05:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Of all the words that have been used to describe the Bernard L. Madoff scandal, the most emotionally charged may be "Jewish."
The disgraced investment guru is accused of orchestrating a $50 billion Ponzi scheme that preyed heavily on fellow Jews and ultimately drained the fortunes of numerous Jewish charities and institutions.
There's nothing new about con artists targeting their own kind. There's even a word for it — affinity fraud — and it has struck numerous religious, ethnic and professional groups.
But the allegations against Madoff are particularly wrenching for some in the Jewish community, who fear that the sensational case is fanning vicious stereotypes about Jews that go back to the Middle Ages.
The Anti-Defamation League cites a spike in anti-Semitic comments online after Madoff's Dec. 11 arrest. A columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz lamented the case as "the answer to every Jew-hater's wish list."
And the American Jewish Committee's executive director, David A. Harris, wrote a letter to The New York Times criticizing what he saw as "a striking emphasis" on Madoff's faith in one of the paper's many stories about the scandal.
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