Mother
Jones magazine's ranking of the the top 400 American political
(Democratic and Republican) campaign funders for the year 2000. For
starters, four of the first five listed are Jewish, of whom two are
immigrants from Israel, and a third is an activist for Israeli causes.
Despite the fact that Jews represent only 2.5% of the American population,
of the first 100 economic string pullers, at least 42 are Jewish.
[MOTHER JONES magazine]
Democratic
Party Top 50 Career Patron List. The Center
for Public Integrity
Of the top ten "patrons" ranked in this list, six are
workers' organizations (American Federation of Teachers, etc.) The
other four are private companies; all of them are headed by Jews:
Seagram (Edgar Bronfman), Loral Space and Communications
(Bernard Schwartz), Walt Disney Company (Michael Eisner), and
the Shorenstein Company (Walter Shorenstein).
Global
Media Moguls. The Nation, November
29, 1999
At least four of nine featured "Global Media Moguls" in
The Nation magazine are Jewish: Michael Eisner (Disney-ABC),
Edgar Bronfman, Jr. (Seagram), Gerald Levin (Time-Warner),
and Sumner Redstone (Viacom-CBS).
Snyder and
Seek.
Outline: the Voice of Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Community,
December 8, 1999
This web page, towards the bottom, lists the Gay Financial Network's
[gfn.com] "Power 25: The Most Influential Gay and Lesbian
Corporate Executives." Among the first five, Jews were represented
as the first, third, fourth and (tied) for fifth most important individuals
in this ranking. 1) Kathy Levinson, president & COO of E*Trade;
3) David Geffen, president David Geffen Foundation/CEO
DreamWorks SKG; 4) Barry Diller, CEO of USA Networks;
and 5) Hilary Rosen, president and CEO of Recording Industry
Assoc. of America.
Should
We Leftists Be Forgiven? Front
Page Magazine. June 5, 2001
"In elite institutions like the University of Chicago, a large
63 percent of student radicals were Jewish; Tom Hayden may have been
the most famous name in the University of Michigan SDS, but '90 percent
of the student left [in that school] came from Jewish backgrounds,'
and nationally, 60 percent of SDS members were Jewish. As my once-friend
Paul Breines wrote about my own alma mater the University of Wisconsin,
'the real yeast in the whole scene had been the New York Jewish students
in Madison.' And he went on to note what he called the 'rootless cosmopolitanism'
of the Wisconsin New Left."
Ferlinghetti Decries
Latest Wave of Gentrification, Counterpunch,
[Letter to the Editor by famed San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti],
March 8, 2001
"A developer from Michigan, Scott Seligman, who runs Sterling
Bank and Seligman Western Enterprises, wants to gentrify the [San
Francisco] Mid-Market zone. Not to make the City a batter place but
to make his bank account a little fatter. He wants a better class
of tenant. No more photographers or poets or translators or editors
or painters. No more small businesses serving the City."
Southern
Poverty Law Center,
Guide Star Pages (The National Database
of Nonprofit Organizations)
"Financial Info: Fiscal Year: 2000. Assets: $147,441,903.
Income: $32,520,416 ... Chief Executive: Mr. Joseph J. Levin, Jr."
(President and Chairman of the Board).
[What
about the Southern Poverty Law Center, famed fighter for the impoverished
and African-American rights, especially in the South? It is based
in Montgomery, Alabama, and in 1996 the local Montgomery Advertiser
printed an embarrassing expose about the Center. The salary, noted
the paper, for SPLC president and CEO (as well as SPLC co-founder)
Joseph Levin was $137,798 a year. Not bad for a fighter on behalf
of those mired in poverty. The Center's Legal Director, Richard Cohen,
made $151,420. But that's not all. The Advertiser further noted
that "One thing remains a constant at the nation's
wealthiest civil rights charity, the Montgomery-based Southern
Poverty Law Center: All the top-paid, top-level management
jobs are held by whites." [What percentage Jews?] [RICHARDSON,
SANDEE. CIVIL RIGHTS CHARITY CONTINUES TO HAVE WHITES IN TOP-PAYING
JOBS. ASHVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES/MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER, 8-29-96, p. D7]
In SPLC's 25-year history "no black person has held a top-level
management position, and only one black staffer has ever been among
the top five paid positions." In SPLC's team of five lawyers,
one was African-American. [RICHARDSON, S., 8-29-96, p. D7]
The next year, an editorial writer, Rose Sanders, expressed outrage
that the SPLC publicly condemned Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of
Islam (a hero in large parts of the Black community) as a racist.
She pointed out the hypocrisy of the charge, noting that "Joseph
Levin says he is not a bigot, but how does he explain the
bigotry evidenced by the employment practices at the Poverty
Law Center? An example of the Center's racial prejudice is illustrated
by its racial tolerance program. The program did not have a single
black employee. No black person helped shape or design the program."
[SANDERS, ROSE. CENTER'S CONDEMNATION UNJUST, THE MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER.,
9-22-97, p. 7A]
On the Jewish Question, by Karl Marx (1843/1844)
Karl Marx's infamous -- though little known today -- indictment
of the Jewish community.
Was This Network
Worth Saving? Pacifica Caves In To Smear Campaign,
Counterpunch, October 4, 2002
"On April 17, a program titled 'Jewish Voices' [JV] aired on
KPFT, a Pacifica radio station in Houston, Texas. Just a few months
into Pacifica's 'renaissance' after a California court victory had
apparently returned the network into progressive, and thus safe, hands,
KPFT had aired many shows that were absent in previous years. I myself
had been on several times in the first months of 2002, interviewing
Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Phyllis Bennis, Amy Goodman,
Juan Gonzalez, Ed Herman, and Dan Coughlin (the Executive Director
of Pacifica), to name a few. Before that, for two years I had been
the co-host of 'Progressive Forum,' a weekly show hosted by Wally
James and dedicated to covering world affairs and local politics.
But the JV show was something quite different. Just moments after
it began, it became apparent that this show was pressing an aggressive
Zionist message. The guests included an official from the local Israeli
consulate, a Rabbi, and the executive director of the local chapter
of the American Jewish Committee, Donna de la Paz. The show
was being produced by Stan Merriman, an operator in KPFT politics
and a local activist in the Democratic Party. In the course of this
program, it became clear that the hosts were strident apologists for
the Sharon government. The worst part, however, was their treatment
of callers. They cut off people trying to disagree with them and would
not allow opposing viewpoints to be heard. I can't think of anything
more antithetical to the Pacifica mission than censoring callers who
challenged the type of Zionist propaganda that was being aired on
that show ... Within hours, Merriman, Geiselman, and
other Zionists, particularly Edwin Johnston and Dan Jones, political
rivals and well-known disruptive elements in the KPFT community, had
placed messages on every internet message board relating to Pacifica
[and some that weren't even directly Pacifica-oriented] from New York
to Los Angeles claiming that I had used a racial slur and that I was
anti-semitic [a good chronicle of the whole episode and supporting
documents can be found at http://www.acksisofevil.org]."
THE
BIG CITY. When Tables Turn, Knives Come Out,
New York Times, June 17, 2000
"Michael Moore made a name for himself pointing cameras at cruel
corporate executives and other enemies of the people. He stalked the
chairman of General Motors, sent people in Puritan costumes to Ken
Starr's home and set up a Web site with a camera trained on a window
of Lucianne Goldberg's apartment. But Mr. Moore does not appreciate
being bothered himself, as Alan Edelstein discovered. After
he was fired by Mr. Moore, Mr. Edelstein tried borrowing the
technique Mr. Moore had applied to G.M.'s Roger Smith in the film
'Roger & Me': showing up uninvited with a camera and trying to get
an answer from a boss who has decided to downsize. Mr. Moore responded
by filing a complaint with the New York police accusing Mr. Edelstein
of aggravated harassment, menacing and criminal trespassing. As a
result, Mr. Edelstein was arrested in March and spent nine
hours in a cell at the Midtown North police station. The district
attorney's office later dropped the case. Now Mr. Edelstein
is suing Mr. Moore, alleging malicious prosecution. Mr. Edelstein,
who is 39 and lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, was hired in 1998 as
a producer on 'The Awful Truth,' Mr. Moore's show on the Bravo network.
He was fired by a subordinate of Mr. Moore's after seven weeks. 'I
was told that there was a budget crunch," he said, "but I don't think
that was true. I later learned there were questions about my competence,
which no one had ever raised when I was there. So I was angry at the
way I was dealt with.' He had another reason for pursuing Mr. Moore
with a camera. Mr. Edelstein, who was nominated for an Academy
Award in 1985 for a documentary about a musician, was making a documentary
incorporating scenes from his own life. 'I thought footage with Michael
explaining why I'd been fired would be useful for my own documentary,'
he said."
The Jewish Establishment,
by Joseph Sobran. [Also directly linked
here]. Sobran
is a syndicated newspaper columnist. This article doesn't appear at
his own web site (it's linked to another site), and here he explains
why. On this
page one can also find links to other Sobran articles about Jews and
Israel that syndicated news organizations don't want.
"It's permissible to discuss the power of every other group,
from the Black Muslims to the Christian Right, but the much greater
power of the Jewish Establishment is off-limits. That, in fact, is
the chief measure of its power: its ability to impose its own taboos
while tearing down the taboos of others - you might almost say its
prerogative of offending. You can read articles in Jewish-controlled
publications from the Times to Commentary blaming Christianity for
the Holocaust or accusing Pope Pius XII of indifference to it, but
don't look for articles in any major publication that wants to stay
in business examining the Jewish role in Communism and liberalism,
however temperately. Power openly acquired, openly exercised, and
openly discussed is one thing. You may think organized labor or the
Social Security lobby abuses its power, but you don't jeopardize your
career by saying so. But a kind of power that forbids its own public
mention, like the Holy Name in the Old Testament, is another matter
entirely."
Forbes
400 Richest in America, Forbes magazine,
[For the year 2000]
The yearly ranking of the wealthiest Americans. Jews represent 2.5%
of the American population, yet are AT LEAST 33%
of the richest 75 Americans. (Start 'nose-counting' after that yourself,
because a high percentage continues). Among the richest 75 Americans
are the following Jewish businessmen: 2) Lawrence Ellison,
5) Gordon Moore, 7) Steven Ballmer, 13) Michael
Dell, 14) Sumner Redstone, 18) Harry Samueli, 41)
Thomas Pritzker, 42) Robert Pritzker, 43) Eli Broad,
44) George Soros, 44) Samuel Newhouse, 44) Donald
Newhouse, 51) Alfred Lerner, 53) Carl Icahn, 56)
Maurice Greenberg, 59) Edgar Bronfman, 61) Marvin Davis,
61) Michael Bloomberg, 61) Walter Annenberg, 66)
Leonard Lauder, 70) Ronald Perelman, 70) David Geffen,
73) Gary Winnick, 73) Bernard Marcus, 73) Ronald
Lauder. (Jewish author Steve Silberger, in an overview of his book,
The
Phenomenon of the Jews (at amazon.com), goes further: "My
book is an in-depth look at the most successful ethnic group in America.
While comprising only 2% of the US population, Jewish-Americans [in
1999] account for 23% of the Forbes 400 Wealthiest Americans, 45%
of the top 40 people. It's a club that required a minimum net worth
of $625 million in 1999. Sure, that's amazing wealth, but the real
phenomena are the remarkable stories detailing major contributions
to American prosperity, culture and society that lie behind each fortune."
The Forbes 1999 "rich list's" Jewish component is
listed here.
Raging
Bulls. Los Angeles magazine.
May 2000
This article features Los Angeles' top "attack dog" attorneys
for the wealthy and powerful. The overwhelming majority are of Jewish
heritage, including Martin 'Mad Dog' Singer, Don Marks,
Peter Ostroff, Marshall Grossman, Philip Ganz Jr.,
Don Engel, and Stanton Stein.
The
New Titans. globaltvmedia.com
A documentary TV show about the "New Titans" of Canadian
business and media. At least half of those named in this listing of
principals in the film are of Jewish heritage: Gerald Schwartz,
Heather Riesman, Peter Munk, Izzy Asper, Leonard
Asper, Moses Znaimer, Robert Lantos, John Roth,
Isadore Sharp, and Jozef Strauss. [Unmentioned
here, in 1999 Jewish Canadian billionaires included Barry Sherman
($1.83 billion), Leslie Dan ($1.56 billion), and Saul Feldberg
($1 billion). Sherman is chairman and CEO of the Apotex pharmaceutical firm, and Dan heads rival Novopharm Ltd. "[These] two Toronto-based
companies control about 90 percent of Canada's market for generic,
low-cost drugs." [CANADIAN PRESS NEWSWIRE, 2-6-97] Sherman "donates
heavily to Jewish causes and the state of Israel." [THOMPSON,
A. Brash Upstart Builds Firm into Generic Drug Empire, Toronto
Star, 2-11-92, p. C1] Dan funded a CD-Rom produced by Israel's
Yad Vashem "to help teach the Holocaust." [CANADIAN JEWISH
NEWS, 12-5-96] (From America, Harold Snyder founded
Biocraft Laboratories, a manufacturer of drugs, in 1964. It
was sold to the largest pharmaceutical company in Israel , Teva,
in 1996, an organization where Snyder serves as a board member.) [MOTHER
JONES, 5-3-01] The third Jewish Canadian billionaire, Feldberg, a
Holocaust survivor, moved to Israel, and later to Canada. He heads
the Global Group and the
Teknion Corporation, two office furniture
conglomerates. [GILBERT, N., Global Group Plans Expansion,
Jerusalem Post, 7-2-98, p. 15
The
New Portnoy's Complaint, by
Israeli author Israel
Shamir, Nilemedia, 2001
"Philip Weiss in the New York Observer
noted that Jews are to politics what the blacks are to basketball
... He writes, 'I don't claim to know how Jewish the membership of
the establishment is. Twenty percent, 50 percent? I'm guessing 30.'
Even 30% would be sufficient to promote any idea if the other 70%
have no interest in the subject ... The Economist, hardly a 'hate
publication,' estimates that the Jews who constitute 0.03% of the
population [of South Africa] own sixty percent of that rich country's
market capitalization."
Counting Noses at the
Harvard Crimson, by Justin Danilewitz. Commentary.
"For, as it turned out, Valerie MacMillan was not alone in her
definition of the 'problem' at the Crimson [Harvard's student newspaper];
the same point was made explicitly in the statements of at least two
undergraduates aiming for leadership positions on the editorial board,
Geoffrey C. Upton and Daniel M. Suleiman. Both Upton
and Suleiman had submitted 'shoot papers,' or platforms, in connection
with their bids for office. When it came to how they would deal with
the Crimson's 'diversity problem,' Upton's statement was the more
succinct of the two. Ritualistically declaring his intention, if elected,
to 'expose the staff to diverse viewpoints,' he then cut to the practical
heart of the matter. As things stood, Upton noted, the paper's homogeneity
was unfortunately self-evident, for 'eight of ten columnists are Jewish
and just one is not white.' Hence, as he saw it, there was a palpable
need to '[s]tep up efforts to diversify the staff' itself. For his
part, Suleiman, reiterating that the 'lack of diverse voices plagues
our newspaper,' showed himself to be an even more refined practitioner
than Upton of the art of drawing distinctions by ethnic origin. Not
only, he wrote, are 'nine out of ten Crimson column-ists . . . white,'
but 'seven out of ten are white Jews'--and not just of the generic
variety, but white Jews 'from the tri-state area' of New York, New
Jersey, and Connecticut. (The discrepancy between Upton's eight Jewish
columnists and Suleiman's seven may be put down to the vagaries of,
shall we say, nose-counting.) In light of this situation, Suleiman
boldly declared that, if elected to the editorial board, he would
act 'to bring about rapid, substantive change.' In the fullness of
time, Upton and Suleiman were in fact selected to be co-chairmen of
the new editorial board. Several months into their tenures now, have
they made good on their pledges? In at least one respect, they have
certainly disappointed. Given their stated views, they, of all people,
should have recognized the awkwardness of their own election. For
Upton and Suleiman, it turns out, are not only white Jews themselves,
but white Jews from that most dreadfully overrepresented tri-state
area. In light of this embarrassing fact, how they could have considered
themselves appropriate role models for a newly diverse paper remains
a mystery."
Up
to a Point, by Israel Shamir. Nilemedia.com,
July 20, 2001
"In my opinion, the source of the media bias in covering the
Palestinians is tremendously important. For it speaks volumes about
the power structure of the US and Europe ... Too many of our media
lords subscribe to the notion of Jewish supremacy, and they are spread
around the globe ... In the US, there are too many of them to count.
But allow us to mention Mortimer Zuckerman, a media lord and
the current Head of the Presidents’ Conference of American Jewish
Organizations, the big daddy of all Jewish groups in America ... On
the other end of the planet, in Russia, the TV stations and newspapers
also are under the ownership of Israeli citizens. One of them, Vladimir
Gusinsky, was forced to part with his TV station. But his extremely
pro-Israeli staff was quickly hired by another channel, belonging
to another Israeli citizen, Mr Chernoi. In 1985, he was an
accountant living on a salary of 100 dollars a month. Today he is
worth 5 billion dollars, owns virtually all the aluminium plants in
Russia, and lives in a nice suburb of Tel Aviv. Currently, he is under
investigation for 34 murders, money laundering and membership in the
Russian mafia. In a recent quip, he was quoted as saying that ‘the
media is not business. the media is politics and influence’ ... The
media of Gusinsky, Chernoi, and Berezovsky, that is three powerful
media lords, all of them Israeli citizens, took care to cultivate
his ignorance. Even in Sweden, traditionally supportive of the Palestinian
cause, since the national newspapers were bought by Jewish entrepreneurs,
the coverage of Palestine became more and more lopsided ... In my
opinion, the case of Palestine is much more important for you, for
Europeans and Americans, than just another case of injustice. Because
it proves that this international group of Jewish media lords have
become a mite too powerful."
Time Magazine
Honors Survivor.
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, January 2, 1998
"Time magazine has named a Holocaust survivor its 1997 Man of
the Year. The magazine honored Andrew Grove, chairman and CEO
of Intel, which produces nearly 90 percent of the world's personal
computer microprocessors. Grove was born Andras Grof in Hungary to
a dairyman and a bookkeeper ... [Intel] is now worth $115 billion
and earns $5.1 billion annually in profits, making it the seventh
most profitable company in the world." [Other
Jewish moguls in the computer world in recent years include Michael
Dell, head of Dell Computers; Steve Ballmer, president
of Microsoft; Nate Kantor, president of MCI International;
Steven Kirsch, founder of Infoseek; Mark Goldston,
CEO of NetZero; Mitchell Kapor, head of Lotus Development
Corporation; Mark Cuban, head of Broadcast.com and
Audio.Net; Lawrence Perlman, head of Seagate;
John Roth, CEO of Nortel Network; Benjamin Rosen,
founder of Compaq computers; Beny Alagem, CEO, president,
and chairman of Packard Bell NEC (Hewlett-Packard);
Laurence Ellison, CEO of Oracle Systems; Sandy Lerner,
founder of Cisco Systems; Irwin Jacobs, founder of Qualcomm
Inc., Rob Glaser, CEO and Chairman of Real Networks;
Monte Zweben, President and CEO of Blue Martini Software;
Jerry Greenberg, co-founder of Sapient; Eric Greenberg,
Chairman of Scient; Danny Lewin, founder of Akamai
Technologies; and Dan Snyder, head of Snyder Communications.]
The Jewish Exponent estimates that 10-15% of all Microsoft
employees are Jewish. -- [Mono, Brian. Spiritual Wealth: The Economy
Is Doing Just Fine, Jewish Exponent, 12-30-99, p. 9] Among the
above, Lewin was killed in the World Trade Center terrorist
attacks. As CNN noted: "Lewin was named one of the top 10 people
of the Enterprise Systems Power 100, a list of industry leaders chosen
for their effect on the IT (information technology) landscape and
for their ability to influence the industry's direction ... Born in
Denver, Colorado, and raised in Jerusalem, Lewin is an officer in
the Israel Defense Forces, having served in the country's military
for more than four years." [SIEBERG, D. Akamai:
Co-Founder Dies in WTC Plane Crash, 9-11-01, CNN.com]
We're in the Money.
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. August 17, 2001
"Despite a tough economic year that prompted more than $550 million
in line-item vetoes by Governor Gray Davis, the new California state
budget allocates almost $10 million dollars to Jewish organizations.
With a range of programs from pediatric immunizations to materials
for community colleges suffering last-minute cuts by the executive
office, even political insiders say they are surprised by the success
of Jewish-backed causes when it came to securing funds. 'I’m sort
of amazed, frankly,' says Howard Welinsky, a board member of
the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, the political affairs
arm of The Jewish Federation. 'I’m amazed that the legislature
and the governor allowed so many of these requests when so many other
areas of funding got cut. The Jewish community did pretty well' ...
The Jewish community’s biggest budget winner — as usual — was the
Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance ... Other recipients
of state funds include the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco,
which received $750,000 towards the $70 million dollar renovation
of its Pacific Heights building. The Jewish Museum San Francisco
also received $750,000, money — which will be used to finish a new
facility near Yerba Buena Gardens in the downtown area. The Breed
Street Shul, Los Angeles’ oldest synagogue and a historic landmark,
received $500,000 for preservation and expansion of community services
in its Boyle Heights neighborhood. The Skirball Cultural Center
received $400,000 towards construction of a new exhibition hall. San
Francisco Jewish Vocational Services (SFJVS), a Federation beneficiary
agency, received $200,000 for a new training and employment center
for émigrés in the downtown area. YouTHink, an educational
program for public schools, scored $250,000 to expand its curriculum
of arts projects that inspire discussions of current issues among
children. Political insiders credit the Jewish community’s success
to a combination of savvy political lobbying and a roster of projects
with strong track records and broad social appeal.
Jewish Paradise
in the Caribbean? Moment, August-September
2001
"In fact, after 350 years on the island [of Curacao, north of
Venezuela, and once an important African slave site] —the community
refers to itself as the oldest continuous Jewish community in the
Americas—the Jews are quick to point out that on Curacao, they are
the locals ... [There is] now fewer than 350 Jews on an island of
about 125,000 ... As one rabbi told me, Curacaoan Jews have long been
the 'Brahmins' of their little island. There is no 'community outside
Israel where Jews [have] occupied that status in society,' the rabbi
said ... the Jews are deeply entrenched in the island’s business elite.
Jews own the island’s main bank, Maduro & Curiel’s. They own
most of the car dealerships, the largest electrical appliance store,
and many of the jewelry and clothing shops. Rabbi Michael Tayvah,
a 39-year-old from Great Neck, N.Y., and spiritual leader at the Sephardic
shul, says the Jews remain prominent in shipping—operating container
freight companies."
Jews in Sports,
by Lenny Silberman,
Ken Online [a Jewish organization in San Diego; "Ken means
yes"]
A listing of Jews of influence in the sports world; the list is
not, of course, complete. Of particular interest is the fact that
the commissioners of professional basketball, baseball, football,
soccer, and hockey are ALL Jewish (David Stern,
Bud Selig, Paul Tagliabue, Don Garber,
and Gary Bettman)! (This noteworthy fact is NOT noted
at this web site). This list also names about 20 Jewish owners of
professional sports franchises, as well as a number of Jewish coaches,
players, and sports journalists.
International Jewish
Sports Hall of Fame
Page
3, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April
29, 2001
"He's a super agent, a pioneer in his industry and one of the
most influential men on the landscape of pro sports in the 21st century
... [Tom Reich is] the first agent to win a baseball player
a contract worth $1 million a year, counting deferred payments: Reich
with the Pirates' Dave Parker in the late 1970s. The first agent to
win a hockey player a contract worth $2 million a year: Reich with
the Penguins' Mario Lemieux in the late 1980s ... Tom Reich ... maintains
he merely wants to preserve his slice of two-sport life: 70 Major
Leaguers and roughly 100 minor leaguers; 40 NHL players and roughly
20 minor leaguers; a role in baseball; a role in hockey. 'Life is
good,' Reich said two weeks ago, during a wide-ranging, 2 1/2-hour
interview amid his lengthy Pittsburgh stay. 'Like the movie title
says: As good as it gets' ... . He long ago set up shop in Los Angeles,
Florida and New York, the first and last because of their market importance,
the middle one because, well, doesn't every Jewish boy of his generation
crave a Miami abode?"
Former
Israeli Owns Retail Lease for World Trade Center,
Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2001
"Australian businessman Frank Lowy, who emigrated to Australia
from Israel in 1952, owns the 99-year lease for the 425,000 square
foot retail portion of the destroyed World Trade Center. Lowy is the
chairman and founder of Westfield Holdings, the manager of
Westfield America Trust, which has a 57 percent stake in Westfield
America Inc ... Westfield said today that it has insurance
cover against terrorist attacks and its earnings will not be materially
affected. In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange the retail
chain said that 'investment in the retail component of the World Trade
Center is fully insured for both capital and loss of income,' adding
'the insurance cover includes acts of terrorism' ... Today [Lowy]
is the second wealthiest man in Australia and was recently ranked
as the 209th wealthiest man in the world by Forbes magazine.
Westfield is the fourth-largest shopping mall owner, with operations
in Australia, the US, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Lowy is
philanthropically involved in the Jewish community in Sydney as well
as Israel, including sponsoring the Overseas Students School of Tel
Aviv University which is endowed in his name and being associate international
chairman of the Israel Democracy Institute." [The owner of a
99-year lease for the rest of the World Trade Center, costing $3.2
billion dollars, is Silverstein Properties (president: Larry
Silverstein. The lease was purchased for New York's Port Authority
(chairman: Lewis Eisenberg).] [SCT
NEWSWIRE, 7-25-01]
The
30-Plus Most Influential Jews in America,
Cleveland Jewish News, December 28, 2001
"As Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan is, hands
down, the most influential Jew in America. He is, some would argue,
the most influential person in America ... The buck stops with [Supreme
Court] Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. And so did the
election. In Bush vs. Gore, Ginsburg helped shape the national agenda
for the next four years ... Steve Ballmer took over as chief
executive of Microsoft from Bill Gates six months before a federal
court ordered the breakup of the company. Ballmer is guiding the software
giant through one of its busiest and most challenging years ever.
He's also the 13th richest person in the world with a net worth of
$16.6 billion ... While Brad Turell was the head of communications
for The WB television network, he began a religious odyssey that transformed
him and his family into observant Jews. In April, he was promoted
to the top communications slot for all of Turner Broadcasting, which
includes CNN ... Mortimer Zuckerman brings clout and cachet
to the chairmanship of one of America's most influential Jewish groups.
In a staggering 46-6 vote, the media and real-estate baron was elected
chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations. Zuckerman also received bipartisan support from Israel's
two most recent prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Benjamin
Netanyahu. In addition, he owns U.S. News & World Report and the
New York Daily News and is presumed to have some degree of influence
over those publications' news coverage and editorials ..."
Russian Jewish
Elites and Antisemitism,
American Jewish Committee,
"The presence of Jews in the Russian elite is cause for concern
among Jews themselves, who fear a backlash of anti-Semitism. As one
Russian Jewish leader has explained, 'People here have quite bitter
memories of the participation of Jews in the [Bolshevik] revolution.'
1 Yet Jews themselves sometimes contribute to the idea that Jews exert
disproportionate influence in Russian society. In fall 1996, an influential
Moscow business magazine asked a dozen politicians, 'Who runs the
country?' Alexander Minkin, the most popular print journalist
at the time and a Jew himself, gave the shortest answer: 'Jews.' 2
In an interview broadcast in October 1996 on Israeli TV, Vitaly Malkin,
head of the Rossiyskiy Kredit Bank, said that '60 percent of Russian
capital belongs to Jewish business' 3-surely a gross exaggeration.
Some analysts say that the notion of Jewish prominence in the elites
is nothing but a myth created and supported by both nationalists and
Jews. Vladimir Gurevich, editor in chief of the Moscow daily newspaper
Vremya-MN, is among those who share this view: 'At any given time,
there have been many more non-Jews than Jews in business, government,
parliament. To notice this prominence, one should have a desire to
find it. More than other groups impressed by the Jewish presence in
high echelons are Jews themselves.'”
Excerpts
from Alfred Lilienthal's book, The Zionist Connection II, cyberone.com
(selected by Peter Myers), 1983
"One-sided reportage on terrorism, in which cause was never related
to effect, was assured because the most effective component of the
Jewish connection is probably that of media control. It is well {p.
219} known that American public opinion molders have long been largely
influenceed by a handful of powerful newspapers, including the New
York Times, the Washington Post, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- owned respectively by the Sulzbergers, Eugene Meyer
and now his daughter Katharine Graham (half-Jewish, who also
owns Newsweek), and the Pulitzers, a Hungarian Jewish
family. The New York Post, until recently when it was sold
to Rupert Murdoch, was in the capable hands of Dorothy Schiff,
the granddaughter of banker Jacob Schiff. ... Other newspapers,
not Jewish-owned, have top editors, directors, and advertising chiefs
who are Jewish, such as the Los Angeles Times and the International
Herald Tribune, an amalgam of the New York Times, the Washington
Post, and the old New York Herald Tnbune. In 1978 the Washington
Star's owner was Time Magazine and the publisher until
June 1 was Joe L. Allbritton, but the views of the executive editor
Sidney Epstein and associate editor Edwin Yoder, Jr.
were clearly ref1ected in its editorials and articles during the critical
Middle East developments. All of the leading magazines, ranging trom
Commentary, Esquire, Ladies Home Journal, New
York Review of Books, New Yorker, and U.S. News
and World Report, have Jews in key positions as publishers,
editors, or managing editors. These people, at the very least, have
the veto power over whatatever appears in their publications. No one
is about to criticize Jews - or even take Israel to task - for fear
of being out of line with the boss, who is likely to fire him. The
boss himself may not be a screaming Zionist, but scarcely ever will
walk out of step with the overwhelming articulated opinion by expressing
his own views on this subject, which in turn makes his Christian friends
and contacts keep whatever criticism they may harbor under full wraps.
There is also the constant overriding concern of the media about losing
advertising, so vital to every publication, at times making a mockery
of the vaunted 'freedom ot press.' Power is thus very otten exercised
by default. ... {p. 220} It would be futile to list the number of
top Jewish editors and writers across the courltry. Many of the largest
book publishers, including Knopf, Random House, Holt,
Liverwright, Viking Press, Simon and Schuster,
Van Nostrand Reinhold, and Lyle Stewart are Jewish-owned,
directly or by Jewish-controlled interests (including CBS, RCA, Music
Corporation of America, Litton's, and Gulf and Western). In other
firms such as Macmillan and Grosset & Dunlap, one will find editors-in-chief
or presidents who are Jewish. ... In radio and television, again one
finds almost an overwhelming presence of key Jews. Chairman of the
Board of CBS until very recently was William Paley: RCA's David
and Robert Sarnoff for a long time ran their subsidiary,
the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) whose {p. 221} present chairman
is Julian Goodman; and Leonard Goldenson headed the
American Broadcasting Company (ABC) until succeeded by Fred Silverman.
... A few officials in three offices all located on the east side
of Sixth Avenue in Manhattan between 49th and 54th streets select
most of the ideas, experiences, and news reaching most of the American
people. ... Virtually all national and international news is filtered,
edited, and broadcast by these three corporations."
'Whenever
the World Gets Crazy, the Jews Pay the Price,'
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], February
21, 2002
"As if their origins were not causing them enough problems, along
came the rumors about Jacques Attali's new book to raise the anxiety
level of French Jews. This prolific author, who served as a close
and all-powerful adviser to Francois Mitterrand, has written dozens
of books. Most of them touch, to some extent, on Judaism, the Jewish
religion and Jewish history. In all his writings, however universal
they may be, Attali has always found an indirect or direct Jewish
connection to the course of history. Yet no one before him has dared
to make the connection between Jews and money, the way he has in his
forthcoming book, 'The Jews, the World and Money.' For many
years, those on the extreme right in France have been wondering how
the Jews got rich so quickly. There are about 600,000 Jews in France,
a bit more than 1 percent of the population. Many of them belong to
the republic's prestigious elites. Jean Marie Le Pen, the leader of
the National Front, has often spoken about the presence of so many
Jews at key crossroads of the country. 'The Jews hold the most senior
positions in print journalism,' he once said, 'in the electronic media,
in academia and in the economy. How did they get so rich?' ... Now
Attali's book has come along, proving the historical connection between
Jews and money. The provocative title has led Denis Jeambar, editor
of the weekly L'Express, to propose it be changed in order
to avoid stirring up a storm. 'The Jews, the Christians and Money,'
is blazoned across the front page of this week's edition '"
Perceptions
about Influence of Jewish Executives on Network TV Programming,
ADL (Anti-Defamation League), November
1998
"The presidents of the three national television networks,
ABC, CBS and NBC, are Jewish. Some people have criticized them for
allowing too much programming that features sex and violence. Do you
think network executives who are Jewish tend to allow more sex and
violence programming than non-Jewish executives allow OR do you think
Jewish executives do not allow any more of this kind of programming
than non-Jewish executives?" [80% of the respondents to this
survey said no.]
The
Jewish Tribe, Boston Magazine
"The Yiddish-Yiddish rally behind professional activists
like Leonard Zakim and his staff at the Anti-Defamation League.
Like the British-Yiddish, they serve on the boards of the city's hospitals,
cultural institutions, and status charities, but they also support
Combined Jewish Philanthropies (the Jewish United Way). Leading supporters
include Phoenix Media Communications Group chairman/publisher Stephen
Mindich, and the Krupp brothers, Philip and William,
who made a killing in real estate ... A large middle-class Jewish
population notwithstanding, being Jewish to many people today means
being rich and successful. Think Steven Spielberg, Alan
Greenspan, Billy Crystal, David Mamet ... The fact
is, many Jews [in Boston] have made their marks as leaders of other
tribes: medicine (Judah Folkman and Mitch Rabkin), intellectual
(Robert Reich, Stephen Jay Gould, former Harvard dean
Henry Rosovsky, literary power couple Anne Bernays and
Justin Kaplan), culinary (Michael Schlow of Radius and
investor Jack Sidell), and even the Irish (consultant and dealmaker
Larry Rasky). Still, this is one tribe with lots of chiefs,
and they operate in all arenas: from retail (Murray Pearlstein
and Debra Greenberg of Louis Boston) to the arts (the American
Repertory Theater's Robert Brustein, the ICA's Jill Medvedow)
to finance (merger man Tom Lee and Putnam's Larry Lasser)
to politics (former Democratic National Committee head Steven Grossman,
fundraisers Alan Solomont and Elaine Shuster) to economics
(MIT's Paul Samuelson, Harvard's Martin Feldstein and
Jeffrey Sachs) to real estate (Stephen Karp, Julian
Cohen, Bruce Beal, Jerome Rappaport, Steve Fishman,
Ron Drucker, Dick Friedman, Alan Leventhal, and
Edwin Sidman) to sports (Kraft and the legendary Red
Auerbach)."
Carl Cameron
Investigates, Part 2, Fox News, December
14, 2001
"Last time we reported on the approximately 60 Israelis who had
been detained in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorism investigation.
Carl Cameron reported that U.S. investigators suspect that some of
these Israelis were spying on Arabs in this country, and may have
turned up information on the planned terrorist attacks back in September
that was not passed on. Tonight, in the second of four reports on
spying by Israelis in the U.S., we learn about an Israeli-based private
communications company, for whom a half-dozen of those 60 detained
suspects worked. American investigators fear information generated
by this firm may have fallen into the wrong hands and had the effect
of impeded the Sept. 11 terror inquiry ... Most directory assistance
calls, and virtually all call records and billing in the U.S. are
done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based
private elecommunications company. Amdocs has contracts with
the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide ...
In recent years, the FBI and other government agencies have investigated
Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly
denied any security breaches or wrongdoing. But sources tell Fox
News that in 1999, the super secret national security agency,
headquartered in northern Maryland, issued what's called a Top Secret
sensitive compartmentalized information report, TS/SCI, warning that
records of calls in the United States were getting into foreign hands
– in Israel, in particular." [Note:
This article (and four others by Cameron) were censored from Fox News'
web site within the week. See Justin
Raimondo for an article, and links, about it all. In an Orwellian
sentence, the link to Fox said "This story no longer exists"
until that too was taken down. See Israel
National News' article about Cameron's story]
Carl Cameron
Investigates, Part 3, Fox News, December
14, 2001
"BRIT HUME, HOST: Last time we reported on an Israeli-based company
called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized records and billing
data for nearly every phone call made in America. As Carl Cameron
reported, U.S. investigators digging into the 9/11 terrorist attacks
fear that suspects may have been tipped off to what they were doing
by information leaking out of Amdocs. In tonight's report, we learn
that the concern about phone security extends to another company,
founded in Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government
uses for electronic eavesdropping. Here is Carl Cameron's third report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over):
The company is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private
telecommunications firm, with offices throughout the U.S. It provides
wiretapping equipment for law enforcement. Here's how wiretapping
works in the U.S. Every time you make a call, it passes through the
nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone
companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse,
are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped
calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators ... Adding
to the suspicions is the fact that in Israel, Comverse works closely
with the Israeli government, and under special programs, gets reimbursed
for up to 50 percent of its research and development costs by the
Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. But investigators within the
DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest
Israeli spying through Comverse is considered career suicide."
[Note:
This article (and four others by Cameron) were censored from Fox News'
web site within the week. See Justin
Raimondo for an article, and links, about it all. In an Orwellian
sentence, the link to Fox said "This story no longer exists"
til that too was taken down. See Israel
National News' article about Cameon's censored pieces]
An
Oligarch's U-Turn Toward Probity,
Los Angeles Times, December 26, 2001
"Russia's richest man is wearing new lenses. Once upon a
time, Mikhail Khodorkovsky shielded his eyes behind chunky,
tinted eyeglasses so thick they might have been bulletproof. These
days, he meets the world's gaze through stylishly square frames with
lenses that are--as Russians say--'clear as a baby's tears.' The change
is metaphoric as well as optometric. Khodorkovsky once had a reputation
as the dirtiest of Russia's 'oligarchs.' These days, the oil magnate
insists, his empire's affairs are as transparent as his glasses ...
Khodorkovsky's personal net worth topped $2.4 billion. Forbes
magazine now ranks him as the richest man in Russia, and the 10th-richest
in the world ... Even though the Soviet system made it difficult for
Jews like him to advance, he was a model young Soviet bureaucrat,
an officer in the Young Communist League, or Komsomol. In 1987, inspired
by the liberalization under Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, he
founded a kind of economic collective called the Young Entrepreneurs
Foundation, which started trading things such as computers."
The
Jews of Kolkata, India Profile
"The arrival of two Jewish men [to India] in the second decade
of the 19th century heralded a remarkable chapter in the history of
Calcutta’s Jew[ish] community. Moses Duek Cohen and Joseph
Ezra. Moses, remembered as the foretunner of Baghdad habitants
in Calcutta, was later to transcreate his Calcutta experience in a
well known Hebreq book titled Kaneh Muddah. What however appears
to have transformed Jewish life in the city is the pervasive influence
of the Ezra family. Joseph Ezra left for Baghdad soon
after exploring business avenues in Calcutta. But it was not long
before Joseph’s eldest son David Joseph Ezra returned to this
city and set about creating what in time became the Ezra legend. David’s
export, of indigo, silk and rice, spread to Baghdad, Aleppo, Damascus,
Zanzibar and Muscat. David Joseph possessed an uncanny foresight.
As his coffers swelled he invested a sizeable fortune in real estate.
Many who imagined at the time that David was building castles
in the air rued their luck as property values spiraled over the years.
The Ezra business finally grew into a staggering industrial
empire under Sir David Ezra (a great-grandson of Joseph
Ezra and the last of the Ezra moghuls in Calcutta) by the third
decade of the 20th century. Another man who turned big time amongst
Jew entrepreneurs of mid 20th century Calcutta was Benjamin Nassim
Elias. Elias had emerged from obscurity in Calcutta’s jute
and gunny trade and ended up forming the giant B.N. Elias conglomerate
of companies which made him one of the most powerful industrial magnets
of the day. Interestingly, till Jewish dominance receded from this
city, Sir David Ezra had remained the unrivalled monarch of
real estate in Calcutta."
How a
Billionare Clan Made Money in Biotech,
Forbes, March 25, 2002
"When Thomas J. Pritzker wanted to invest some of
his estimated $5 billion in net worth in a drug company, he didn't
buy into hot, flashy science. Instead, he spent a smidge of the family
fortune to found a company that specialized not in developing drugs,
like most biotech firms, but in marketing them. Last week, that sales
company, Reliant Pharmaceuticals, was bought by Cambridge,
Mass.-based Alkermes for $934 million in stock. Pritzker says
that his group of investors had put a mere $150 million or so into
Reliant. Now, they will own 31% of the combined company, which
will be a marketing powerhouse with more than half of its over 1,300
employees in sales. Before the merger, Alkermes had
a market value of nearly $2 billion. Not bad ... The Pritzkers might
seem a surprising source of that know-how. "Our family is in a lot
of businesses," says Tom Pritzker. His uncle, Robert Alan
Pritzker, 75, is also a quintuple billionaire. The Pritzker
clan's wealth came partly from the Hyatt and Royal Caribbean Cruise
lines, businesses he says they built from the ground up."
The
Idiot's Guide to Yiddish Supremacists,
Nile Media, April 7, 2002
"As [Ariel] Sharon's assault on the Palestinians intensifies,
it is important to take account of the many American Jews who have
used their 'media muscle' to support the adventures of Likudnik extremists.
It is vital to record in our collective memory banks the men and women,
our self-appointed 'intellectual class', who have endorsed every murderous
Israeli policy, regardless of international law, human rights, American
values and American interests. The following is just a partial list
of American publishers and journalist who have dedicated a good part
of their career to supporting the repression of the Palestinian people.
We call it our 'Idiot's Guide to Yiddish Supremacists.' Note that
this is just a partial list of the Yiddish cabal that represents the
only American ethnic constituency that supports repression abroad.
They stand by Israel, right wing or extreme right wing. These guys
never miss a chance to glorify their favorite country, Israel, a racist
apartheid land thieving repressive regime created by Yiddish supremacists
for Yiddish supremacists against the native people of the Holy Land.
On domestic issues, observe that some of these writers, like Ellen
Goodman and Alan Dershowitz, pose as 'liberals' or even
'progressive'. Some pose as Democratic party loyalists (Thomas
Friedman) while others like Charles Krauthammer (The
Washington Post) pose as neo-conservatives."
The
Last Emperor,
Bloomberg Markets, 2002
"[Michel] David-Weill doesn't have to sell if he
doesn't want to. He directly controls 22.4 percent of the firm [Lazard
LLC Parnters, an investment company] in league with three former partners--Antoine
Bernheim, Andre Meyer, and Jean Guyot--and their families.
This group also controls another 17 percent of Lazard through a cascade
of closely held and publicly held holding companies. David-Weill,
who has run Lazard since 1977, has struggled to keep the firm competitive
since 1997, when star deal maker Felix Rohatyn left to become
U.S. ambassador to France. Rohatyn, a 49-year veteran of Lazard, built
his reputation advising Harold Geneen [one parent Jewish] on
the acquisitions that built the ITT Corp. conglomerate in the 1960s.
Rohatyn went on to advise Pfizer, RCA Corp., and Paramount Communications
Inc. David-Weill inherited Rohatyn's seat on the board of ITT, which
later sold off parts of the company--often with Lazard's advice again--and
changed its name to ITT Industries Inc. Lazard has lost several other
partners besides Rohatyn. David-Weill's son-in-law Edouard Stern,
who was being groomed as a future CEO, quit in 1997 after David-Weill
proved reluctant to give him control. Subsequently, Ira Harris,
Lazard's Chicago rainmaker, and Michael Price, the firm's senior telecommunications
banker, quit. Kendrick Wilson, who worked with bank clients and was
once a CEO candidate, left in 1998 to join Goldman Sachs."
Benjamin
Steinbruch. The Iron King How a Brazilian entrepreneur has become
one of the most important businessmen in Latin America in just four
years, Steel Profiles, 1997
"It is just over a year since Benjamin Steinbruch was
crowned the new king of Brazilian industry. The 44-year-old entrepreneur
had just put together the consortium that bought a controlling stake
in Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), the world's biggest iron ore
company, in what was Latin America's largest privatisation. In a dramatic
auction at the Rio de Janeiro stock exchange, he snatched the company
from the clutches of the strong favourite, a consortium led by Antonio
Ermirio de Moraes of the Votorantim group, the grand old man of Brazilian
capitalism. It was the most audacious in a series of acquisitions
of companies being privatised, that have catapulted Mr Steinbruch
from being the unknown heir of a family textiles group to one of the
most important businessmen in Latin America in the space of just four
years ... In 1993 he persuaded Vicunha, the family business, to take
a 9.3 per cent stake in CSN, Brazil's largest steel company. He later
got Bamerindus, the retail bank, to sell him its 5 per cent stake
and he became chairman ... In 1996 he talked the CSN board into taking
a 7.25 per cent stake in Light, the Rio de Janeiro electricity distributor,
with Mr Steinbruch collecting the chairmanship. His formidable
powers of quiet persuasion were at work again last year when he pulled
together an unlikely group of investors, including NationsBank of
the US, to buy the controlling stake in CVRD for R$3.34bn ($2.9bn).
The deal gave Mr Steinbruch control of a company that is the
cornerstone of the Brazilian economy. His ambitions did not stop there.
This year, through Vicunha, he has been in the winning consortium
for two of the nine new cellular phone licences the government has
sold ... The huge concentration of power in his hands is another habit
he shares with more traditional Brazilian business leaders. He has
so far resisted the appointment of a chief executive at CVRD, describing
the idea as 'premature'". ALSO:
Bigotry, Estadao (Brazil), June 6,
1997. "Eliane Alves da Silva, Geography teacher at the Federal
University in Rio, has been accused of prejudice against jews and
praising the holocaust. After having her class tape-recorded by one
of her pupil and being denounced in a 200-student-signature petition,
the teacher is on the verge of being sued for anti-semitism and ethnic
defamation. Not only did she attack the jews as a whole, but even
named some people. According to SBT TV news, one of the offended was
Benjamin Steinbruch, the tycoon who has just bought the recently
privatized Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), one of the biggest mining companies
in the world, few years after buying CSN, another former state company,
the biggest in the iron and steel industry. President of Brazilian
Institute of Geography and Statistic (IBGE), Simao Schwartzman,
was mentioned as 'scoundrel and rascal jew'. After the collective
commotion, politicians, jewish associations and individual persons
are considering legal actions against Eliane Alves. The university
has already dismissed the teacher while set to an investigation. Since
the teacher happens to be black, some black people institutions and
minorities associations publicly apologized."
What
Would Happen If Armenians Were Expelled From Krasnodar,
by Rouben Hayrapetian, Azg
Armenian Daily (Armenia), May 31, 2002
"Russian nationalists admit their complete helplessness to fight
against Jews. They know that out of 7 billionaires in Russia 5 are
Jews. The wife of the sixth, Azeri Vagit Alekperov is said to be a
Jew and all of them made their fortunes not by producing something,
but taking hold of the Russian national wealth-crud[e] oil and non-ferrous
metals and selling it to the West. Nothing is changed when they are
called Jew mug, nothing. The point is that according to some sources
the mother of governor Tkachov is also Jew, though I do not have enough
grounds to insist on it, but many steps of the governor could be explained
by this fact. Let us recall that the leaders of the October Revolution
in 1917 were all Jews, who built a new Russia by ruthlessly destroying
Russian nobility, professional military and Orthodox Christians. Now
there are wonderful conditions in Russia to plunder the country making
Armenians, Azeris, Kurds and other minorities the scapegoat. By the
way, chief of migration department in the administration of governor
Tkachov is a pureblooded Jew."
Diller family's
$5 million will boost Jewish studies: Grant to level playing field
for Israel,
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California,
October 4, 2002
"Pro-Israel elements on the U.C. Berkeley campus have 5 million
new reasons to believe the university is listening to them. A grant
from the Helen Diller Family Fund -- at $5 million, far and
away the largest donation ever received by the university's Jewish
studies program -- will ensure a permanent Israeli presence on the
U.C. Berkeley campus. Starting in the fall, the grant will be utilized
to bring an Israeli professor to the university every year. The funding
will also enhance graduate studies and research within the program.
In addition to the grant to U.C. Berkeley, Diller gave a matching
$5 million to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev toward a building
to house its humanities departments. Diller felt compelled
to make the grant to U.C. Berkeley because, as an alumna, she was
disturbed that the campus has been the scene of some of the most fervent
pro-Palestinian activism in the nation. She views the donation as
a vehicle for change. 'You know what's going on over there. With the
protesting and this and that, we need to get a real strong Jewish
studies program in there,' said the Woodside philanthropist, who met
her husband, Sanford, at U.C. Berkeley in the 1950s. 'Hopefully, it
will be enlightening to have a visiting professor and it'll calm down
over there more.'"
Secession
Question,
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles,
October 11, 2002
"Secession, in this instance, referred to the referendum calling
for the San Fernando Valley to separate from Los Angeles and become
an independent city of 1.35 million ... In an earlier day, everyone
in the audience would have known why he wanted to slide away from
the good-for-the-Jews question. It was not 'cool' to be public about
Jewish interests or preferences. The non-Jews might hear, and who
knew what consequences might follow. Certainly nothing good. But this
is the 21st century and, for better or worse, the Jews are central
players in Los Angeles. Jews are at the heart of the city’s cultural
life. The garment industry is crowded with Latino workers, but many
owners are Jewish businessmen. Real estate and development are identified
with major Jewish entrepreneurs. Local politics has a strong Jewish
presence, and in terms of fundraising for statewide and national political
office, Los Angeles in particular and California in general are essential
to the nation’s political life. I haven’t even mentioned Hollywood
with its Jewish agents, corporate lawyers and moguls. If you start
compiling names of L.A. influentials — Frank Gehry, Steven
Spielberg, Eli Broad, Haim Saban, Bruce Ramer,
Rob Reiner — it becomes evident that the Jews, on the basis
of influence, per capita income and education, are the Brahmins of
Los Angeles."
Risky
trick for sultan of PR spin,
Guardian (UK), July 8, 2001
"Matthew Freud, matey Machiavelli of public relations,
rejected 'hundreds' of requests for an interview last week. But like
all the best PR gurus, he can make his presence felt even when fleeing
calls. So when one newspaper profile ran a photo of a tired-looking,
bloodshot-eyed Freud, it was not surprising to see the picture
replaced in later editions. Freud has been in the news a lot
recently. Last week he bought back Freud Communications, the
celebrity and consumer PR firm he sold to Abbott Mead Vickers for
a reported £10 million in 1994. He also told Vanity Fair about his
apparently fraught relationship with Rupert Murdoch, Freud's
soon to be father-in-law. His marriage to Elisabeth Murdoch will complete
an eventful 12 months for the 37-year-old Freud ... Nobody
can say that Freud, a great-grandson of Sigmund Freud, has not been
entrepreneurial. He was 21 when he launched Freud Communications
with two clients on his books: Clannad, the New Age Irish band, and
celebrity spoon-bender [Israeli] Uri Geller ... Today, though,
the bulk of Freud's business comes from promoting consumer
products for the likes of Nescafé, Nike and Unilever."
Diamonds
are a Jew's best friend,
Jewsweek, October 12, 2002
"Next to DeBeers, Lev Leviev is the second largest diamond
merchant in the world. Could this Soviet Jew with humble beginnings
be set to take down the DeBeers diamond giant? ... The [Chabad Lubavitcher]
Rebbe blessed him and his ideas [about this business in Russia], adding
that he should use the money he would earn and the power he would
gain to build the Jewish community in general and Lubavitch in particular,
in Russia and in the world ... Leviev was then a 36-year-old
Israeli ... Leviev is single-handedly taking on the great DeBeers
diamond cartel that has dominated the diamond industry for generations
-– and by almost anyone's account, he's actually gaining ground on
them. Leviev has parlayed his riches into political power and
charitable contributions, touching the lives of countless Jews. The
Lubavitcher Rebbe blessed Leviev for success in the diamond
business, and he asked him to use the resulting power and wealth to
build Judaism. Leviev has done exactly that. Diamonds have
always been a Jewish business. One might even say that Jews created
the industry ... Amsterdam is no longer the world diamond center it
once was. That center is now a little less than two hours away by
train in Antwerp, Belgium. The diamond business here is also heavily
Jewish. Most of the dealers and workers are from the local Chassidic
community, who live nearby and worship in the dozens of synagogues
that dot the area ... Antwerp's diamond community established the
Israeli diamond industry, which has the second-biggest center of diamonds
in the world, located in a complex of buildings in a Tel Aviv suburb
... The diamond industry has been dominated by the DeBeers cartel
since it was founded in 1888. The family that established it and in
whose possession it remains today, the Oppenheimers, were German
Jews living in London in the 19th century. Most diamonds mined and
sold during the last century have passed through the cartel's hands."
Jeffrey
Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery,
New York Magazine, October 28, 2002 issue
"He's pals with a passel of Nobel Prize–winning scientists, CEOs
like [fellow Jew] Leslie Wexner of the Limited, socialite Ghislaine
Maxwell, even Donald Trump. But it wasn't until he flew Bill Clinton,
Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa on his private Boeing 727
that the world began to wonder who he is. He comes with cash to burn,
a fleet of airplanes, and a keen eye for the ladies -- to say nothing
of a relentless brain that challenges Nobel Prize–winning scientists
across the country -- and for financial markets around the world.
Ever since the Post's 'Page Six' ran an item about the president's
late-September visit to Africa with Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker
-- on his new benefactor's customized Boeing 727 -- the question of
the day has been: Who in the world is Jeffrey Epstein? It's
a life full of question marks. Epstein is said to run $15 billion
for wealthy clients, yet aside from Limited founder Leslie Wexner,
his client list is a closely held secret. A former Dalton math teacher,
he maintains a peripatetic salon of brilliant scientists yet possesses
no bachelor's degree. For more than ten years, he's been linked to
Manhattan-London society figure Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter
of the mysteriously deceased [Jewish/Zionist] media titan Robert
Maxwell, yet he lives the life of a bachelor, logging 600 hours
a year in his various planes as he scours the world for investment
opportunities. He owns what is said to be Manhattan's largest private
house yet runs his business from a 100-acre private island in St.
Thomas. Power on Wall Street has generally accrued to those who have
made their open bids for it. Soros. Wasserstein. Kravis.
Weill. [All Jewish moguls] The Sturm und Drang of their successes
and failures has been played out in public. Epstein breaks
the mold. Most everyone on the Street has heard of him, but nobody
seems to know what the hell he is up to. Which is just the way he
likes it."
GIL
SHWED, Chairman and CEO Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.,
CIO Magazine, October 1, 2002
"You can forgive Gil Shwed for not wanting to discuss
his age, which he reluctantly confirms is 34. He was just shy of 25
when he and two colleagues started Check Point Software. The
company's rise thrust Shwed into a spotlight most executives
don't see for decades. His appearance on Forbes' 2002 list of under-35
'billionaire babies' has led some wags back home to call him the 'Bill
Gates of Israel.' All that attention comes thanks to Check Point
FireWall-1, the first mass-market firewall that made its debut
just as the Internet was taking off in 1993. That product and subsequent
Check Point offerings are credited with helping define the nascent
markets for network security and virtual private networks. It was
during Shwed's four years in the Israeli Defense Forces that
he first had the idea for stateful inspection—the network security
standard for which he holds a patent."
Book
Review. The Perils Of Greed, Mysteries Of The Market,
Forbes,
November 5, 2002
"The beauty of The Mind of Wall Street, A Legendary Financier
on the Perils of Greed and The Mysteries of the Market (Leon
Levy with Eugene Linden, Public Affairs, $26) is that you can
hear how my friend Leon Levy's mind works. That mind has made
Levy an exceedingly wealthy man. Like Warren Buffett and other
legendary investors of his generation, the now 77-year-old Levy began
'playing' the market at a young age. His first investments were made
with the $200 received as bar mitzvah presents. 'I always believed
I could make money with money,' he says. Levy rose from being
research analyst with a small securities firm to senior partner of
Oppenheimer & Co., founder of the Oppenheimer mutual
fund empire, and finally founding partner in Odyssey Partners, a hugely
successful private investment partnership. Today, Forbes ranks
Levy the 313th richest American, with $750 million. He advises
the Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Studies
in Princeton, N.J., and other charitable institutions on their investments."
Spielberg,
Castro At Film Premiere; Randolph Lerner Replaces Father,
Forbes, November 5, 2002
"U.S. credit card company MBNA on Tuesday said it named Randolph
Lerner chairman, replacing his father Alfred Lerner, who
died last month. MBNA also appointed President Charles Cawley as chief
executive and made the senior Lerner's widow Norma a director.
Randolph, 40, is currently the chairman of MBNA's finance and
loan committee and since 1993 has been a director of MBNA and its
MBNA America bank unit. Cawley, 62, has been president of MBNA for
17 years, having founded the original company in 1982. Alfred Lerner,
whose Cleveland Browns brought NFL glory back to pigskin-starved Ohio,
led the No. 1 independent credit card issuer since 1991. He died at
age 69 on Oct. 23."
Forward
50,
[Jewish] Forward, November 15, 2002
The 50 most influential Jews in America, as decided by this Jewish
ethnic newspaper. Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of Defense),
Thomas Friedman (New York Times reporter), Andrea Levin
(chief propandist at CAMERA ("Committee on Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting in America), Norm Coleman (new senator from
Minnesota), Lois Frankel (Florida State House Minority Leader),
Senators Frank Lautenberg, Joe Lieberman, and Cal
Levin; Linda Lingle (new governor of Hawaii), Nita Lowey
(head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), lawyer
Eliot Spitzer, Stanley Gold (Board Chairman of the University
of Southern California), and on and on ...
US-based
professor claims Jews want to control Arab world,
Daily Star (Lebanon), November 20, 2002
"The 'international Zionist movement' is leading the United States
to wage war against the Arab world with the intentions of colonizing
the region, according to a professor speaking here during a lecture
Tuesday. Hisham Sharabi, a professor of Arab Culture at Georgetown
University in Washington DC, told an audience of students and faculty
at Balamand University, that the region is currently under 'a neocolonial
attack' but insisted that the Arabs would not be vanquished. 'However,
in the long run, neither the Jews nor Americans will be able to subdue
us for we are not (Native Americans),' he said, adding that almost
280 million Arabs form a 'massive force' ... 'Jews are getting ready
to take control of us and the Americans have entered the region to
possess the oil resources and redraw the geopolitical map of the Arab
world,' he added."
Russian
billionaire behind worldwide trade in oil,
Times Online (UK), November 20, 2002
"The ownership of the heavy fuel oil fouling the beaches of northwest
Spain can be traced back to Mikhail Fridman, one of the so-called
Russian 'oligarchs' and the man at the helm of Alfa Group,
a private conglomerate with interests in oil exploration, commodities
trading, banking, telecommunications, food, vodka and supermarkets.
One of Alfa Group’s many tentacles is Crown Resources,
an oil-trading business set up by Alfa in Gibraltar in 1996.
It was Crown that chartered the Prestige, a vessel that had
previously been used as a floating storage tank, to hold deliveries
of fuel from inland Russian refineries. Alfa Group’s myriad
interests are impossible to value, but some estimate Mr Fridman’s
personal fortune to be as much as $2 billion (£1.3 billion). He made
his fortune in trading. In the 1980s, he was hustling everything from
Siberian wool shawls and imported cigarettes to computers and photocopiers.
It is said that he even bred mice for laboratories before setting
up Alfa-Eco, a commodities trading business that formed the
core of his financial and trading empire. Today, Alfa-Eco exports
oil from Russia and imports sugar, tea and wine, and also owns Smirnov
Trade House, a vodka producer. With its Russian commodities trading
arm, Alfa-Eco, the Alfa Group has become a significant
player in the oil-trading business. Last month, Alfa-Eco secured
the largest Iraq oil deal in years, purchasing 20 million barrels
of crude and helping to bring a flood of Iraqi crude on the market.
The sudden surge in supply was a big factor in the recent fall in
the oil price."
‘Beautiful
Day’ For Bono Irish rocker gets Wiesenthal Center honor here for vision
of tikkun olam,
Jewish Week, November 22, 2002
"What’s one of the world’s greatest rock stars doing at a Jewish
benefit dinner? The answer came Monday night when Bono, the voice
and wordsmith driving the fabulously popular band U2, became the first
rock and roll personality to receive the Humanitarian Laureate Award
from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Bono, a 43-year-old native
of Dublin, was honored for his international campaign to raise public
awareness of the AIDS epidemic killing millions in Africa and forgive
the crushing monetary debt of poverty-stricken Third World countries.
Besides penning multimillion-selling, Grammy-winning albums, and fronting
sold-out arena tours, Bono is busy lobbying world leaders to help
Africa’s suffering and dying. 'He is fulfilling the prophetic vision
of tikkun olam — to help repair the world and leave it in better condition
than when we found it,' said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of
the center named after the famous Nazi hunter whose mission is to
preserve the memory of the Holocaust and promote tolerance ... Referring
to himself as the new kid on the block in humanitarian work, he explained
his new organization to help Africa called DATA (Debt, AIDS Emergency,
Trade). 'We’re mishpacha now,' Bono told the audience, using the Hebrew
word for family. 'Once I’m in, I don’t leave easily. I’m going to
be calling on you' ... Tom Lantos, (D-Calif.), a Holocaust
survivor, to liken the plight of Africans dying of AIDS as the world
turns a blind eye, to Jews being forced into death camp-bound trains,
while the world did nothing. 'Are we not watching them being put on
trains again?' Bono said ... Wiesenthal Center officials also announced
that its multimillion New York Tolerance Center will open on May 8
at the old New York Daily News building on 42nd Street. So
far, $11 million has been raised for the project, announced dinner
co-chairman Ira Lipman. The tolerance center will offer tolerance
and training to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies,
teachers, community leaders and corporations." *
Few
Jews in Spain, yet supposed ‘Jewish lobby’ still draws readers,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 22,
2002
"A new book published in Spain seeks to put to rest the notion
that a 'Jewish lobby' is influencing government and business in a
country that has one of the smallest Jewish communities in Europe.
But the book plays into some of the very stereotypes it seeks to deflate.
In 'The Jewish Lobby: Power and Myths of Contemporary Spanish Jews,'
Alfonso Torres, a Colombian-born journalist who has lived in Spain
since 1977, calls on Spaniards to dispense with 'old cliches and historical
prejudices' about Jews. Spaniards should know better, he says, because
their country was “the cradle of Sephardic Judaism' ... Ironically,
Torres’ book employs some of the very Jewish caricatures he condemns,
especially in publicizing the work. The jacket lures the reader with
enticing questions about the power Jews wield in Spain. 'It’s worth
asking how much power contemporary Spanish Jews wield,' the blurb
reads. 'Who are the wealthiest and most influential magnates? How
have they amassed their fortunes? Which political and financial operations
have they been involved in, and through which non-Jewish personalities
move the invisible strings that connect them to the highest echelons
of the state?' The author says the idea of a 'Jewish lobby' in Spain
is 'one of the great lies” bandied about by the Spanish media, though
he doesn’t give concrete examples. Much of the recent focus on the
topic has been tied to the publication of the book. Along with an
article on the book, the newspaper El Mundo published an 'ABC of Jewish
Spain.' The list of famous Spanish Jews included movie star Cecilia
Roth, who starred in Pedro Almodovar’s Oscar-winning 'All About
My Mother,' and fur designer Elena Benarroch. Indeed, 'The
Jewish Lobby' dwells on the wealthiest and scandal-ridden Spanish
Jews, including Jews from abroad who have taken up residence in Spain,
despite the author’s caveat that they are not representative of the
Jewish community. The author goes into detail about financier Marc
Rich, who received a controversial pardon from President Clinton
for racketeering, illegal trading and tax evasion; and real estate
magnate Jacques Hacheul, an associate of Mario Conde, a convict
from the Banesto bank scandal. Torres notes Spain’s refusal to extradite
Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinski to Moscow following
appeals from American Jewish leaders to King Juan Carlos and Queen
Sofia, who are said to be personally sympathetic toward Jews and the
State of Israel. Spanish Jews did not react kindly to the book. ...
'If this journalist is our ‘friend,’ imagine our enemies' ... The
authors of 'The Jewish Lobby' and 'Anti-Semitism in Spain' point out
that derogatory terms still exist in Spanish dictionaries. “Sinagoga”
not only means synagogue, but also 'a place where illicit schemes
are hatched.' A 'Judiada' is an “action that is ill-meaning or unjustly
undertaken against a person.'"
Epstein's
promotion completes front-office overhaul,
ESPN, November 25, 2002
"The Boston Red Sox made 28-year-old Theo Epstein the
youngest general manager in baseball history Monday, ending a long
search for a front-office frontman by promoting one of their own."
Bobby
Fischer's Pathetic Endgame Paranoia, hubris, and hatred—the unraveling
of the greatest chess player ever,
The Atlantic Monthly, December 2002
"In exchange for these rare interviews (Fischer hasn't given
a magazine or TV interview in thirty years), Sports Radio management
has happily provided Fischer with hours of free airtime to spin his
classic R&B records and to lash out at his enemies, both real and
imagined. Fischer categorizes these enemies—including the former New
York mayor Ed Koch, both Presidents Bush, and the Times Mirror
Corporation—as 'Jews, secret Jews, or CIA rats who work for the Jews.'
This radio broadcast was Fischer's seventeenth in the Philippines.
The bizarre karaoke interlude was a departure of sorts, but otherwise
the broadcast was no different from the previous sixteen. Fischer's
talking points never vary. Bobby Fischer is being persecuted by world
Jewry. The United States government is a 'brutal, evil dictatorship'
that has falsely accused Bobby Fischer of a crime and forced him to
live in exile. Bobby Fischer has been swindled out of a 'vast fortune'
in royalties by book publishers, movie studios, and clock manufacturers
(yes, clock manufacturers), who have brazenly pilfered his brand name,
patents, and copyrights. The Jews are a 'filthy, lying bastard people'
bent on world domination through such insidious schemes as the Holocaust
('a money-making invention'), the mass murder of Christian children
('their blood is used for black-magic ceremonies'), and junk food
(William Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin' Donuts, is singled
out as a culprit). ... For the most part chess people have for years
downplayed the importance of his outlandish outbursts, explaining
that Fischer's raging anti-Semitism, acute paranoia, and tenuous grasp
on reality are hyped by the media and misunderstood by the public...
Another friend, asked how he could stand by someone so blatantly anti-Semitic,
replies, 'A lot of people wouldn't care if Michael Jordan was an anti-Semite
if they could play a game of Horse with him.' Many Fischer apologists
argue that Bobby Fischer is in fact deranged, and that as such he
deserves not public castigation but psychiatric help. They are quick
to point out that he was raised in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn,
has had close friends who were Jewish, and in fact had a Jewish mother
(information he has gone to great lengths to deny)."
[FROM PAPER EDITON]
The Way We Live Now,
Jewish Chronicle [Great Britain], December
6, 2002, p. 31
"London Jews comprise 'a relatively affluent group of people
with middle-class" lifestyles, according to a report published
today by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research ["A Portrait
of Jews in London and the South East: A Community Study," "the
largest (survey) ever conducted of Jews in Britain," (2,965 people)
]. And, while details of their income are being kept under wraps,
they are 'high on the socio-economic scale.' Around one-third describe
themselves as employers in large organisations or in higher managerial
and professional occupations, and another third in 'lower professional
and higher technical and supervisiory' work. Only one per cent are
engaged in 'routine' occupations ... 80 per cent had watched a programme
of Jewish interest [in the past year], 53 per cent had read a book
on a Jewish topic, while just 10 per cent had not participated in
any kind Jewish cultural activity or bought a piece of Judaica of
any kind. A third had attended a Jewish lecture, and one in five a
synagogue adult-education programme; 24 per cent had been to a Jewish
film, theatre or music event; and 24 per cent had visited a Jewish
museum outside the UK. Around 60 per cent had been to at least one
Jewish educational or cultural event ... More than half of those surveyed
had done some type of voluntary work for their synagogue or another
Jewish organisation in the past year ... As many as 13 per cent had
served as a trustee on a Jewish charity ... Forty-six per cent attached
highest priority to Jewish causes in the UK; 20 per cent to general
British charities; 14 per cent to Israel; and 11 per cent equally
to Jewish and Israeli charities ... 'What is absolutely apparent,'
the report comments, 'is that London Jews have long sinced ceased
to comprise a religious group. They are truly an ethnie (ethnic group)
within British society, with shared historical memories, a myth of
common ancestry ... and an overall sense of solidarity ... London
Jews also like to be near other Jews. More than 97 per cent in North
and North West London say they know of another Jewish resident in
the same street, while more than half (two-thirds in the North West)
have a next-door Jewish neighbor. More than 80 per cent in the North
East, and more than 90 per cent in the North West, have a Jewish neighbour
within three doors away. [Note: South London percentages are much,
much smaller -- poorer part of town?] More than 90 per cent think
it important for their children to mix with in Jewish social groups,
and 89 per cent are willing to send their children on an Israel trip
-- an 'amazingly high' figure, the report notes, given the conflict
in the Middle East."
Liesel Pritzker, Meet Meadow Soprano,
Forbes, December 11, 2002
"Is Liesel Pritzker getting advice from Meadow Soprano?
The idea may seem far-fetched, but it's worth considering. Liesel
Pritzker is an heir to the Chicago Pritzker family. She
is also a movie actress and a freshman at Columbia University, where
Meadow Soprano of the northern N.J. Sopranos is an upperclasswoman.
Ms. Soprano is fictional, but seems real. Liesel Pritzker really
exists, though she seems fictional. Still, it seems their paths may
have crossed. The Pritzker family, according to press reports,
is planning to break up its $15 billion real estate and hotel empire
by liquidating many holdings, perhaps making the Hyatt hotel chain
public in the process. The reason the famously private and tight-knit
clan is breaking up is to appease a group of family cousins. Under
the plan, the details of which are still secret, each of eleven cousins,
third-generation heirs of family scion Jay Pritzker, who died
in 1999, would receive fortunes in excess of $1 billion. Three cousins,
Thomas, 52, Nicholas, 57 and Penny Pritzker,
43, would run the parts of the family business that are not sold off.
It sounds like a fine arrangement, but Liesel Pritzker, 18, is not
happy. She is suing her father, Robert Pritzker, 76, Jay's
brother, and other family members, accusing them of mismanaging and
diverting money from her trust, causing her damages of $1 billion.
The suit, which was filed on Nov. 26, says she should be paid an additional
$5 billion or more in punitive damages, evincing a nicely vindictive
sentiment. She says she and her brother Matthew are not being treated
on par with much older half-brother Thomas Pritzker ... For Liesel,
whose stage name is Liesel Matthews, life seems to mirror fiction
in more ways than one. She starred in the 1995 film adaptation of
A Little Princess."
[NOTE: Why would it be NECESSARY that a small minority of Jewish
professors keep a petition against Israel alive? Think about it.]
Jewish
Professors Keep Divestment Drive Alive,
Common Dreams (from Boston Globe), Decmeber
21, 2002
"The national movement to pressure universities to pull their
investments from Israel has been battered this year by critics who
call it divisive and anti-Semitic. But it has shown remarkable staying
power in large part because of an unusual group of supporters: Jewish
professors. Hundreds of college professors nationwide have signed
petitions calling for divestment from Israel, among them several dozen
Jewish professors who call their signatures an act of political conscience
... Modeled on an anti-apartheid campaign that led campuses to divest
from South Africa in the 1980s, the petition criticizes Israel's actions
in the occupied territories and calls on universities to sell any
investments in Israel, and in companies that do business there. It
has circulated at more than 50 campuses, including Harvard, MIT, Yale,
and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Although most university
presidents have repudiated or rejected its demands, the petition has
had a powerful impact on campus. It has become a flashpoint for arguments
among students - particularly Jews and Muslims - and triggered
a far more popular counter-petition supporting Israel. Since
they signed, Spelke and other Jewish professors have been bombarded
with e-mail and letters accusing them of betraying fellow Jews and
Israel, of self-loathing and anti-Semitism, and - most disturbing
to some - of giving comfort to suicide bombers in Israel. Most prominently,
Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers has publicly suggested that
the divestment movement has anti-Semitic overtones. Spelke and others
say they see it not as a matter of religion or psychology but of conscience,
and their intensely personal responses to the charges of anti-Semitism
have helped keep the divestment movement alive. ''The best way we
as a society can debate this is not to poke fingers - `Oh, you're
saying that because you're anti-Semitic' or `Oh, you're saying that
because you're Jewish' - but rather to evaluate the arguments straight
up,'' Spelke said ... Raw emotion has marked much of the debate, and
Jewish supporters of Israel have not been shy about labeling the petition
as anti-Semitic. ''I don't know if these people themselves are anti-Semitic,
but Jews and non-Jews alike have a responsibility to get their facts
right - Israel is under attack, and a petition that doesn't acknowledge
this but only condemns Israel is anti-Semitic,' said Asher Schachter,
a Harvard Medical School instructor who is one
of 439 Harvard faculty to sign an anti-divestment petition - far more
than the 75 faculty at Harvard who support divestment. ...
Ken Olum, a member of the Tufts physics department who helped
organize a divestment petition on campus, said he has wrestled so
long with his frustrations with Israel, and with widespread Jewish
support for the government there, that he has stopped identifying
himself as a Jew when people discuss religion, the Middle East, or
other subjects. 'The fact that a lot of people who count themselves
as among the Jewish people are doing a great evil, an un-Jewish evil,
has been overwhelming,' Olum said. 'The moral stakes here are
too great to not take this stand.'''
Watchword
is security for Guatemala’s Jews,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 26,
2002
"Outside the high wall that surrounds Sharai Benjamin Synagogue,
guards are checking visitors’ identification .... This Central American
country has been called the kidnapping capital of the world, and prominent
Jewish families have been among the victims. Security concerns occupy
Joey Habie, originator of Har Carmel, a new 142-acre development
that Habie hopes will unify and strengthen Guatemala’s Jewish community
... Like the Biblical mountain from which it gets its name, Har Carmel
rises boldly, and on all sides reveals a dramatic vista. Thousands
of lush green acres stretch out below, a pleasant reminder of why
the Maya called this place Guatemala, or Land of the Trees. Har Carmel
will have 200 homes, a community center, a sports complex, a synagogue
and a school ... Guatemala has about 11 million inhabitants. More
than half are direct descendants of the Maya, an ancient Indian civilization
that flourished in Central America and Mexico. There are about 850
Jews from 310 families, according to a 2000 Consejo Central census
... Most of the country’s Jews make their homes here in the capital,
living in secure apartment buildings and walled compounds. Some longtime
residents are skeptical of the Har Carmel plan. Several say they fear
Jews will be 'sitting ducks' for kidnappings or Al-Qaida style attacks.
Habie rejects claims that he is building a ghetto ... Har Carmel will
have a security gate with state-of-the-art electronic communications,
including links to public and private law enforcement. Armed guards
will patrol inside and outside the grounds 24 hours a day ... More
than half of Har Carmel’s quarter-acre lots have been sold. The cost
is $25,000 per lot, payable to an endowment fund that will help build
the community center and school ... Some American Jews also have purchased
lots, with the idea of building vacation homes ... There is wide disparity
of income in Guatemala, which has virtually no middle class. For Jews
who have been successful, security is important. Some employ bodyguards,
euphemistically called 'drivers' or 'chauffeurs.' Others deflect unwanted
attention by dressing modestly and driving older, nondescript cars.
Still others use helicopters to avoid abductions and car-jackings.
Enough Guatemalans pilot their own helicopters to make bird-like flocks
of them a common sight in the rush-hour sky ... 'Jewish kidnap victims
have been targeted because of their wealth,' and not as a result of
anti-Semitism, says Uri Roitman, a security specialist."
Question
13.9: Who Are The Jews of India, And What Are Their Origins?
Shamash
"India has a legacy of four distinct Jewish groups: the Bene
Israel, the Cochin Jews, the Sephardic Jews from Europe, and the 'Baghdadis'
from Iraq. Each group practiced important elements of Judaism and
had active synagogues. The Sephardic rites predominate among Indian
Jews ... Under British rule, the Jews of India achieved their maximum
population and wealth, and the Calcutta community continued to grow
and prosper and trade amongst all the cities of the far east and to
the rest of the world ... Lastly, note that there were a number of
European Jews who lived, or settled in India. Some examples: Lady
Mountbatten, and Haffkine, after whom the famous Haffkine
Institute in Bombay (Mumbai) has been named. The mother of one of
India's most glamorous film actresses, Zeenat Aman is said
to be Jewish. Many Indian Jews have reached great prominence. For
example, the Sassons after whom the Sasson docks, the Sasson
hospital, and two of Mumbais well known sites- the Jacob Circle, and
Flora Fountain have been named. In the past years, there has been
a Jewish mayor of Bombay (Dr. E. Moses), and a Jewish Chief
of the Navy. In the Indian Army, Jews have reached very high posts.
A General Jacobs, now the Governor of Goa, supervised the surrender
of the Pakistani Army in the Liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. Maj.
Gen. Samson who was awarded the Padma Bhushan, and a few other
Jews reached prominence in the Indian Army. Two of India's leading
literary personalities, poet Nissim Ezeickel, and cartoonist
Abu Abraham are Jewish. Also the late famous Hindi film actor
David, and the late 'Sulochana' the Queen of Indian
Silent Films, and the actress/dancer Helen. A Dr. Erulkar was
the personal physician/friend of Mahatma Gandhi. His father, also
a Dr. Abraham Erulkar, donated land for the synagogue in Ahmedabad,
Gujrat. Dr. Erulkar's daughter is currently the 1st lady of
Cyprus, married to the President of Cyprus. Another prominent Indian
Jew is Dr. Jerusha Jhirad, who was given the title of Padma
Shri by the Government of India. "
The
Money Changers, by Patrick S. J. Carmack
"Eventually, goldsmiths [in England] noticed that only a small
fraction of depositors or bearers ever came in and demanded their
gold at one time. Goldsmiths started cheating on the system. They
begun secretly lending out some of the gold that had been given to
them for safekeeping, and keeping the interest earned on lending.
Then the goldsmiths discovered that they could issue more money (Ie.
paper gold-deposit certificates) than they had gold, and usually no
one would be any the wiser. Next, they discovered they could lend
out this extra paper money and keep interest on it. This was the birth
of fractional reserve lending - that is, lending out more money than
you have reserves deposit. Obviously, it was fraud, often specifically
outlawed when understood. The goldsmiths began with relatively modest
cheating, lending out in gold deposit certificates only two or three
times the amount of gold than they actually had in their safe rooms.
But they soon grew more confident and greedy, lending out four, five
and even ten times more gold certificates than they had gold on deposit.
So, for example, if $l,000 in gold were deposited with them, they
could lend out about $10,000 in paper money and charge interest on
it, and no one would discover the deception. By this means, goldsmiths
gradually accumulated more and more wealth and used this wealth to
accumulate more and more gold. It was this abuse of trust-a fraud-which,
after being accepted as standard practice, evolved into modern deposit
banking. It is still a fraud, coupled with an unjust and unreasonable
delegation of sovereign government function money creation-to private
banks."
Of
"Lungos" And "Senoritos" A Colombian View Of Venezuela,
by Hector Mondragon, ZNet, January 1,
2003
"At the petroleum refinery of Barrancabermeja the workers who
are consigned to hard manual labour are called 'lungos'. There are
a lot of them and they earn very little. They are almost all temporary
labourers and they live in the poor neighbourhoods. When the 'lungos'
go on strike, technology guarantees that production doesn't totally
stop-so even when the majority of the workers are united in protest,
if they can't actually stop the plant from functioning, the engineers,
supervisors, and managers can keep the refinery going under 'contingency
plans'. Right now the oil-workers union of Colombia, USO (Union Sindical
Obrera), is getting ready to go on strike in response to the Uribe
government's offensive. That offensive is headed by Isaac Yanovich,
a businessman from the private banking sector who has been named president
of the state oil company. The workers, who struggled and won the creation
of a national oil company (Ecopetrol), have resisted its privatization
for the past 25 years. They have paid a terrible price for their resistance:
100 union leaders and activists assassinated (4 during 2002, which
saw 160 Colombian unionists killed), 2 disappeared, 10 kidnapped,
31 imprisoned (6 of whom are still in prison), and 250 fired (11 of
whom were fired just a few days ago). It is in such difficult conditions
that the Colombian oil-workers are preparing their strike for the
beginning of 2003. The victory of their movement will depend on their
ability to halt production."
Who'll Take Over from the Patriarchs?,
Business Week, May 13, 2002
"Often called Italy's uncrowned king, Giovanni Agnelli, 82, has
long presided over one of Europe's most powerful industrial dynasties.
The Avvocato, or 'the Lawyer,' has mesmerized an entire nation with
his wit, urbane style, and aristocratic demeanor. In his younger days,
he lived a fantasy lifestyle, mingling easily with Hollywood celebrities
and the political elite, from Ava Gardner to John F. Kennedy. He wielded
autocratic control over the family's empire and exercised extensive
influence over Italy Inc.'s feudal network of power. He even admonished
prime ministers when he chose. Above all, 'Gianni' reigned supreme
in the extended clan ... Yet a leader for the next generation is emerging.
Last year, Gianni knighted his grandson John Philip Elkann,
26, managerial successor to the family empire. The son of Gianni's
daughter Margherita and French-born writer Alain Elkann, John
Philip has already cut his teeth on the Fiat-500 assembly line
in Poland and in sales and marketing in France. He sits on the Fiat
(FIA ) group board, which includes former General Electric Co. Chairman
Jack Welch, who helped arrange a job for Elkann on GE's corporate
audit staff. The choice of Elkann, who studied at Turin's Polytechnic
University, skips a generation in the House of Agnelli." [NOTE
ABOUT ELKANN FROM A JTR CONTRIBUTOR: "Margherita Agnelli converted
to Judaism to marry Alain Elkann, a Jewish journalist ("liberal left")
friend of Alberto Moravia, now a counsellor in the Italian ministry
of culture after having worked for the French ministry of culture.
They are now divorced. Their son, John Philip Elkann, was born in
New York on April 1st, 1976. He studied in England, Brazil, France
and got an engineer diploma from the Politecnico of Turin. His grand
father, Jean-Paul Elkann (died in 1997), was a banker (Banque Jean-Paul
Elkann, Compagnie financiere Jean-Paul Elkann, etc.), and has been
CEO of Christian Dior and of Caron perfumes. He succeeded to Alain
de Rothschild at the head of the "Consistoire central israelite of
France and Algeria", and was président of the "Association for economic
cooperation France-Israel", vice-president of the "Chamber of commerce
France-Israel", governor of the Technion university of Haifa, etc."]
Exclusive
Q & A With Steven Silbiger, Author Of The Jewish Phenomenon (Part
I),
Black Electorate, January 29, 2003
"Steven Silbiger had already sold 200,000 copies of his
classic, The Ten-Day MBA. But that success did not fully prepare him
for the reaction he received for his follow-up effort, The Jewish
Phenomenon, wherein he broached the 'taboo' subject of Jewish
success and wealth, disproportionate in terms of the community's relatively
small population size - in America and throughout the world. The back
cover of The Jewish Phenomenon gets right to the heart of the
matter promising to answer why : 1) Jews make
up only 2% of the total U.S. population, yet 45% of the top 40 of
the Forbes 400 richest Americans are Jewish 2) One-third of all American
multimillionaires are Jewish 3) The percentage of Jewish households
with income greater than $50,000 is double that of non-Jews while
on the other hand, the percentage of Jewish households with income
less than $20,000 is half that of non-Jews 4) 20% of professors at
leading universities are Jewish 5) 40% of partners in leading New
York and Washington D.C. law firms are Jewish and 25% percent of all
American Nobel Prize winners are Jewish. The subject has been
so 'off-limits' that Mr. Silbiger was greeted with scheduled
media appearances cancelled; and journalists and editors who knew
him from his first effort (which has now sold 300,000 copies) informing
him that they could not write about his book or publicize it in reviews
because it was just too controversial. National Public Radio (NPR)
even canceled a scheduled show featuring Mr. Silbiger and Black conservative
intellectual John McWhorter out of fear that a discussion involving
The Jewish Phenomenon would alienate NPR's numerous Jewish
benefactors ... Steven Silbiger: Sure, the people who have
read the book enjoy the book, it is very useful but within the media
there has been an almost silence about the book because they would
rather the book not create any discussion. A lot of the book reviewers
and people in the main press don't want to cover the book because
the subject of Jewish success in America is more controversial than
anything else. Because the idea is that if you publicize Jewish success
and the reasons for it, then it will bring additional anti-Semitism
to the Jewish community. I have spoken to Jewish groups, B'nai B'rith,
Haddasah - many Jewish groups, and the book has been universally well-received
when presented but book reviewers and other opinion leaders would
rather not deal with the subject because their downside is much greater
than the upside for covering the book. I wouldn't mind negative reviews.
But they'd rather not review it at all because of how powerful the
message is in this book. From people who have read it that aren't
Jewish; African-Americans; Latinos and such; they find the book very
enlightening - they didn't know Jews. They knew about anti-Semitism."
The
Solution. A plan for Jewish and Asian world domination...and a response
to ethnic cynics on college campuses,
By Geoff Chang (Princeton University), Student
Discourse
"As I checked my email on a certain Wednesday during Spring Break
last year, I came across a forwarded message entitled 'The Self-Hate'.
Out of curiosity I opened it, and found none other than the now infamous
'Invasian' article from the Harvard Crimson's 'Fifteen Minutes'
magazine. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about,
check out http://www.thecrimson.com/fm_03_15_2001/article6U.shtml.
Basically it's a 1200-word-long Asian-bashing festival composed by
a obviously disgruntled Asian male. Admittedly, I was quite taken
aback by Mr. Justin Geoffrey Fong's self-hatred. I was not alone,
as many collegiate Asians around the country have spoken out vehemently
against Mr. Fong's views ... A month later, I received another interesting
email. This one not only contained a facsimile of Mr. Fong's article,
but also included a parody of 'The Invasian' by the Yale Daily
News' Mr. Michael Horn, entitled, 'Confessions of a Jewish
Asian Worshipper.' (you can find numerous posts reacting to the article
at www.yaledailynews.com, but I wasn't able to retrieve the
actual article) In it, Mr. Horn reiterates Mr. Fong's points
but casts them in a different light. Mr. Horn agrees with Mr.
Fong's assertion that Asian women are sluts, but disagrees that it's
a bad thing: Asian females' promiscuity makes it easier for White
(including Jewish, as Mr. Horn is, given the title of the article,
Jewish) males with Asian fetishes to capitalize on the 'local piece
of ass' ... Enough of this squabbling. I propose a solution that will
render all this racial ruckus inconsequential. If you're not Jewish
or Asian, please stop reading now, as the remainder of this article
may contain confidential world-domination strategies for those of
us lucky enough to have roots in the East. Jews and Asians should
intermarry and interbreed into a new, all-powerful, elite human race…and
here's why: Young Jews and Asians occupy an average combined 42% of
all Ivy League enrollments, with the largest contingent at the University
of Pennsylvania, with an unbelievable 61% of its population being
Jewish and 22% being Asian. In a survey of the top 50 non-liberal
arts colleges in the country (according to U.S. News and World
Report), Jews and Asians were once again the largest minority
groups, averaging in at a combined 35%, with whopping 48% Asian and
22% Jewish totals at the University of California, Berkeley *. Clearly,
my fellow Asians and my Jewish friends, we are the future. Cooperation,
not competition, will help us dominate the world. * There is absolutely
no evidence that these numbers are correct. The author takes full
credit for pulling them out of his ass, although he'd probably bet
you money that he's not far off from the actual figures. Historically
speaking, the Jewish-American and Asian-American experiences are not
that different ... . The Jewasian Nation will become the preeminent
group in America and eventually the world. Hints of the imminent cultural
merger are already extant: where do Jews eat out on Christmas Eve?
That's right, at Chinese restaurants. What do groups of older Jewish
women do for fun? Mahjongg night! Behavioral evidence points undeniably
to unification: both groups stress tradition (Hebrew school and Chinese
school - French people don't go to French school), both value hard
work and academic excellence (see statistical evidence above), both
have a penchant for stringed instruments…all that good stuff…and then
there's some of the bad-the two cheapest races on earth? Asians and
Jews, of course. The Jews are God's chosen people, and Asians are
by far the most populous people on the planet. Interbreeding the two
would indeed be perfect: a union of God's agents on earth and Mother
Nature's most fruitful homo sapien offspring."
U.S.
Unions Bankroll Israeli Aggression,
Socialist Action, August 2002
"Labor voices are being raised against the AFL-CIO's collaboration
with the U.S. government's backing of Israeli aggression against the
Palestinian people. Unionists are petitioning the labor federation's
officers, stating that they 'deplore the fact that AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney recently associated U.S. labor's name with support for
the Israeli invasion of the West Bank, which has resulted in the widespread
death and destruction of the Palestinian people and property.' The
petitioners charge that 'all the world knows the murderous assault
on the Palestinians with the most modern tanks, helicopters, and missiles
is financed by our taxes.' But what the world and even most U.S. unionists
may not know is that U.S. union dues monies and union pension funds
are being used to buy Israeli government bonds, also helping to finance
what the petitioners accurately term Israel's 'horrific aggression'
... The Jewish weekly Forward on March 22 quoted the National
Committee for Labor Israel's director as estimating that 'the
American labor community holds $5 billion in Israel bonds.'
... In1975, the Israeli Ambassador inducted the notorious Teamster
official Jackie Presser [who was Jewish] into the 'Prime
Minister's Club, a group made up of people who personally (or in Presser's
case, through his union) bought more than $25,000 worth of bonds'
(Steven Brill, "The Teamsters"). By 1977, Brill reported, the Teamsters
'had bought $26,000,000 worth [of Israeli bonds] out of total American
union purchases of $100,000,000.' The Forward reported that recent
honorees and speakers at a March Jewish Labor Committee dinner included
Richard Trumka; Michael Monroe, general president of the Painters
Union; Morton Bahr, head of the Communications Workers Union; Dennis
Hughes, president of the AFL-CIO, New York State; and Mike Sacco,
president of the Seafarers Union, who, when introduced, 'removed the
napkin tucked into his collar and waved it in the air' ... Given the
poor financial returns from buying Israeli bonds, and putting aside
the anti-Palestinian aims some union officials undoubtedly share with
the Israeli and Zionist establishment, why have so many unions (1500
labor organizations, reported Lee O'Brien in 'American Jewish Organizations
and Israel,' and cited by Mokhiber) put their members' dues monies
into Israeli bonds?"
[Yet another Jew who champions Israel in editorial power
at a newspaper --this one is Germany, of all places -- notes the widespread
international understanding of the foundation of modern America, that
the United States has been usurped by Jewish/Zionists interests in
its bid to fulfill all the old anti-Jewish stereotypes about dominating
the world. America, subservient to Jewish power and influence, has
BECOME Israel.]
Enemies,
a post-national story,
By Yair Sheleg, Haaretz (Israel),
March 7, 2003
Josef Joffe: "'Images that were in the
past directed against the Jews are now aimed at the Americans: the
desire to rule the world; the allegation that the Americans, like
the Jews in the past, are interested only in money and have no real
feeling for culture or social distress. There are also some people
who connect the two and maintain that the Jewish desire to rule the
world is being realized today, in the best possible way, by means
of the `American conquest.' This is one of the ways in which
Dr. Josef Joffe, editor of the German weekly Die Zeit,
explains the link that certain circles in Europe, and even more in
the Arab world, see between hatred of America and hatred of the Jews.
Joffe spoke this week on the topic of 'anti-Americanism, anti-Israelism
and anti-Semitism' at the Center for German Studies at Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva, inaugurating a two-year series
of lectures on Jewish-German relations. Joffe, who is Jewish,
is definitely an authority on this subject, both personally and professionally
... What happened, he said, is a complete transformation of American
policy [since 9-11]. According to Joffe, Bush said to himself
that for the past 50 years the West lived more or less reasonably
with the pathology of the Middle East. As long as the pathology did
not spread to the outside and did not endanger Israel's existence,
the West could live with it and even forge alliances in the region
to counterbalance the Soviet Union ... But there is also another factor,
he notes: 'The Europeans know the U.S. guarantees Israel's security,
so it is easy for them to play the `Arab game.' If it were not for
that American guarantee, I think they would be far more cautious'
... Joffe, then, is the embodiment of a European Jewish conservative;
pro-American and pro-Israeli, he is a modernist who believes in the
advancement of democracy even at the price of American neo-colonialism.
So cogent was this thrust in his talk [in Israel], that one of the
students at the lecture told him that his comments on the 'Arab pathology'
were tainted by racism, and Prof. Yitzhak Nevo, from BGU's
psychology department, argued that he was being too easy on Israel.
Offended, Joffe refused to allow the full text of his lecture
to be published, for fear that what he said, with its reservations
and emphases, had not been understood properly."
[If you believe that God has revealed Himself to Jews as a river
bottom feeder then, yes, obviously you'll believe that the war against
Iraq is NOT because of the Jewish Lobby.]
Word
is made flesh as God reveals himself... as a fish,
Observer (UK), March 16, 2003
"An obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by
what it believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was
heard shouting in Hebrew, in what many Jews worldwide are hailing
as a modern miracle. Many of the 7,000-member Skver sect of Hasidim
in New Square, 30 miles north of Manhattan, believe God has revealed
himself in fish form. According to two fish-cutters at the New Square
Fish Market, the carp was about to be slaughtered and made into gefilte
fish for Sabbath dinner when it suddenly began shouting apocalyptic
warnings in Hebrew. Many believe the carp was channelling the troubled
soul of a revered community elder who recently died; others say it
was God. The only witnesses to the mystical show were Zalmen Rosen,
a 57-year-old Hasid with 11 children, and his co-worker, Luis Nivelo.
They say that on 28 January at 4pm they were about to club the carp
on the head when it began yelling. Nivelo, a Gentile who does
not understand Hebrew, was so shocked at the sight of a fish talking
in any language that he fell over. He ran into the front of the store
screaming: 'It's the Devil! The Devil is here!' Then the shop owner
heard it shouting warnings and commands too. 'It said 'Tzaruch shemirah'
and 'Hasof bah',' he told the New York Times, 'which essentially
means that everyone needs to account for themselves because the end
is near.' The animated carp commanded Rosen to pray and study
the Torah. Rosen tried to kill the fish but injured himself.
It was finally butchered by Nivelo and sold. [This apparently proves
that Jews DID kill God, and even made a profit off it.] However,
word spread far and wide and Nivelo complains he has been plagued
by phone calls from as far away as London and Israel. The story has
since been amplified by repetition and some now believe the fish's
outburst was a warning about the dangers of the impending war in Iraq.
Some say they fear the born-again President Bush believes he is preparing
the world for the Second Coming of Christ, and war in Iraq is just
the opening salvo in the battle of Armageddon. Local resident Abraham
Spitz said: 'Two men do not dream the same dream. It is very rare
that God reminds people he exists in this modern world. But when he
does, you cannot ignore it.' Others in New Square discount the apocalyptic
reading altogether and suggest the notion of a talking fish is as
fictional as Tony Soprano's talking-fish dream in an episode of The
Sopranos . Stand-up comedians have already incorporated the carp into
their comedy routines at weddings. One gefilte company has considered
changing it's slogan to: 'Our fish speaks for itself.' Still, the
shouting carp corresponds with the belief of some Hasidic sects that
righteous people can be reincarnated as fish. They say that Nivelo
may have been selected because he is not Jewish, but a weary Nivelo
told the New York Times : 'I wish I never said anything about
it. I'm getting so many calls every day, I've stopped answering. Israel,
London, Miami, Brooklyn. They all want to hear about the talking fish.'
A devout Christian, he still thinks the carp was the Devil. 'I don't
believe any of this Jewish stuff. But I heard that fish talk.'"
[It would seem that the ADL -- so very image-conscious in the
name of Jews -- knows what it's doing. As the the war with Iraq begins,
we get a clear symbolic hint at who's at the economic helms of the
War Monster.]
The
Anti-Defamation League Opened The NASDAQ Stock Market,
NASDAQ, March 19, 2003
"Pictured: Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) joins NASDAQ host David Weild,
Vice Chairman, The NASDAQ Stock Market to preside over the Market
Open. Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation
League opened The NASDAQ Stock Market Wednesday, March 19, 2003 at
NASDAQ's MarketSite in New York. The NASDAQ Stock Market proudly welcomes
Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation
League to the Market Open. Since 1987 Mr. Foxman has attained
his role as a world-renowned leader in the fight against anti-Semitism,
bigotry and discrimination. In the forefront of major issues of the
day, Mr. Foxman speaks out against hatred and violence wherever
they occur. About ADL The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913,
is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through
programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry."
Zionism And The
Art Of Humbuggery,
by Donald Cassidy, rense.com, March 23,
2003
"It is truly nauseating, the constant bombardment by the zionist
media, decade after decade, of propaganda glorifying the Holocaust,
Anne Frank, Klinghoffer, Schindler's List, etc. and
their thousands of shrines, museums and memorials across America,
costing US hundreds of millions. Meanwhile, America's Vietnam veterans
had to pay for THEIR OWN memoria l... and there is no memorial at
all for the tens of thousands of US dead in Korea's forgotten war.
There is a reason. As a result of this endless propaganda, in the
last fifty years, Washington has pressured Europe into paying over
one hundred billion dollars to the survivors of the Holocaust. In
addition, Washington also has paid over one hundred fifty billion
dollars - and continues this vast charity - to this miniscule state
every year. And, amazingly, after over fifty years the survivors -
instead of dying off - have multiplied like rabbits. And now their
HEIRS have joined in the tax-free collections. Why doesn't Washington
tell them what it tells its own poor and disadvantaged: 'Get a Job?
Now these despicable grubs have shown their true selves; it's our
money they want - not our friendship. They are filled with venom.
They have crushed under the treads of their American bulldozer an
American girl, a pacifist and humanitarian, and have the chutzpah
to say it was her own fault. And our current government - and our
zionist media - obsessed with genocide and greed, are silent just
like they were when israel attacked the USS Liberty years ago and
murdered dozens of Americans. Israel has poisoned our government against
US with our own money. American youth are dying for Israel right now
just like the Americans in the Twin Towers. Did zionazis really murder
their own people in the gas chambers, as Hollywood admitted? Are ethnic
Jews their own people at all? There are many Jewish sites on the internet
that are saying 'No'. Let Rachel Corrie be our Anne Frank. Let US
'two percenters' put signs everywhere especially cars, SUPPORT RACHEL
CORRIE. Let laws be passed requiring that all such shrines, museums
and memorials dedicate immediately substantial space for Rachel and
her memorabilia, her baby shoes, letters to parents, photos of her
young face before and after the Horror ... or lose their funding.
Arlen Spector can lead the way as he did for Mr. Klinghoffer. Arlen
can rage on the Senate floor for Rachel and demand that Israel deliver
up the zionazi who killed her, or military forces will be sent into
israel to arrest him and deliver him to an American court with broken
wrists. How about it, Arlen? You're either with US or against US,
remember? By the way, how many weapons factories are in israel? How
many nuclear weapons? Tell us. May the God of all people vomit these
barbarous flag-waving hypocrites out of His mouth and curse them forever!
Soldiers, you fight an unholy war!"
Baghdad is only the first of the dominoes.'"
[Jew sues Jew.]
Anglo
American hit by apartheid lawsuit,
Yahoo!News, April 4, 2003
"The world's second largest mining company, Anglo American Plc,
and its diamond business De Beers were hit on Friday by a lawsuit
seeking up to $6.1 billion in damages for victims of apartheid. The
long-threatened case on behalf of hundreds of thousands of black people
outraged some analysts who said it smacked of opportunism and could
be a big blow to foreign investment in the country. Friday's filing
by U.S. lawyer Ed Fagan is the first to target a big South
African company for apartheid wrongs and sparked fear in the market
of similar suits against other local firms. Shares in Anglo skidded
nearly four percent, pulling the wider market down, even though Anglo
rejected the law suits. Fagan is scheduled to announce details
on Saturday of a class action against South African oil-from-coal
producer Sasol and U.S. construction firm Fluor International ...
'Those companies (Anglo and De Beers) were engaged in some of the
most horrific crimes against humanity,' the maverick lawyer told Reuters
in South Africa. 'If they want to come to the table, tell them to
bring $3.1-6.1 billion, and then there is something to talk about,'
he added ... Fagan said the suits were being filed in New York
and Nevada against the mining giant and its diamond business. Anglo
owns 45 percent of the world's largest gem group. The Oppenheimer
mining dynasty and the Botswana government own the rest of De Beers.
Fagan made his name with a successful claim against Swiss banks
that held onto deposits of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He has said
the $100 billion paid to victims of Germany's World War Two operations
should serve as a guideline for apartheid claims. He is seeking damages
from Swiss and American banks, accusing them of propping up the sanctions-hit
apartheid regime in the 1980s, by giving billions of dollars in loans
... At its height within South Africa, Anglo boasted holdings in about
600 companies and its founders, the Oppenheimers, became one
of South Africa's wealthiest firms."
Five
Israeli VC funds make Forbes' list,
Haaretz (Israel), April 7, 2003
"Five Israeli firms made Forbes magazine's list of the
50 most active venture capital funds in the world - Jerusalem Venture
Partners, Apax Israel, Vertex Israel, Benchmark
Israel and Walden International. ... Vertex Israel is
also the local arm of an international body, headquartered in Singapore.
The global group has $1.1 billion in assets. Vertex Israel
recently took over the management of Vertex Europe and today
holds sway over $650 million for investment. Benchmark Israel represents
Benchmark Capital, which handles $2 billion investments in
the U.S., Europe and Israel ... Walden Israel's parent fund has $3
billion under management. Most of the group's activity is in the U.S.
and in eastern Asia. Walden Israel, which is independently
run, has almost $190 million under management."
Young
love will cement marriage of Britain's top three dynasties,
by Ingrid Mansell, Times (UK), April
21, 2003
"The notice in the Forthcoming Marriages section of The Times
looked much like any other. 'The engagement is announced between Benjamin,
youngest son of the late Sir James Goldsmith and of Lady Annabel
Goldsmith, and Kate, eldest daughter of the late the Hon
Amschel Rothschild and of Mrs James Wigan,' it read. But while
the notice's format was run-of-the-mill, the marriage that it heralds
will be anything but ordinary. It represents not just a union between
two of Britain's wealthiest youngsters, but also a merger of three
of the country's most powerful dynasties: the Rothschilds,
the Goldsmiths and the Guinnesses. Ben, 23, is the son
of Sir James Goldsmith, the flamboyant financier who built
up an estimated £1.2 billion fortune through his pharmaceutical and
banking interests before his death in 1997. The father of Kate,
20, was Amschel Rothschild who, before his suicide in 1996,
had been tipped to succeed Sir Evelyn de Rothschild as head
of NM Rothschild in the City of London. Kate's mother is Anita Guinness,
heiress to the brewing and banking dynasty. ... One snide observer,
however, said that he hoped Ben and Kate's union would
prove more successful than the last time a Goldsmith and a
Rothschild teamed up. The comment was a reference to the unsuccessful
attempt by Sir James and Lord (Jacob) Rothschild,
Kate's uncle, to take over BAT, the tobacco company, along
with Kerry Packer in the late 1980s. The marriage of Kate and Ben
will provide a staggering joint bank account by any standards, but
especially for such young newlyweds. Ben has an estimated personal
fortune of £10 million to £20 million, while the family trust fund
set up after his father's death is believed to be worth about £1.4
billion. Amschel Rothschild left £18 million to his wife and
three children, and Kate stands to inherit even more millions from
James Guinness, her merchant banker grandfather. Her share in the
Rothschild bank, whose fortune runs into billions, is not known. In
addition to their wealth, the affluent couple also share a similar
history: both families have their roots in the Jewish ghettos of 18th-century
Frankfurt."
Unconventional
Wisdom. Student's lawsuit shows lack of class,
By Tanya Barrientos, Philadelphia Inquirer,
May 3, 2003
"There's a saying that everything we need to know we learned
in kindergarten. Blair Hornstine of Moorestown must not have
been paying attention the day her class learned about playing well
with others. Not that it kept her from doing well in school. On paper,
the 18-year-old Moorestown High School senior looks like every parent's
dream. Her grades are top-notch. Her SAT scores fall a few points
short of perfection. She's won numerous national, city, county and
school district accolades for her academic achievements. With her
older brother, Adam, she founded a volunteer organization that
helps the underprivileged. And she and Adam got a 2001 Presidential
Service Award from the White House applauding their success. That
same year, she was picked to carry the Olympic torch along Broad Street.
On paper, Blair seems like the perfect antidote for the average
underachieving, monosyllabic, television-loving, won't-even-make-the-bed
teen. She has a medical condition that leaves her too fatigued to
attend all her classes at school. And yet, she still got accepted
to Harvard University. Yep - on paper, she's a darling. But, in the
flesh, Little Miss Perfect is a petty crybaby. She and her legal-minded
parents (her father is Camden County Judge Louis Hornstine)
are spitting mad because Blair might have to share the valedictorian
spotlight with some other student at graduation. The superintendent
wants to name co-valedictorians, because he believes the school's
weighted grading system (and a reduced class schedule) gave Blair
an unfair advantage. Two other students with near-perfect grades were
required to take on-campus classes such as physical education (which
is weighted less in the grade-point-average calculations). And that
made it impossible for them to achieve a GPA as high as Blair's,
the superintendent claims. The Hornstines have made it into
a federal case. Literally. They've filed a discrimination lawsuit
asking for $2.7 million in damages. (Which these days is probably
just enough to cover books and board and tuition at Harvard.) Can
someone please explain what life lesson Blair's parents want
her to learn from this? That the girl who already has everything should
throw a temper tantrum when things don't go her way? That overcoming
a disability and making it to the top is only worth celebrating if
you're up there alone? That even though life isn't fair, hiring a
slick lawyer is? ... Whatever happens now, Blair Hornstine
of the graduating class of 2003 will not be remembered as the school
valedictorian. Nor as the exceptionally smart, hard-working and talented
girl that she undoubtedly is. She will be forever recalled as the
sulky, churlish child who took her pomp and circumstance to court
and ruined graduation day for everyone.
[Here we have the usual Jewish filtering tribunal of history.
The Jewish community declares that it owns the deed to any public
examination of Adolf Hitler. Why did Hitler have such outrage against
Jews? By Jewish definition as it is so intricately entwined in modern
Jewish identity, there is no reasonable (nor permissible) answer to
this question.]
After
revisions, Hitler miniseries gets thumbs-up from Jewish leaders,
By Tom Tugend, Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
May 5, 2003
"There were nights, acknowledges Leslie Moonves, president
and CEO of CBS Television, 'when I lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling
and asking myself, ‘Is this the right thing to do? Will it open old
wounds? Are we creating more anti-Semitism?’'Moonves had good
cause for sleepless introspection. Since announcing last July that
CBS would air a four-hour, prime time miniseries on the early life
of Adolf Hitler, media critics and Jewish spokesmen had had a field
day. They feared that the early Hitler would be 'humanized' into a
sympathetic figure as an abused child and misunderstood artist or
as a German Rocky who overcame tremendous odds. Some even feared the
film might trigger pogrom-like outbursts. Moonves, who lost
much of his grandparents’ family in Poland during the Holocaust, even
took flak from his own relatives. Now, with 'Hitler: The Rise of Evil'
broadcasting May 18 and May 20 during the ratings sweeps period, the
CBS chief is breathing easier. After previewing
tapes of the film, a half-dozen Holocaust scholars and prominent rabbis
generally have given it their approval. Some of the turnaround
can be credited to an entirely new script and complete revision of
the original project, starting with the metamorphosis of the title
from 'Young Hitler' to 'Hitler: The Early Years,' 'Hitler,' 'Hitler:
The Origin of Evil' and finally to the present title. The
earlier critical volleys, and advice from Jewish leaders consulted
by the producers, apparently gave a substantial push to the revisions.
In its final form, the film briefly touches on young Hitler’s brutal
and domineering father, his troubled adolescence, his rootless existence
in Vienna as a failed artist and his enthusiastic soldiering in World
War I. But the vast bulk of the film deals with Hitler’s career from
a Munich beer-hall orator in 1920, through his political machinations
within the Nazi party and against the Weimar Republic, ending in 1934
with the consolidation of state power in his hands. An epilogue summarizes,
in stark statistics and pictures, the utter devastation Hitler wrought
on Europe and the Jewish people ... One of the aspects of Hitler that
the film does not explain — that, indeed, may be beyond explanation
— is what triggered his murderous hatred of Jews. Theories abound
— a brighter Jewish classmate in school, a Jewish doctor who performed
a mastectomy on Hitler’s beloved mother, the poisonous anti-Semitism
of Vienna or simply the oratorical success of his anti-Jewish tirades
— but a definitive answer may never be found. During
the broadcast, there will be a number of public service announcements
on tolerance with guidance from the Anti-Defamation League.
CBS has said it will make donations to one or more Holocaust education
funds."
The Jewish Century,
By Henry Makow,
Save the Males, May 27, 2003
"Kevin MacDonald book 'The Culture of Critique' (2002) portrays
the 20th century as a Jewish century. A hundred years ago, Jews were
an impoverished people living mostly in Eastern Europe surrounded
by hostile populations. Today Israel is firmly established in the
Middle East and Jews have become the wealthiest and most powerful
elite in the United States and other Western countries. More significantly,
according to MacDonald, the Western intellectual world has become
Judaized. Jewish values and attitudes now constitute the culture of
the West. Because of deep-seated Jewish hostility toward traditional
Western (i.e. Christian) culture, the founding peoples 'have been
made to feel deeply ashamed of their own history, surely the prelude
to their demise as a culture and a people.' (lxix) Specifically, Jewish
organizations promote policies and ideologies aimed at undermining
cultural cohesion while practising the opposite policies themselves.
While they promote multiculturalism and internationalism in the West,
they insist that Israel remain a racially pure national enclave for
Jews. 'The present immigration policy essentially places the United
States and other Western societies 'in play' in an evolutionary sense
which does not apply to other nations of the world,' MacDonald writes.
'Notice that American Jews have no interest in proposing that immigration
to Israel should be similarly multiethnic, or ... threaten the hegemony
of the Jews.' (323) THE PARTY OF NATIONAL DECOMPOSITION MacDonald
says anti Semitism in Weimar Germany was based on a perception that
'that Jewish critical analysis of gentile society was aimed at dissolving
the bonds of cohesiveness within the society.' One academic referred
to the Jews as "the classic party of national decomposition." (163)
MacDonald speculates that Jews feel more comfortable in societies
without a distinctive national character. I think there is more to
this. The break-up of society into isolated individuals is also the
agenda of the new world order, which wishes to remove any united resistance.
The new world order is essentially the transfer of all power to international
finance. The question then arises: is the new world order a Jewish
phenomenon? Or are Jewish intellectuals the pawns of financiers, both
Jewish and non-Jewish? MacDonald focuses on how Jewish intellectual
movements led by authoritarian figures took over modern intellectual
life. He discusses Boas in Anthropology, Adorno in Sociology,
Freud in Psychiatry and Derrida in Philosophy. The 'Frankfurt
School,' for example, was a "Marxist Jewish cult" financed by Jewish
millionaire Felix Weil. Theodore Adorno's influential
book 'The Authoritarian Personality' (1950) was actually sponsored
by the American Jewish Committee. It attributed prejudice to Christian
sexual repression and portrayed gentile group affiliations (including
Christian religion, patriotism, and family) as indications of psychiatric
disorder. (162) Social disintegration leads to psychological confusion.
Society has accepted Adorno's view that there is no objective
standard of truth, no common reality. Everyone is isolated and different.
Adorno resisted attempts to 'endow the world with any universality,
objectivity or totality, with any single organizing principle that
would homogenize society...' (164) This kind of post-modernist philosophy
has paralysed modern Western culture. Western civilization is built
on the foundation that truth is spiritual, universal and knowable.
Ultimately truth is God. Universities today have given up the pursuit
of truth and are devoted to Bolshevik-like social engineering and
indoctrination. A liberal arts education today is not only a waste
of time but toxic. Far from bearers of the Western tradition, universities
are its executioners with the tacit blessing of the government. A
RARE EXCEPTION Kevin MacDonald, a professor of Psychology at California
State University is a rare exception. His courageous indispensable
book unveils the subversive character of our time. A soft-spoken man
who approaches his subject with scientific detachment, MacDonald has
amassed a wealth of remarkable detail. For instance, did you know
that white gentiles are the most underrepresented group at Harvard?
They account for approximately 25% of the student body. While Asians
and Jews make up only 5% of the US population, they account for at
least 50% of Harvard enrolment. 'The United States is well on the
road to being dominated by an Asian technocratic elite and a Jewish
business, professional and media elite,' MacDonald says. He details
the Jewish role in sponsoring Communism, non-European immigration
and the NAACP. He documents the stranglehold Jews have on US cultural
life and shows how it is used to shape American attitudes ... 'There
is never any rational explanation for anti Semitism...[it] is portrayed
as an absolute irrational evil that must be fought at every turn.'
(lviii) On the other hand, Christianity is typically portrayed as
evil in the movies, and Christians are even depicted as psychopaths.
MacDonald cites conservative Jewish critic Michael Medved who
complains that he couldn't find one film made since 1975 where Christianity
was portrayed positively. (lix) JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RIVALRY MacDonald
sees anti Semitism as the result of legitimate conflicts-of-interest.
Yet Jewish organizations demonize anyone with the temerity to address
Jewish power. They suppress the fact that Jewish-Christian rivalry
has very deep roots in Western society. In my view, this rivalry boils
down to the fact that Jewish Pharisees rejected Christ's gospel of
universal love and human brotherhood. Ever since, Jews have been social
and metaphysical outcasts, albeit ones with amazing powers of self-justification.
We have been used as pawns by worldly powerbrokers bent on destroying
Christian civilization. The 'modernist' trend of the 20th Century
can be seen in these terms. As I have suggested elsewhere, Judaism
is more a racial creed than a religion. Jews are told we have a mission
to create equality and social justice. In fact, we are being used
by financiers to build a totalitarian world order. The financiers
hold out socialist ideals as bait to transfer more and more power
to government, which they control. Of course, not all Jews are pawns
of the new world order. Most pawns are not Jews. Racism has no place
in this debate. But generally I believe Jews have played a prominent
role in modernism. A beacon for humanity, we have not been. Deceived
ourselves, we have deceived others and purveyed personal dysfunction
and societal oppression. Our role in Communism is a disgrace. Israel
is a source of shame. Jews need to discover who we really are and
rededicate ourselves. We can begin by reading 'The Culture of Critique'
and the other books in MacDonald's trilogy about Judaism as an evolutionary
stategy, 'A People that Shall Dwell Alone' (1994) and 'Separation
and its Discontents' (1998). MacDonald's publisher sent 'The Culture
of Critique' to 40 Jewish publications and didn't get one review.
Nor has there been any mainstream coverage, a confirmation of his
thesis and measure of our captivity."
Minority
rule, majority hate. World on Fire,
by Amy Chua, Review by Sreeram Chaulia, Asia
Times, June 7, 2003
"Can two seemingly unrelated issues like globalization and violent
ethnonationalism actually have a priori linkages? Yale University
professor Amy Chua's new book takes the globalization debate into
uncharted territory via myriad comparative examples to show the explosive
collision between free market democracy and ethnic hatred ... In
post-Communist Russia, six out of the seven wealthiest and most powerful
oligarchs, wielding mind-boggling political and economic leverage,
are Jewish. Owing to the virulent history of Russian anti-Semitism,
this racial profile of the nouveau riche has not gone unnoticed. How,
it is being asked on the streets, did members of a minuscule 'outsider'
ethnic minority come to wield unimaginable might since 1991? Chua
notes that political anti-Semitism is on the rise, as a majority of
ordinary Russians believe 'they have been impoverished at the expense
of rich Jews.' References to 'Zioncrats' and 'bloodsucking Yids' who
hijacked privatization and stole the wealth of the Russian people
are commonplace ... Besides cultural and historical enmities, the
Middle East is a conflict between 221 million, largely poor Arabs,
against Israel's starkly prosperous 5.2 million Jews. Arab squalor
and mass frustration runs headlong into Israel's highly educated,
skilled and Westernized Jews. That is why 'one often hears half-admiring,
half-contemptuous grumblings about Jewish wealth, greed and moneymaking
tendencies' among common Arabs. (p 222) Rapid democratization of the
Arab states, being pushed by the US government as a cure-all, will
exacerbate ethnonationalist hatred for the market-dominant Jews and
fuel even greater bloodshed." World on Fire: How exporting
free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability
by Amy Chua, Doubleday, New York, 2003. ISBN: 0-385-50302-4. Price:
US$26. 340 Pages
Insiders'
big stock sales may be omen. Experts disagree on whether flood of
sales foretells trouble for market,
By Greg Zuckerman, Austin American-Statesman
(from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL), June 8, 2003
"Here's some cold water for a red-hot stock market: Executives
are rushing to sell their companies' shares at a pace not seen since
2001. More than $3.1 billion in shares was sold in May by corporate
insiders, the most such selling in 24 months. By comparison, monthly
stock sales by insiders failed to exceed $1.4 billion during each
of the previous five months, and just $630 million of sales took place
in January, according to research firm Thomson Financial. The moves
are a concern because insider buying and selling -- by people who
presumably are the most knowledgeable about their companies' prospects
-- have been good predictors of the market's direction ... Still,
the selling -- from such savvy executives as Microsoft Corp.'s chief
executive, Steven Ballmer, and Dell Computer Corp. Chairman
Michael Dell, among others -- could portend trouble for earnings.
Because of changes in corporate disclosure rules, insider selling
may be more important an indicator than ever. New regulations imposed
in the past year or so mean executives are much less able to share
information with analysts about early signs of how a quarter or year
is shaping up. As such, trading by executives is one of the few ways
left for investors to get an inside look at how companies feel about
their prospects, some argue. How they vote with their feet is what
is key, these people say. Dell sold almost $300 million in
shares in late May, compared with more than $120 million of shares
sold during all of last year. His wife, Susan Dell, sold another
1 million shares, for $31.1 million. Mike Maher, a Dell spokesman,
said he couldn't comment on the sales and pointed out that Michael
Dell remains the largest holder of the company's stock, with almost
$9 billion in shares and options. His family owns an additional $1.2
billion of the stock ... As for Ballmer, who has sold almost
$1 billion in shares recently, he issued a press release last month
saying, 'I remain excited about the potential for our technology to
change people's lives, and I remain as committed to Microsoft as ever.'
A Microsoft spokeswoman added that Ballmer continues to hold significant
holdings of the company's shares. He currently holds about $10 billion
of Microsoft shares ... Health-related companies stand out because
of a surge in recent insider selling. For example, six executives
at Genentech, a stock that has almost doubled this year, have combined
to sell 742,500 shares valued at $36 million in the past month, according
to Thomson. Among them, Chief Financial Officer Louis Lavigne Jr.
sold almost 210,000 shares."
"The New
Mafia",
By Mark Glenn, The March for Justice
"It didn't change the fact that America was discovered by an
Italian and later named after one. It was and still is a racism with
which Americans are comfortable. They aren't offended by the huge
amount of business created and maintained by an entertainment industry
that depicts Italians as a violent, greedy, treacherous and lascivious
people. Names like Vinny, Rocco, Guido, and Tony are passed around
in jokes without a second thought as to what the whole business of
gangsterism implies when it is applied to a group of people. Shows
like the Sopranos win rave reviews from American audiences, and movies
like the Godfather have acquired their own cult following. And to
a certain extent, it is understandable as to how it got this way.
After all, the whole business involving the Italians and the Mafia
is an established fact of history, and only a fool would try to say
it didn't happen. But imagine if someone today did try to refute it.
Suppose someone tried to sell the story that the Mafia never existed,
that the whole concept had been orchestrated back during the turn
of the last century as a result of Anti-Italianism, an attempt by
jealous others to drag the good name of the Italians through the mud
and to justify displacing them of any acquired power or influence
in American society. Interestingly enough, 60 yrs or so ago, when
people spoke (in hushed tones) of a quiet yet powerful criminal conspiracy
organized along a single nationality of people, there were those who
denounced them for it, using some of the same arguments listed above.
And who denounced them? Members of this criminal conspiracy and the
political lackeys who were on their payroll. They used all the familiar
terms; Racist, anti-Italian, anti-Catholic, bigot. Yet today, the
existence of this criminal conspiracy is an established fact, and
only someone who is either making a joke or else deliberately wishes
to be ridiculed tries to deny it. Now consider the upset that occurs
today when someone suggests that there is a criminal conspiracy, much
like the Italian Mafia that is operating again, only on a bigger scale,
and instead of being run by the Italians, it is run by Israelis. The
reactions by these gangsters and their controlled mouthpieces, the
media, (and in particular, right-wing talk show hosts) are almost
identical to the reactions by Italian gangsters and their defenders
in the last century. People are branded as racists, bigots, jealous,
envious, and now, thanks to 50 years of daily propaganda, Nazis. It
is very effective. Criticize Israel for anything, and you will be
called any of the above and ruined for life. Consider what happened
to Pat Buchanan throughout his career as a commentator and presidential
candidate. Now, as a result of the browbeating he has received for
exposing these people for what they are, he barely ekes out snippets
of the truth for fear of the backlash. Not limiting the scope of their
warfare to only assassinating their opponent's character, they may
kill him physically as well. Consider the case of Randy Weaver's wife
and son. Mr. Weaver made the mistake of openly calling this criminal
conspiracy for what it is, the Kosher Mafia, and they tried to murder
him and his family for it. At the very least, you can expect a letter
from some government agency telling you that they need to "talk to
you" about some matter, usually involving an audit or an inspection,
and the harassment will continue for years. Tactics like these and
many others not listed are not new, although those individuals using
them, members of the New Mafia, would prefer that the rest of America
pretend that they don't exist. What else do you call a well-run organization
with long reaching tentacles that wields silent, yet powerful influence
in government, finance, and media? An organization that extorts over
6 billion dollars a year from the American taxpayers? An organization
that can hush-up war crimes 50 years old of such enormity that they
scream out to heaven for justice? An organization that can pick up
the phone, call the President of the United States and order him to
bomb another nation back into the stone age on completely false pretenses?
An organization that deals in illegal arms sales, the sex-slave business,
drugs, counterfeit money, money laundering, prostitution and the protection
racket on a world wide scale? Talk about it being run by the Italians,
and everyone calls it the Mafia. Talk about it being run by the Arabs,
and everyone calls it terrorism. Talk about it being run by the Israelis,
and everyone calls it a wacky conspiracy theory created by anti-Semites
... We, the Americans, have been given a 'contract' by the New Mafia
to carry out a series of "hits" in the Middle East in bringing the
other families to heel. The New Mafia has done a good job of laying
the propaganda groundwork years ahead of time by bringing to prominence
ardent supporters of this crime family such as Limbaugh, Liddy, Savage,
Hannity and the others. They have done their jobs well, deflecting
attention away from the real causes of anti-Americanism in the Middle
East, and instead blame it on kindergarten-level explanations such
as 'hatred for freedom' and other such nonsense. They have polished
up the image of the New Mafia, like Capone used to do with his soup
kitchens, by calling Israel 'the only democracy' in the Middle East,
despite the fact that the tactics they employ against even their own
citizens fly in the face of everything we hold dear as Americans.
And, last but not least, they, the New Mafia, have for 50 years, inculcated
into the minds of Christian Americans the idea that they are dysfunctional,
prudish, backwards, racist, and therefore that they are directly to
blame for the tribulations that caused many of them to suffer and
die. The unspoken understanding operates like this: 'You owe us. We
have suffered terribly because of you, and now you are going to allow
us to move about as we please without restraint, and without the hassle
of scrutiny or public criticism' ... The Italians have La Cosa Nostra,
the Irish have the PIRA, the Germans have the Nazi's, the Colombians
have the drug cartels, the list goes on and on. However, we should
not make the mistake of letting this consideration of national origin
nor the sensitivity of race-related issues get in the way of us acknowledging
that a criminal conspiracy exists in our midst. To do so puts us as
a society, indeed as a world, in great danger, and to ignore the existence
of such a criminal conspiracy allows it to continue in its destructive
path, like a cancer, eating up all the life in the body. If we, as
Americans, can be brave enough and honest enough to call the Old Mafia
what it was, namely a criminal conspiracy run by Italians, than there
is no reason why we shouldn't call the New Mafia, a criminal conspiracy
run by Israelis, what it is."
[Khodorkovsky is Jewish]
Arrest
of Richest Russian Said Political,
Newsday, July 3, 2003
"Opposition politicians and analysts said Thursday that the arrest
of a billionaire for alleged privatization fraud appeared to be a
warning from the Russian government to big business ahead of December's
parliamentary elections. Authorities on Wednesday detained Platon
Lebedev, a close partner of Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
on suspicion of defrauding the state of $283 million in the 1994 privatization
of the Apatit fertilizer company. Khodorkovsky, who according
to Forbes magazine is Russia's richest man with an estimated $8 billion,
is chief executive of Russian oil giant Yukos, which is reported to
be bankrolling a number of opposition parties. Lebedev -- himself
dubbed a billionaire by Forbes -- is chairman of the Menatep group,
a holding company with assets worth a reported $30 billion, including
61 percent of Yukos. When Russia's vast assets were privatized after
the fall of the Soviet Union, they were snapped up on the cheap by
a handful of astute businessmen. These businessmen, known in Russia
as oligarchs, played a big role in deciding policy under former President
Boris Yeltsin. President Vladimir Putin has made it his goal to keep
big businessmen out of politics and has vowed to get rid of oligarchs
'as a class.'" A Moscow's court ruled late Thursday that Lebedev should
remain in custody, Menatep spokesman Yuri Kotler said. He is being
charged with embezzlement, fraud and failure to comply
with a court decision, the Interfax news agency reported."
Sir
Evelyn de Rothschild, 72, is stepping down as bank chairman New Chairman
of Rothschild Banking Empire Comes From French Side,
By HEATHER TIMMONS, New York Times, July
9, 2003
"The centuries-old Rothschild banking empire is aligning its
global businesses and has appointed Baron David de Rothschild,
head of the French operations, as its new chairman. He replaces Sir
Evelyn de Rothschild, the longtime public face of the bank,
who is stepping down after 21 years as chairman. "It's not the end
of the world, it's the beginning," Sir Evelyn, 72, said in a telephone
interview. Rothschild's English and French operations will be consolidated
into a new holding company, Concordia B.V., with each group a co-owner.
Concordia will own a controlling interest in Rothschilds Continuation
Holdings of Switzerland, where Baron David will serve as chairman.
Rothschilds Continuation will acquire all the shares of the American
and Canadian Rothschild banks. Analysts considered the restructuring
a smart move. "It just makes sense to have all their operations under
one roof," said Philip Middleton, a banking consultant with Ernst
& Young. The appointment of Baron David as Sir Evelyn's successor
was foreshadowed when he was named deputy chairman of the London operations
in 1992. He had succeeded in re-establishing the family name in France
after the French Socialist government in 1981 nationalized privately
owned banks, including the Rothschild bank. He founded a new bank
and persuaded the government in 1986 to allow him to use the Rothschild
name again. In 1996, Baron David was named to a committee to oversee
the Rothschild investment banking operations worldwide, and was put
in charge of global integration. Sir Evelyn will stay on as chairman
of N. M. Rothschild & Sons, the investment bank based in London, and
will work closely with Baron David. Relations between the London and
Paris Rothschild banks have not always been friendly, and the two
banks operated as nearly separate entities for decades. But the absence
of likely successors from the family at the London bank forced Sir
Evelyn to look to France for a replacement. The Rothschild international
banking group is one of just a handful of storied European merchant
banks to emerge independent after a wave of consolidation in the late
1990's. Firms like Schroders, Warburg and Flemings were swallowed
up by global giants like Salomon Brothers, UBS and Chase. Rothschild
and Lazard of France are two of the most prominent survivors, and
they have gained some ground in recent years as the appearance of
conflicts of interest arose at giant competitors. Rothschild, with
600 bankers in 30 countries, had a particularly strong 2002, despite
the downturn in banking business. Rothschild was the third-largest
financial adviser last year on European mergers and acquisitions,
based on the size of the deals, according to Thomson Financial, rising
from No. 6 in 1999. Based on the number of transactions, it was No.
1. "The conflicts of interest that have risen in investment banks
around the world have made customers want to go somewhere else," Sir
Evelyn said. "We're independent." Rothschild has historically played
a big role in advising the British and French governments, including
work on the privatization of state assets like utilities. And it works
with private businesses, currently advising MGM on its bid for Vivendi
Universal's entertainment assets, and Pechiney as it faces a hostile
takeover bid from Alcan."
[Abramovich, Khodorkovsky, and Berezovsky are all part of the
Jewish Russian "oligarchy."]
[Are
Some Oligarchs Going to Cash Out?,
By Catherine Belton, Moscow Times (Russia),
July 14, 2003
"As prosecutors continue their assault on the Yukos empire of
Russia's richest man, speculation is mounting that its second-richest,
Sibneft owner Roman Abramovich, may be preparing to pull out
of the country altogether. Two leading Moscow dailies, Kommersant
and Gazeta, both reported Friday, citing anonymous sources, that the
Siberian oil tycoon turned Chelsea soccer sugar daddy is in talks
to sell his half of RusAl, the world's second-largest aluminum producer
... In addition, the source said, law enforcement's increasingly hostile
and public attacks on "the oligarchic elite" -- specifically main
players behind Yukos (who have been accused of embezzlement and murder)
and Sibneft (who have been reportedly questioned by prosecutors over
tax evasion) suggest the time may be right for Abramovich and
Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky to cash out while they can.
"There's an interesting pattern here, and it may not be a coincidence,"
said Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at United Financial Group.
Yukos and Sibneft are trying to finalize a merger that would create
Russia's first top-tier global oil company, but the Kremlin is reportedly
not in favor of having such a huge and influential company uncontrolled
by the state. If Friday's reports are true, the sale of Abramovich's
RusAl stake would be the latest in a string of sell-offs, adding substance
to speculation that the Chukotka governor and protege of exiled tycoon
and Sibneft founder Boris Berezovsky is pulling out of Russia."
[Yay! God bless Jewish nepotism! Get it out of the closet! In
the non-Jew's face!]
The
Jewish Path to Success,
By ADAM BELLOW, [Jewish] Forward,
August 1, 2003
"The news that Senator Joseph Lieberman had his two children
on the campaign payroll as fundraisers with six-figure
salaries raised some concerned eyebrows last month in the American
Jewish community. Sure, Matt and Rebecca Lieberman are
hard and effective workers, and since then have even taken a conspicuous
pay cut — but couldn't their father get them a job in a less conspicuous
place? The Connecticut senator, though, is only doing what dozens
of other politicians have been doing of late: bringing his children
into the family business. To be honest, Jews aren't really upset about
the fact that Lieberman hired his children or even that he paid them
high salaries. The discomfort with the personnel choices of the first
Jewish candidate to make a serious run at the presidency is that his
behavior is subjected to a higher level of scrutiny by the general
public. In a word, what Jews fear is how it
looks to the goyim: clannishness and underlying hypocrisy about meritocracy
and nepotism ... Jews have relied first and foremost on familial
resources to adapt, survive and prosper in America. In the mid-19th
century, when the first wave of German Jews arrived, itinerant peddlers
named Seligman, Guggenheim, Levi, and Straus
built their pushcart businesses into enormous dry-goods empires, bringing
their relatives over to run their chain department stores. Later on,
excluded from the white-shoe legal and financial firms of Wall Street,
the Lehman, Kuhn, Loeb, Sachs and Goldman
families created their own ... During the 1920s and 1930s a group
of hard-nosed Jewish entrepreneurs turned a patch of desert near Los
Angeles into the Hollywood movie industry. Entertainment juggernaut
Paramount Pictures, founded in 1919 by Adolph Zukor, was financed
by an enormous loan from the Jewish Wall Street firm of Kuhn, Loeb
& Co. — thanks to the intervention of Otto Kahn, brother of
Zukor's partner Felix Kahn. The studios
were famed for their nepotism. Jewish families also went into
the media business, founding Random House, Knopf, Simon & Schuster
and other distinguished publishing houses. And the Sulzberger-Ochs
clan has owned and run The New York Times since 1896. During the Depression,
Jewish families pulled together once again, outdoing other groups
in solidarity and mutual support. After World War II, Jews gained
access to the middle class and moved to the suburbs, leaving their
ethnic roots behind them. Yet Jews did not disperse throughout the
economy like other immigrants but continued to congregate in medicine,
law, academia and the communications industry, where relatively high
numbers have afforded leverage and security. Speaking
at a recent seminar on Jewish women in television at New York's Jewish
Museum, Terri Minsky, creator of the hit series "Lizzie McGuire,"
unapologetically remarked: "I got into TV the way I thought all Jewish
people did — I had an uncle in the business." How can we square
this long record of familial and ethnic nepotism with the public insistence
of Jews on equal opportunity and merit? ... Lieberman's nepotism seems
to call into question the whole Jewish commitment to meritocracy.
A similar scandal erupted in 1983, when Bess Myerson, appointed
as New York City's cultural affairs commissioner by her old friend
Mayor Ed Koch, gave a job to Sukhreet Gabel, the emotionally-disturbed
daughter of the family court judge assigned to Myerson's divorce
case. Jews were outraged, though not so much by the seriousness of
the offense as by Myerson's failure to uphold the communal honor:
how could the Jewish Miss America behave like any other politician?
Has Lieberman embarrassed himself or his supporters by hiring his
children? Not at all. To the contrary, he is a good father and family
man who is doing proudly and openly what generations of Jews have
done before him. The whole history of American
Jewry is a tribute to the power of Jewish nepotism. Indeed, nepotism
has been a positive and wholesome force in Jewish life for thousands
of years. It is high time to acknowledge and even celebrate this fact
instead of trying to keep it hidden like a shameful family secret."
Prominent
Jews in Poland, who changed their names
(Nearly 300 names, text in Polish)
[Emailed to the author of the next article: (timjwise@msn.com)
Dear Mr. Wise. Insofar as you are so certain of your convictions about
the negligible influence of Jewry in the mass media (and elsewhere),
I'd be happy to engage you in a debate about this. We'll post the
debate, in its entirety, at our web site (Jewish Tribal Review)
and you can post it wherever you like (preferably at the Southern
Poverty Law Center web site). You won't accept, of course. Because
like every other Jewish apologist for Jewish power and influence,
you're a fraudster. You'll lose the debate against the grandaddy of
Internet "Jewish Power" documentation sites. As you know. Quite simply,
we've researched the issue. And your self-appointed task is merely
to veil the story.]
PARANOID
PREJUDICE: Debunking the 'Jewish Conspiracy',
By Tim Wise, Southern Poverty Law Center,
Aug. 19, 2003
"To condemn racism, be it of the individual or institutional
variety, is to encourage the wrath of bigots. To these folks, offering
my email address is nothing less than an invitation for them to regale
me with age-old racist rants about blacks, and to extol the virtues
of so-called white culture and white "genetic purity." Even more telling
are the things they say after the paragraphs about the greater cranial
capacity of Caucasians as compared to Africans or other absurdities.
That's when my Internet penpals turn to the real source of their hatred
and offer up what they consider the ultimate refutation of anything
I have previously written: Namely, I am a Jew (usually a "dirty" one
at that, they being quick with the adjectives), and this explains
my desire, as they put it to "destroy the white race." To this way
of thinking (and I use "thinking" with caution here), Jews seek to
destroy white unity via multiculturalism, immigration and affirmative
action, so as to weaken the resistance of the white majority, thereby
increasing our own power ... Likewise, beliefs that Jews control the
media and U.S. economy are increasingly heard on the Internet and
elsewhere. So let us now dispense with the nonsense about Jewish power.
The idea that we run everything as evidenced by our "overrepresentation"
in media and finance is nothing short of insane, even based on the
"evidence" for such a claim marshaled by those who believe it. Debunking
internet idiocy One website — the crassly named "hoozajew" — claims
its goal is to confront Jewish power and destructive influences. That
site offers a database program that supposedly determines how many
Jews are in a given organization by analyzing the names of people
in the group ... Of course, even if there are many Jews in a given
industry, this can only be problematic for one of two reasons: first,
if one already believes Jews are inherently given to abusing power;
or secondly, if Jews obtained their positions by way of injustice,
having received unfair privileges relative to non-Jews. To accept
the first of these is to engage in the ultimate circular logic: We
know the Jews are bad because they “control the media,” and they control
the media because they are bad. As regards the second possibility,
while it is true that Jews in the U.S. have benefited from having
mostly "white" skin, and thus, have been able to move ahead of persons
of color in many industries thanks to white privilege, there is no
evidence that Jews obtained positions in media or elsewhere because
of state intervention on their behalf as Jews, over and above the
opportunities provided for non-Jews. Looking at claims of Jewish media
domination, bigots imply that Jews have evil intentions to manipulate
information for the sake of "Jewish" interests. Yet, there are many
far-from-sinister reasons for the significant Jewish media presence
... That nothing I have said here will matter to those whose vitriol
regularly fills my inbox is testimony to nothing so much as their
deep psychological need to project their own authoritarian tendencies
onto others. To find Jewish scapegoats for whatever miserable failures
their lives have turned out to be — this is the ideological holy grail
of the anti-Jewish bigot. And of course it will lead them to view
this column as merely more proof that a Jewish conspiracy exists,
and that I am part of it: my denials only prove my guilt, in the warped
worldview of persons so hate-besotted. So be it, and in which case
I have only one request. Before anyone writes me with more "proof,"
do me a favor: Namely, gather up the number and address of the national
office of the Jewish conspiracy and send it my way. After all, I’ve
been busting my hump on their behalf for a long while now, and I’d
like my commission check."
Excerpts
from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s dialogue with
ulama, intellectuals and religious leaders of Syria in Damascus on
Monday,
New Straits Times, August 21, 2003 [Mahathir
is prime minister of Malaysia]
"Q: Do you still believe in this conspiracy of Jews in
the Asian financial crisis? A: I will have to give a very comprehensive
answer to that. There are not that many Jews, only about 30 million.
But they want to control the world, it has nothing
to do with their religion, it's their personal Zionist ambition to
rule the world. The answer lies in capturing the most powerful country
in the world — the United States. How was it done? They invented
and propagated the idea of democracy. If you are democratic, they
have a right to all the rights of a democracy. They can stand for
election, they can campaign, you cannot have any more massacres as
they used to have in Europe. Secondly, they promote the idea of human
rights, that they must be given the same rights as anybody else. So
again, there cannot be any discrimination against Jews. Now, having
spread these ideas among all the people, the majority feel that it
is wrong to discriminate against the Jews. At one time, Harvard University
will not accept Jews. At one time, Jews were not allowed to participate
in banking in America. Through the spread of democracy and human rights,
they can do all that. They can carry out banking, and they are very
good in banking. From ancient times, they are the ones who collected
the greatest amount of interest. When they became equal, they went
for institutions that have the most influence on society. They captured
the media. The media in the West belongs to them, that includes the
electronic media (TV) and Hollywood. It became a propaganda machine
for them. And then, having got the media, they go for politics. Today,
the US Government, many of the members of Congress, are Jews. If they
are not Jews, their staff members are Jews. I appeared on the same
platform as Mr Ashcroft in Davos, he was assisted by a young man whose
name was Israel. Their staff are all Jews. They come to Malaysia,
and they have the same view. So by controlling the Press and media,
controlling the money through banking, and controlling now the Congress,
they have become the power in the United States. They may not be many,
American political candidates are extreme candidates, but there are
only six million Jews in America. They can ensure that you win or
lose, because they are united whilst the others are divided. In Malaysia,
we have the same experience. In a constituency with majority Muslim
Malays, for example, and a minority made up of Chinese and Indians,
the Muslims are actually divided. The Chinese and Indians will decide
who will win, with their votes. There are more Muslims than Jews in
the US, but they are divided into 1,000 different groups. And they
can never get together so they cannot play the same role as the Jews.
The biggest power in America now controls the world and economy. Their
ideas about currency trading is that which resulted in the attack
on Malaysia. I said this, and of course, I was roundly criticised
at that time. They said they want to make money, it's not because
they are Jews. But whether they want to make money or not, the fact
is that they are Jews and what they have done, benefit the Jews. So
that is the situation."
[SABA
FAMILY],
decades.com
"1896. Moises Saba Amigo arrived in Mexico from Aleppo,
Syria. He was part of a large migration of Jews known as “Turcos”
from Syria and Palestine whose passports were issued by Ottoman Turkey.
He started peddling dry goods and moved up to a chain of stores, then
textiles. The family savings were put into real estate. The Saba
family were billionaires by 1997."
'Shake-down
king' tries shaking up the boardroom,
By Adrian Michaels, Financial Times,
September 5, 2003
"As the king of class-action lawyers, Mel Weiss has become
the scourge of underperforming companies, extracting billions of dollars
on behalf of aggrieved shareholders. But this time it's personal.
His latest target is struggling biotechnology company Exegenics, where
Mr Weiss and his family own 4 per cent of the stock. With his
own money at stake, he is really getting tough. In addition to suing
Exegenics for allegedly mistreating its investors, Mr Weiss
is for the first time going after the directors. Mr Weiss has
filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to
remove Exegenics' board. The tactics contrast with his usual approach
in class- action suits, which have been attacked by his critics as
"shake-downs" because boards and managements often prefer to settle
allegations out of court to avoid publicity and expense. Mr Weiss
is one of the founders 35 years ago of Milberg Weiss, the law
firm which has become a byword in the US for legal actions against
companies that issue profit warnings, reveal inaccuracies in their
accounts or in many other ways cause the share price to tumble. Mr
Weiss's latest move comes as the SEC is poised to make it easier
for shareholders to elect their own directors against the wishes of
management. Nervous boards should perhaps bear in mind that Mr Weiss
has made enough money over the years to take big stakes in any
number of companies."
[Lev Leviev's biography is here.]
Cracked
De Beers,
by Phyllis Berman and Lea Goldman, Forbes,
September 15, 2003
"Lev Leviev is taking on the most successful cartel in
the world. The police are waiting for Lev Leviev when his Gulfstream
2000 jet lands in Kiev after a three-hour flight from Tel Aviv. This
is no criminal extradition, but a welcoming committee, including a
caravan of limousines and Mercedes-Benzes, each with two armed bodyguards.
The entourage speeds along Ukraine's pockmarked highways, through
traffic lights, past lonely farms and dusty roads to the village of
Zhitomir. Leviev is a local hero. He restored this town's only
remaining synagogue, which the Nazis had turned into an arms depot
and communists converted to a cinema. Now a ragtag klezmer band serenades
him as photographers snap pictures and boys perform a traditional
Hasidicdance in his honor. Across some 400 villages in Russia and
the former Soviet republics this scene has been replayed countless
times. Leviev is a 47-year-old, Uzbeki-born Israeli citizen
and devout Lubavitcher who gives away at least $30 million a year
in order to return lost Jews to the flock. This little-known billionaire
is also the scourge of De Beers, the giant miner and marketer
of diamonds, known as the "Syndicate." Leviev was once a sightholder,
one of a few exclusive direct buyers of De Beers rough diamonds. Today
he is the world's largest cutter and polisher of the precious gems
and a primary source of rough stones to other cutters, polishers and
jewelry makers around the globe. Those who have watched his rise over
the last three decades say it was his intense hatred of De Beers
that fueled him. He bristled under the Syndicate's high-handed treatment
of buyers, who were given boxes of rough diamonds at take-it-or-leave-it
prices and risked being permanently cut off if they balked ... Indeed,
he has taken significant business away from De Beers in Russia
and Angola--two of the world's largest producers of rough diamonds
in terms of value. Leviev has not humbled the once-mighty Syndicate
alone ... The reason Leviev is such a threat is that he has
profoundly shaken the tradition-bound diamond business. Until recently
De Beers had a virtual chokehold on world supplies, determining
who could buy uncut stones--and at what quantities and quality--and
where the cutting centers were allowed to prosper. Leviev pulled
an end run around the cartel, dealing directly with diamond-producing
governments and shattering De Beers' all-important relationship with
sightholders (exclusive buyers of rough diamonds). He also became
the industry's first diamond dealer with his finger on every facet
of production, from mining and cutting to polishing and retailing,
capturing profits at every stage (see graphic). Trumping De Beers,
Leviev has become very rich. He owns 100% of his diamond business,
Lev Leviev Group, and a controlling stake in Africa Israel Investments.
The latter is a Yehud, Israel-based conglomerate whose holdings include:
commercial real estate in Prague and London; Gottex, a swimwear company;
1,700 Fina gas stations in the Southwest U.S.; 173 7-Elevens in New
Mexico and Texas; a 33% stake in Cross Israel Highway, that nation's
first toll road; and an 85% share of Vash Telecanal, Israel's Russian-language
TV channel. Leviev also owns a gold mine in Kazakhstan, pieces
of two diamond mines in Angola and mining licenses in the Urals and
Namibia. He's probably worth $2 billion. A part of that wealth comes
from exploiting political connections--which has created enmity and
suspicion. A recent example: When Leviev was preparing a bid
for 40% of Australia's Argyle diamond mine, the banks supporting him
pulled out at the last moment. Sources say it was a lack of transparency
in Leviev's business. Even if his hands are clean, Leviev has
dealt with people whose mitts are dirty. His ubiquitous brigade of
burly armed guards isn't just for show. Some of Russia's Jewish establishment
resent Leviev's pushing his own brand of Hasidism. He has drawn fire
for seeing to it that a Lubavitch rabbi, born in Italy and educated
in America, was granted citizenship by Russian President Vladimir
Putin days before Leviev installed him as the country's chief
rabbi, though the nation already had one ... There's no denying Leviev's
clout. His relationship to Putin dates back to 1992, when the president,
then a deputy mayorin St. Petersburg, authorized the opening of the
first new Jewish school in the city in half a century (financed by
Leviev) after the mayor hesitated to do it. Leviev has
also become something of a go-to guy between Israel and central Asian
countries, enlisting the secular regimes in those mainly Islamic states
in the fight against fundamentalist terror groups. Leviev,
who now lives in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox enclave in Israel, is
a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and
the presidents of Kazakhstan and his native Uzbekistan."
Russian
Jewry’s Point Man Feliks Frenkel is widely regarded as the chief liaison
between his community and the Jewish establishment,
by Walter Ruby, The Jewish Week,
September 19, 2003
"If any Russian Jew can claim to be an essential bridge between
the Russian-speaking community of New York and the world of American
Jewish philanthropy, Feliks Frenkel may be that person. Having
risen in less than 25 years from a penniless immigrant from Kiev
to a wealthy arbitrageur and considerable power within the world of
Jewish philanthropy, the engaging 48-year-old Frenkel is widely
seen as the Russian Jewish layperson who is best able to explain the
needs and the general gestalt of the Russian community to the top
leaders of UJA-Federation, and vice versa. Unlike other
Russian Jewish millionaires in New York who tend to live and
work in a largely Russian-speaking environment, Frenkel, who speaks
fluent, lightly accented English, divides his time between his office
in a thoroughly American corporate environment in Westchester County
and a condominium on the Upper East Side he shares with his wife,
Marina, and their two children. Yet Frenkel, who mainly socializes
with fellow Russian Jews and has undertaken his philanthropic work
within a specifically Russian Jewish context, says he sees his role
as “not only bringing the message and expertise of UJA-Federation
to the Russian community, but also bringing the soul of Russian Jewry
to the mainstream community.” ... Frenkel says he has never had a
problem relating to the lay leaders of the American Jewish establishment,
in part because he is every bit as wealthy and
powerful as they are ... Frenkel says he imbibes his
strong ethic of responsibility to the Jewish community in his mother’s
milk, noting that both of his parents considered it their responsibility
to help fellow Jews in need back in Kiev ... After graduating in 1980,
he submitted 100 resumes to Wall Street firms, including Bear Stearns,
where someone showed his resume to the firm’s legendary CEO Alan
“Ace” Greenberg. According to Frenkel, “Greenberg
looked at my resume and noticed that I had studied at the University
of Siberia. So he said, ‘I’ve hired people from all walks of life.
I’ve had geniuses and embezzlers, undergraduates and PhDs. But I have
never had anybody from the University of Siberia. Let’s give him the
job.’ ” Just over a year later, however, Frenkel left Bear Stearns
and joined the predecessor of OTA Limited Partnerships, a trading
firm that specializes in corporate takeovers, as a research analyst
in risk arbitrage ... Frenkel has always made it a point to live in
Manhattan, which he calls “a lemon from which
my wife and I try to squeeze as much juice as we can.”
Interim
NYSE chief looks like a bargain,
MSNBC, September 2003
"Former Citigroup officer John Reed takes the job of starting
to clean up the mess left by the Richard Grasso pay hoopla. His own
pay: just $1. The battle-weary New York Stock Exchange won praise
with its weekend choice of a new interim chairman. It also saved some
money. Former Citigroup co-chairman John Reed will take over for ousted
Chairman Richard Grasso, who resigned amid controversy over a compensation
deal that totaled more than $140 million. Reed's pay: $1 per year.
Reed told reporters in a conference call that he expects to stay just
a few months and isn't in line for the permanent job. "“Over the last
couple of weeks, we’ve had some failures at the governance level,”
Reed said, according to an Associated Press report. “I have seen crises
that are quite comparable to the one the exchange has gone through,”
he said. “It didn’t help anybody. It didn’t help the people that were
involved. It didn’t help the exchange.” An NYSE
outsider Reed, 64, retired from Citigroup three years ago after losing
a battle for control to Sandy Weill and former Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin. Yet despite a career at a major New York bank,
new reports portray him as a virtual outsider at the exchange."
[Keister, who is apparently Jewish, puts the expected apologetic
spin on the fact that this study fulfills the "stereotype"
that Jews are money-oriented. Judaism has ALWAYS been money-centered.
In this study we have evidence for the obvious: Jewish collective
affluence is largely a factor of the exploitation of others. Jewish
this-world materialism, money-obsession, and aggrandizement are keys
to understanding Jewish identity and Jewish influence in the world
today. When it comes to making money, Jews are NOT like Christians.
The religious ideologies are worlds apart. Jews are taught by their
religious faith and culture to hustle for money. Pure and simple.]
RELIGION
HELPS SHAPE WEALTH OF AMERICANS, STUDY FINDS, by Jeff Grabmeier,
Ohio State [University] Research News,
September 16, 2003
"A new national study shows that religious affiliation plays
a powerful role in how much wealth Americans accumulate, with
Jews amassing the most wealth and conservative Protestants
the least. Mainline Protestants and Catholics fall in between and
are about average with the rest of the population in terms of overall
wealth. Moreover, people who attend religious services regularly build
more wealth than those who don’t, the study found. The religious beliefs
children learn in their families translate into educational attainment,
adult occupations, financial literacy, social connections and other
factors that influence adult wealth ownership. The effect of religion
is robust, even after taking into account inheritances, levels of
education and other factors affecting wealth that may be associated
with particular religious denominations, said Lisa Keister,
author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State
University. “Religion is an important factor in wealth accumulation,
a factor that hasn’t received a lot of attention,” Keister said. “The
results suggest people draw on the tools they learn from religion
to develop strategies for saving, investing and spending, and those
tools may be different in various faiths.” The study is published
in the September issue of the journal Social Forces. Keister
used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The NLSY
is a nationwide survey, conducted by Ohio State for the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics, which follows a group of people over time, visiting
each participant annually or biennially. She used data on 4,950 participants
collected from 1985 through 1998. Overall, the
median net worth of Jewish people in the survey was $150,890, more
than three times the median for the entire sample ($48,200).
The median net worth for conservative Protestants (which included
Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Scientists,
among others) was $26,200, or about half the overall average. The
median net worth of mainstream Protestants (including Episcopalians,
Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Unitarians and others) and Catholics
were similar to each other and about the average for the whole sample.
While some may say that the results confirm
religious stereotypes, such as the contention that Jewish people
are greedy and acquisitive, Keister strongly disagrees. “What I’m
finding is that families have a powerful influence on how people learn
to save, and religion is often an important part of family life,”
Keister said. “The things children are taught
in Jewish homes are very different than those that are taught in conservative
Protestant homes.” But it wasn’t just religious affiliation
itself that had an impact on wealth accumulation. The study found
that people who regularly attended religious services tended to be
more wealthy. “It seems strange – why should it matter whether you
go to church in terms of building wealth?” Keister said. “But going
to religious services may be another opportunity, especially
for Jews, to be indoctrinated with beliefs that help build
wealth. Also, it is a social network issue
– a church or synagogue can be a good place to meet people with investment
tips or money to loan for a new business" ... Conservative Protestants
also look forward to the rewards of the afterlife and don’t promote
acquiring wealth as a good for this life. Jews,
on the other hand, don’t have a strong orientation to the afterlife,
but encourage pursuits that will lead to wealth accumulation,
such as high-income careers and investin ... In the study, she examined
how religious affiliation related to some typical financial trajectories
for Americans. For example, only 1 percent of
Jewish people remained asset poor throughout life, compared to 15
percent of conservative Protestants. About 9 percent of mainline Protestants
and 7 percent of Catholics followed this trajectory. The most
common trajectory is to buy a home relatively early in life and then
accumulate other assets, such as stocks and bonds, later. About
35 percent of Jews followed this path, compared to 3 percent of conservative
Protestants, 22 percent of mainline Protestants and 20 percent of
Catholics. Jewish people stood out in a third trajectory in which
people invest early in life in high-risk, high-return assets such
as stocks and bonds and build wealth quickly while putting less emphasis
on homeownership. About one-third of Jews followed this path, compared
to no conservative Protestants, 7 percent of mainline Protestants
and 4 percent of Catholics. Keister emphasized that religion
is only one among many factors that influence wealth. This research
is part of a larger series of studies Keister is doing to explain
why some people accumulate more wealth than others. She said that
once she began studying wealth, the impact of religion stood out plainly.
“Religion keeps coming up in any model you run to explain wealth,”
she said. “It’s something you can’t ignore, but there’s been little
effort to explain the connection between religion and wealth accumulation.”
[What a scam. Jews take $ control on another front as Jewish Lobbyists
bleed the Ford Foundation. Money flows to Israel from every conceivable
American angle. Henry Ford, the best-known American "anti-Semite,"
is rolling over in his grave. ]
For
new fund, Ford Foundation joins Jewish social justice group,
By Joe Berkofsky, Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, Oct. 14, 2003
"The Ford Foundation is steering its drive for progressive Israeli
causes into a new philanthropic vehicle that partners with a Jewish
group. Ford is rolling out a $20 million peace and social-justice
fund in partnership with the Washington-based New Israel Fund, the
groups have announced. "This grant to the New Israel Fund will increase
our funding in Israel and help build the capacity of civic organizations
vital to strengthening its democracy," Susan Berresford, president
of the Ford Foundation, said in a statement. A panel made up of members
of the Ford Foundation, the NIF and recipients of past Ford grants
in Israel will advise the fund, whose grants will be awarded over
five years. By shifting control of its Israel-related
philanthropy to a Jewish group, Ford could blaze a new philanthropic
trail that other non-Jewish charities may follow, philanthropy
experts say. "If others emulate this shift, as a model it becomes
even more significant than as an isolated act — and I hope it will,"
said Mark Charendoff, president of the Jewish Funders Network,
an umbrella group of Jewish foundations ... Since
1948, Ford has granted $50 million to Israeli causes, Ford
officials said. Among its recipients was the NIF, which has received
$5 million since 1988. "This has an enormous effect, in that one of
the world´s great philanthropic organizations has the confidence to
put their portfolio of giving in Israel with us," said Peter Edelman,
the New York-based chairman of the NIF board. Of the $20 million Ford
is giving over five years, $1 million will go directly into NIF´s
$4 million endowment, adding significant capacity directly to the
grant-maker itself. The bulk of the money will go toward donor-advised
awards by the new Ford-NIF fund to Israeli Arab and Jewish groups,
to the tune of between $3.4 million to $3.5 million annually. Directing
the new fund will be Ford´s former program officer
for Israel, Aaron Back, who will be responsible for
recommending the grants ..."
[Mahathir told the truth. When an apparently Jewish "US State
Department spokesman," Adam Ereli, speaks for the United
States in condemning Mahathir's remarks, the denial of Jewish hegemony
and omnipresence becomes nakedly absurd. Per the Simon Wiesenthal
Center's growling below, is it time to drop some cluster bombs on
Malaysia? Malaysia is a legitimate democracy and apparently there's
free speech there about this subject -- not like in America.]
Mahathir
condemned for 'anti-Semitic' speech,
ABC, October 17, 2003
"Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohamed, has been widely
criticised for comments that "Jews ruled the world by proxy". In a
speech opening the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit
in Malaysia on Thursday, Dr Mahathir said the Jewish people had an
influence in the world that far outweighed their numbers, because
of their relationship with the United States. He claimed that "Jews
rule this world" and "get others to fight and die for them" and called
on Muslims to use brains, not brawn, to fight them. A US State Department
spokesman, Adam Ereli, has condemned the remarks. "The remarks
are offensive, they are inflammatory, and we view them with the contempt
and derision they deserve," Mr Ereli sai ... The head of Jewish
human rights organisation the Simon Weisenthal Center, Efraim Zuroff,
says the enlightened world should
silence Dr Mahathir for his remarks. "It is time that the democratic,
enlightened, liberal world mobilises to stop him from continuing to
openly call for the hatred of Jews," Mr Zuroff said."
[Unlike Western "leaders," the Malaysian prime minster
refuses to kiss Jewish Butt. All the heavy, ham-handed international
Jewish pressure to discipline PM Mohamad for telling the truth UNDERSCORES
THE ACCURACY OF HIS POINT.]
Unrepentant
Mahathir Says Jews Control the World,
by Ed Cropley, Yahoo!
News (from Reuters), Oct 21, 2003
"An unrepentant Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad repeated
Tuesday his belief that Jews rule the world,
denied President Bush had rebuked him for it and hit out at Australian
leader John Howard. Mahathir, who steps down at the end of the month
after 22 years in power, told the Bangkok Post in an interview
that widespread criticism of his recent remark
that "Jews rule the world by proxy" proved he was right. "The reaction
of the world shows that they control the world," he told the newspaper.
"Israel is a small country. There are not so many Jews in the world.
But they are so arrogant, they defy the whole world. Even if the United
Nations says no, they go ahead. Why? Because they have the backing
of all these people," Mahathir said. Bush called the initial
comments -- which the outspoken leader of largely Muslim Malaysia
said were taken out of context -- "wrong and divisive," White House
spokesman Scott McClellan said. "It stands squarely against what I
believe," he quoted Bush as telling Mahathir during the annual summit
of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok.
But Mahathir said reports Bush had rebuked him were wrong. "Certainly,
he did not rebuke me," Mahathir told a news conference after the two-day
summit ended. "All he said was that 'I regret today to have to use
strong words against you'," Mahathir said. "After that we were walking
practically hand-in-hand." The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center
said Mahathir's speech could spur violence against Jews. "This is
incitement against Jews and it provides a rationale and motivation
for terror against Jews," Ephraim Zuroff, director of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center in Israel, told Reuters. The World Union
for Progressive Judaism, an umbrella body grouping liberal and reform
Jewish communities around the world, urged acting U.N. High Commissioner
for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan to speak out against Mahathir's
"racist remarks' ... In the Bangkok Post interview, Mahathir
complained that reports of his remarks on Jews last week to an Islamic
summit in Malaysia, which the United States, the European Union, Australia
and others denounced as anti-Semitic, "just picked up one sentence
in my speech." News accounts had ignored his condemnation of all violence,
including suicide bombings, and his call on Muslims to heed the teachings
of the Koran and talk peace with Israel, he said. Asked why he thought
this was the case, Mahathir replied: "Well,
many newspapers are owned by Jews. They only see that angle and they
have a powerful influence over the thinking of many people. Only their
side of the picture is given now."
Bernerd is near buy-out,
by Mark Scodie, Jewish Chronicle,
(UK, paper copy), September 12, 2003 p.12
"Chelsfield Chairman Elliot Bernerd has told JC Business
that he expects to be in a position to make a management buy-out offer
for the property firm by the middle of nexth month ... Mr. Bernerd
owns a 12% stake in the company. Among those backing his bid is Israeli
diamond magnate Benny Steinmetz, who owns 7.8% of the company.
He has also discussed his plans with his 'old friends,' the billionaire
Reuben brothers."
Reuben brothers in talks to back Bernerd buyout,
by Mark Scodie, Jewish Chronicle
(UK, paper copy), August 8, 2003, p. 7
"The Bombay-born brothers, sons of Iraqi Jews, are said to worth
about 2 billion pounds. They made their fortune in the Russian aluminum
industry in the early 1990s, before turning to property. Their portfolio
includes the former Labour Party HQ Millbank Tower and is thought
to be worth more than1 billion pounds."
[Top 50 American Jews, according to the Jewish ethnic journal,
The Forward.]
Forward
50,
The Forward, November 14, 2003
1. PAUL WOLFOWITZ The deputy secretary of defense, Paul
Wolfowitz, is probably the most talked-about figure in the Bush
administration, and for good reason: He is the
primary architect of the most important American foreign policy initiative
in a generation: the plan to invade Iraq and establish a democracy
in the heart of the Arab world. While he managed to transform his
advocacy of removing Saddam Hussein into action, Wolfowitz,
58, also got a first-hand taste of the messy aftermath when rockets
slammed into his hotel during a visit to Baghdad last month. The
coming months will go a long way toward determining whether the Pentagon
official goes down as the man responsible for America's second Vietnam
or the author of the 21st-century version of the Marshall Plan. In
the eyes of America's detractors, Wolfowitz's role is Exhibit
A in the charge that Washington policy is run by a pro-Likud cabal
dedicated to prolonging Israeli control over the settlements ,,,
2. ERIC YOFFIE As president of the recently renamed
Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, 56, is the unchallenged
leader of the country's largest synagogue movement and the driving
force behind its revolutionary embrace of ancient Jewish ritual. He
also has a reputation as an outspoken leader, willing to take tough
stands, particularly on the Middle East. That side of him has been
less visible during the last two years; after publicly recanting his
movement's embrace of the Oslo process, in a speech in Cleveland in
June 2001, he has been nearly invisible on the peace front — until
last week. Speaking at the biennial convention of his organization,
Yoffie declared the settlements a danger to Israel's future
as a Jewish democratic state. In the same speech last week he blasted
a host of Bush administration policies and slammed
Jewish groups for responding to antisemitism with an embrace of "narrow
tribalism" ...
3. ABRAHAM FOXMAN Abraham Foxman, national director
of the Anti-Defamation League since 1987, remains the indispensable
voice of American Jewry on issues of antisemitism and communal
self-defense. With anti-Jewish expression reaching worldwide
levels not seen since World War II, the job is more in the spotlight
than ever. It's also much more complicated. As Foxman argues
in his new book, "Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism"
(Harper SanFrancisco), the threats come from
every direction, "a little-noticed, under-the-radar pattern
of repeated attacks, often violent, occurring in country after country,"
spread by a seeming "coalition" of far left
and far right forces. Foxman has tried to respond on
every front at once: now confronting Mel Gibson over his upcoming
movie about Jesus; now leading the outcry against the antisemitism
of Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad; now encouraging European governments
to move ahead with a planned conference on antisemitism; now lambasting
as "obscene" billionaire George Soros's declaration that Israel's
actions help fuel antisemitism. Even some admirers say Foxman's combativeness
is getting him into unnecessary fights; his
campaign to de-link Israel and antisemitism seems a lost cause,
and in October he drew fire after honoring the ethically challenged
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi for his staunch backing of Israel.
Lately, too, more and more observers — friend as well as foe — see
Foxman's very indispensability as a problem. Publishers
Weekly, reviewing his book, complained that it "feels self-aggrandizing,
like the struggles of one man against an antisemitic world." Critics
inside the ADL say much the same thing; in-house murmuring is growing
that it's past time for Foxman, now 63, to start delegating
more and grooming a successor. He won't last forever, and what would
we do without him?"
4. HANNAH ROSENTHAL Three years after Hannah Rosenthal
took the helm of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the former
Democratic Party activist has finally found her calling. It involves
nothing short of taking on the leader of the free world, but she's
up for it. Rosenthal, 52, has declared war against President
Bush's tax policies — the same policies that are lining the pockets
of some of the council's largest donors ...
5. DANIEL LIBESKIND As the architect chosen to redesign the
World Trade Center, Daniel Libeskind was an obvious choice
for many ... This summer, Libeskind engaged in a failed power
struggle with Larry Silverstein, the developer who holds the
lease for the World Trade Center site. Silverstein had been
pressing for changes in Libeskind's design and now Libeskind
will, in effect, report to Silverstein's hand-picked architect,
which some media have labeled a triumph of commercial interests over
artistic vision ...
Politics
Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, 61, already had a place
in the history books as a result of his 2000 Democratic vice-presidential
candidacy, when he became the first Jew to run for national office
on a major-party ticket. Now he's topped himself by mounting the most
credible bid ever by a Jew for a big-party presidential nomination
— and he's done both as an observant Jew, curbing a demanding campaign
schedule to accommodate Sabbath and holy day strictures. In this way,
he has done more to familiarize the American public with traditional
Judaism than any number of books or symposia ...
Eric Cantor The 40-year-old Virginia congressman, the only
Jewish Republican currently serving in the House of Representatives,
has risen about as far and as fast as any legislator in his position
could hope ... . As chairman of the Congressional Task force on Terrorism
and Unconventional Warfare, Cantor has pushed the positions
of the security-minded right and has made boosting Israel one of his
primary concerns. He signed a letter urging President Bush to support
the Israeli Cabinet's decision to remove Yasser Arafat. In August,
he led a delegation of House GOP freshmen and sophomores on their
first trip to the Jewish state ...
Barney Frank There's a general feeling among liberals that
the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, and that there are precious
few Democrats in Congress or elsewhere standing up to the onslaught
of the Republicans, who now control all the major branches of government
...
Dianne Feinstein Senator Dianne Feinstein — the most
popular Democratic officeholder in the nation's most populous state
— had California politicos waiting anxiously this past summer to see
if she would jump into the gubernatorial recall race ...
David Saperstein A year of passionately conservative politics
in Washington — with Republicans adding the Senate to their hold of
the White House and the House of Representatives — has thrust Rabbi
David Saperstein into the forefront of Jewish liberal lobbying
... The Washington Post once described Saperstein as
the "quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill" ...
Fred Zeidman An old and close friend of President Bush, Texas
businessman Fred Zeidman, 56, plays a dual role in Washington.
As chairman the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, he raises millions
for the Holocaust museum, the most important Jewish landmark in the
nation's capital. As one of Bush's top campaign
fundraisers, he raises hundreds of thousands for the Bush-Cheney
reelection effort ... Besides having the ear of the White House and
the GOP leadership, he holds senior positions in the Anti-Defamation
League, American Jewish Committee, Republican Jewish Coalition and
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs ...
Jack Abramoff As one of Washington's
most high-powered lobbyists, Jack Abramoff personifies
the strengthening bond between politically conservative Jews and Evangelical
Christians in the United States ... Three years ago, before he joined
Greenberg Traurig, LLP, the firm was ranked 56th on National Journal's
list of lobbying firms. Now it is ranked fourth, and is expected to
move even higher when the 2004 list is published ...
Alan Dershowitz & Phyllis Chesler This year marked a
reunion of sorts for superlawyer Alan Dershowitz, 65, and feminist
author Phyllis Chesler, 62. An item at summer camp several
decades ago, the two scholar-activists recently crossed paths on the
book circuit, where each is pushing a new work attempting to take
on the resurgence of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel forces. With "The
Case for Israel" (John Wiley & Sons), Dershowitz reinforced
his status as America's most public Jewish defender. On the other
hand, Chesler, a veteran feminist thinker, raised more than a few
eyebrows with her book "The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis
and What We Must Do About It" (Jossey-Bass), a searing indictment
of anti-Jewish attitudes on the political left. Together,
they helped cement the sense among their fellow Jews that something
has gone terribly wrong."
[JTR contributor research on this Armor-DLC company and
its controversial lubricant product "CLP," used now in Iraq]
"CLP," Armor Holdings-DLC, and the
Weapons Industry Web
Insurance
companies announce their merger,
The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA), November
18th, 2003
"Travelers Property Casualty Corp. is combining with The St.
Paul Cos. Inc. in a $16.5 billion stock deal
that will create the nation’s second-largest business insurer.
The new company will be known as The St. Paul Travelers Cos. and is
expected to have total assets of $107 billion, the companies announced
Monday. The deal mixes Travelers’ strength in general commercial insurance
and personal insurance -- like home, auto and life insurance -- with
The St. Paul’s specialty commercial lines of insurance. The only larger
business insurer would be American International Group. "We are absolutely
convinced we are far better together than we ever would be alone,"
said Jay S. Fishman, the chairman and
chief executive of The St. Paul."
[George Soros, you'll recall, is the Jewish billionaire who caused
outrage in the Jewish community when he admitted a couple weeks ago
that his actions have caused "anti-Semitism."]
Soros
'speculating against dollar'. Pound surges to five-year high against
US currency. Buffett also said to be betting against greenback,
By Philip Thornton and Michael Jivkov, The Independent
(UK), November 28, 2003 "The pound surged against the dollar
yesterday amid speculation that Warren Buffett and George Soros,
the world's most famous speculators, are betting the US currency will
plummet. Sterling powered to a five-year high against the dollar for
a second day as concerns over the US current account deficit continued
to outweigh evidence of a rebounding economy. Traders believe selling
the dollar is a one-way bet, and some latched on to rumours that speculators
were building "short" positions on the dollar - betting it will tumble
in the coming months. One hedge fund manager, who asked not to be
named, said: "I have heard that both Soros and Buffett are
shorting the dollar. There's a growing belief on Wall Street that
the dollar is looking like a one-way bet downwards." A spokesman for
Mr Soros, who famously "broke" the Bank
of England when the pound crashed out of the exchange rate mechanism
a decade ago, said he never commented on speculation. Mr Buffett
was unavailable for comment."
Jews are 'Secret Weapon' of the British Economy,
by Mark Scodie, Jewish Chronicle
(Great Britain), November 7, 2003, p. 8 [offline
paper edition]
"The compiler of the Sunday Times 'pay list' has said that it
demonstrates that Jews are the UK economy's 'secret weapon.' Discussing
the survey of the top 500 British earners of the past year, Philip
Beresford observed that the Jewish inclusions -- mainly in retail
and property -- were 'keeping the enterprise culture alive.' 'They
are extraordinarily good in business, and have been a huge plus as
a community in helping the British economy,' he asserted. 'Alongside
the Gujarati community, they are our secret weapon in the battle for
global survival.' Mr. Berseford said the 'stand-out' figure on the
list -- topped unsurprisingly by Roman Abramovich -- was Philip
Green, the 51-year old Bhs and Arcadia boss [Bhs and Aradia
are major British chain stores], who came fourth after earning
and estimated 171 pounds last year ... In included by virtue of UK
residency, Chelsea owner Mr. Abramovich's earnings for the
year were assessed at 564 million pounds. Prominent Jewish tycoons
also included 22nd ranked sisters Alison Goldberg and Sara
Philips -- former owners of high street chain Jane Norman -- who
pocketed 33 million pounds last year. Although Richard Desmond
was listed at number 32 with an estimated 21 million pounds, a
spokesman for the Express newspapers boss commented indignantly that
Mr. Beresford had "barely scratched Richard's personal
wealth' ... others highlighted by the list compiler were Adam and
Sam Kaye, the Ask Pizza bosses ... Other inclusions ranged
from QCs David Goldberg and Lord Grabiner to advertising
specialist Sir Martin Sorrell ... On the showbiz front, Hollywood
actress Rachel Weisz as does American chat-show host Jerry
Springer. "Well, he's British born, and he's also a nice,
sexy character to bring in,' Berseford admitted. Conspicuous by their
absence were the reclusive billionaire Reuben brothers and
the Russian media mogul Boris Berezovsky, who is now British-based.
Mr. Beresford explained that the list was calculated from publicly
available accounts, and there were no available details on the
Reubens and Mr. Berezovsky."
The Sound and the Fury.When Jewish Billionaire
George Soros Defended Anti-Semitism, He Opened Up More Than the Usual
Floodgates, [paper edition, offline]
Jewish Chronicle (UK), December 12, 2003,
p. 9
"The remarks [by George Soros before the Jewish Funders
Network] that set off fierce debate among American Jewish leaders,
Congressmen, newspaper colunists and editorialists -- and elicited
reaction from the White House as well as the front-runner in the race
for the Democratic nomination for president -- centered around Soros's
response to a question about whether he believed there was a resurgence
of anti-Semitism in Europe. In remarks frist reported by the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency news wire service, Soros said, 'There is
a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush
administration and the Sharon administration contribute to
that. It's not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself
in anti-Semitism as well. I'm critical of those policies.' He added,
'If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish.
I can't see how one could confront it directly.' The billioniare financier
said he, too, bears some responsibility for
the new global anti-Semitism, citing a speech in October by
Malaysia's prime minister in which Mathathir said, 'Jews rule the
world by proxy.' Having financed projects that have influenced governments
and promoted various political causes around the world, Soros
noted, 'Unintended, I actually feed into it.' The remarks caused a
storm of controversy. 'For someone who is so sophisticated and so
concerened about goodwill and good understanding,
his comments only strengthen the anti-Semites,' said Abraham
Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Calling
Soros's comments 'absolutely obscene,' Foxman said Soros
buys into the stereotype of Jews often propounded by anti-Semites.
"It's a simplistic, counterproductive, biased and bigoted perception
of what's out there, he said. 'It's blaming the victim for all of
Israel's and the Jewish people's ills ... Elan Steinberg, senior
adviser at the World Jewish Congress, said: 'Let's understand things
clearly. Anti-Semitism is not caused by Jews,
it's caused by anti-Semites' ... Mark Charendoff, the
president of the group that invited Soros to speak at the meeting
of the Jewish Funders Network ... wrote: 'My concern is with the Jewish
community's response, not the guest speaker's remarks.' He asked,
'When did we begin to prefer condemnation over debate? When did we
become so dull as to only want to talk to those
with whom we agree? What has happened to our self-confidence?
Do we really have such a low opinion of ourselves
and our place in the world that we must constantly be in a state of
circling the wagons, of seeking out enemies where they don't exist
(instead of focusing our energy on the ones that really do), of
beating dissenting view into cowering submission?' ... The
debate over Soros's remarks goes to the heart of the question
of what is and isn't appropriate criticism of Israel and Jews. That
fact that the controversial comments in this case were made by a Jew
-- and a Holocaust survivor no less -- have fueled the debate even
further."
Global
Economy. Fed's pugnacious policies hurt economies,
By Henry C K Liu, Asia Times, January
10, 2004
"Alan Greenspan, chairman of US Federal Reserve Board,
may be patting himself on the back a bit prematurely and undeservedly
by claiming that the Fed correctly focused policies on trying to mitigate
probable damage after the eventual bursting of the bubble of stock
market speculation rather than taking measures to prevent the bubble
itself. At a meeting of the American Economic Association in San Diego
on January 3 of the new year, Greenspan spoke on "Risk and
Uncertainty in Monetary Policy", in which he asserted that Fed policies
had been correct and successful in handling the bubble economy. He
defended himself against criticism, saying policymakers would have
damaged the economy in the late 1990s had they tried to prevent or
later puncture that era's speculative stock market bubble. He gave
his personal view as a veteran from "the policy trenches". It is a
very peculiar topic, one that would be expected from the risk manager
of commercial bank or a hedge fund, not a central banker whose job
presumably is to ensure systemic stability by eliminating rather than
managing, and therefore accepting systemic risk ... Nor did Greenspan
mention his role in causing the 1987 crash. There are those with less
selective memories who will recall that Greenspan precipitated
the crash by raising the discount rate 50 basis points to 6 percent
at a time of extreme interest-rate sensitivity, and pushed the fragile
economy over the edge ... Greenspan built his reputation by
his release of a single-sentence statement that said he would supply
all the liquidity the banking system needed to stay afloat during
the 1987 crash. He pumped billions of US dollars, a fiat currency
that he could print at will, into US financial institutions by pushing
down the overnight lending rate aggressively. Greenspan's move
flooded financial markets with money, which helped preserve liquidity
and restore confidence in the US financial system, but it started
the bubble economy of the 1990s, which ended in Asia on July 2, 1997.
Greenspan, in essence, did the same thing in 1998 and again
after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Greenspan
will go down in history as the central banker
who revived moral hazard, a fatal virus in any banking system. There
is nothing wrong with deficit financing to keep the economy humming
by smoothing out conventional business cycles. But providing liquidity
to keep an undisciplined banking system afloat is another matter.
It is an indulgence that the Fed itself has been criticizing the Bank
of Japan (BOJ) for doing."
[JTR Contributor's comment on an older news story:
"Leonard Abramson has raped the American health care system to
supply more "brainwashing bucks" for Israel. Following his retirement
as CEO of U.S. Healthcare, Leonard Abramson has taken his ill-gotten
billions and funneled them into financing Israel advocacy groups (i.e.
brainwashing programs designed to convince Americans that Israel is
a bastion of freedom and human rights). The following are excerpts
from a report criticizing Abramson and U.S. Healthcare for predatory
practices, gag rules, and obscene profiteering. He lined his pockets
with money that should have gone to treat sick children."]
STATEMENT
OF DR. SUSAN STEIGERWALT ON THE MERGER OF AETNA AND U.S. HEALTH CARE,
Physicians for a National Health Care Program,
April 2, 1996
"The track record of these giant for-profit firms bodes ill for patient
care. In 1994, U.S. Healthcare took 25% out of every premium dollar
for its outrageous CEO salaries, profits, and bureaucracy. U.S. Healthcare
CEO Leonard Abramson made $20 million in cash and stock options
in a single year. Meanwhile, until a public scandal recently forced
U.S. Healthcare to change their policy, they forbade any criticism
of their plans by physicians (the so-called "gag clauses"). But even
without gag clauses, U.S. Healthcare retains the right to fire any
physician without cause.......U.S. Healthcare's founder and Chairman,
Leonard Abramson and his family will make nearly $1 billion
in profit from the merger, money that could and should be going into
direct patient care, including care for the uninsured."
Five
Harvard money managers collect $101 million,
By Tim McLaughlin, Yahoo!
News (from Reuters), January 22, 2004
"Harvard University's treasurer on Thursday defended
an "extraordinary" $101 million payout in fiscal 2003 to the school's
top five money managers, calling it a fortunate problem. "We
should remember ... that we are -- in a very real sense -- fortunate
to have to confront this problem," Harvard Treasurer Ronald Daniel
wrote in a letter to alumni. "The extraordinary bonuses in question
would not exist if not for extraordinary investment performance."
Maurice Samuels and David Mittelman, two senior portfolio
managers, collected an eye-popping $35.1 million
and $34.1 million, respectively, during the fiscal year that ended
June 30. The two men work for Harvard Management Co., an internal
investment firm that manages the university's endowment. The
three other best-paid portfolio managers received a total of $31.4
million, Harvard said. Compensation paid out in a single year is based
on performance over a several-year period, Harvard said. All five
portfolio managers generated returns that trounced their benchmarks.
"Managers do not receive bonuses simply because the markets went up,"
Harvard Management said in a statement. The five managers generated
$2.5 billion of value-added performance in their portfolios, or gains
above their relative benchmarks over a five-year period, Harvard said."
[The Bloomberg family ranks of course in the literal billionaire
category.]
He
makes how much? Lots of surprises in our NYC salary survey,
By MICHELE INGRASSIA, New York Daily News,
February 1, 2004
"Michael Bloomberg, mayor, $1 Dan Doctoroff, deputy
mayor, $1 Emma Bloomberg, mayor's daughter and mayoral program
coordinator, $1 Marjorie Tiven, mayor's sister and commissioner
for the United Nations ... Joel Klein, schools chancellor and
highest-paid city employee, $217,1233 ... Howard Stern, presides
over early-morning screech-fest, $31 million ... Gisele Bundchen,
richest girl from Brazil, $12.8 million ... Matthew Goldstein,
CUNY chancellor, $350,000 ... Norman Lamm, Yeshiva
University chancellor, $344,400 (plus perks) ... Ellen Futter,
president, American Museum of Natural History, $623,098 ... Alan
Friedman, director, New York Hall of Science, $210,000 Judith
Zuk, New York Botanic Gardens president, $190,363 ... Sumner
Redstone, Viacom president, $39.3 million ($20 million of it salary)
Tommy Hilfiger, honorary chairman, Tommy Hilfiger, $22.4
million Jay Margolis, Reebok International, $7 million Kenneth
Cole, Kenneth Cole Productions, $3.2 million Ralph Lauren,
Polo, $4.5 million
[Palm Beach may be the wealthiest community in America.
And filthy rich Palm Beach is on its way to becoming Little Israel.]
Roil
renewed: Politics and religion in Palm Beach,
By Tim O'Meilia, John Lantigua and Thom Smith, Palm
Beach Post, February 8, 2004
"And was it Henry Kissinger or Henry Morgenthau,
U.S. treasury secretary, who was escorted off the Everglades Club
golf course? But that was the old Palm Beach. Now Jews can go to the
clubs as guests. Some are alleged to have a few Jewish members. The
town is home to three synagogues, and the Palm Beach Fellowship of
Christians and Jews, formed to foster understanding, is celebrating
its 10th anniversary. Two town councilmen are
Jewish, and so are half of the town's residents. Two
years ago, when the Everglades links were being rebuilt, the mostly
Jewish Palm Beach Country Club invited Everglades Club members to
use their golf course. But that Palm Beach veneer of civility, stretched
tight as a face-lift, split asunder in December when town residents
Maureen Donnell and Fern deNarvaez sued the
town to force it to consider placing a Nativity scene near the town-sponsored
menorah and Christmas tree on Royal Poinciana Way. The menorah
had been donated in 2002. "We thought it was
discriminatory against Christians," deNarvaez said. "We wanted to
be included." Ordered by a judge to hear the request, the
council refused to install the creche, spawning three surprise
challengers in last week's council elections. "Absolutely...
recidivist anti-Semitism," said accountant Richard Rampell,
a 19-year resident who is Jewish. "It went underground
for a while and has come back. They're saying, 'You people are getting
too uppity.' All of a sudden, they want a Nativity scene. The Christians
want to one-up the Jews. They resent the occupation of Palm Beach
by the Jews." Longtime resident and attorney Bob Montgomery
agreed. "Without question... it's outrageous. There are certain code
words and phrases. 'We want to uphold our traditions'
is one of them." He quit the Sailfish Club more than a decade
ago over its membership policy. "This has caused a wound. It polarizes
everybody." Cathleen McFarlane Ross, who recruited challengers to
run against three councilmen who voted against the creche, said anti-Semitism
had nothing to do with it. "That is the furthest thing from the truth,"
she said. "Some people will see it that way, but it's our council
that caused it all. They kowtow to something
because they don't want to offend anyone Jewish, but they don't mind
offending anyone Christian." Religious discord underlies acrid
council vote Mary Weiss, who heads the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
and has been an island resident for 27 years, has a Catholic mother
and Jewish father. "I think there's an undercurrent of anti-Semitism
in this, yes," she said. "Some people say this was discrimination
against Christians, but I think that is the
mirror image, the opposite of what is really going on." Although
cordial on the surface, the four-week election campaign simmered beneath.
Both Council President Bill Brooks and his opponent, former Mayor
Yvelyne "Deedy" Marix, called it one of the most vicious in memory.
"There has been anti-Semitism on the island, and I thought we were
making progress," said Brooks, a former priest and member of the fellowship.
"I think this was a terrible setback." Said Councilman Norman Goldblum:
"When someone says they want to bring gentility
back to Palm Beach, that's a code word. Gentility. Gentile. Back to
where we were 20 or 30 years ago." The strife over religious
symbols stretches back 13 years. The Lubavitch
Center of the Palm Beaches and Rabbi Shlomo Ezagui had
been pushing Palm Beach to display a menorah since 1991, when they
wanted to put up a 39-foot balloon of a menorah at the Memorial Fountain
Park near town hall. The council denied that request and a few others
until Ezagui and the Lubavitch Center sued
them in federal court. That suit forced the council to relent
in 1995, and the Lubavitchers erected a 6-foot aluminum menorah in
Bradley Park. The council paid the Lubavitchers
$27,000 for their legal fees ... In 2002, Goldblum helped
engineer the donation of a menorah by businessman Les Evans
to stand beside the Christmas tree on Royal Poinciana Way. "We were
getting overtones in the wind that we were going to get sued," Goldblum
said. "It started out to be a very ecumenical thing." ...A
year later, the request for a Nativity scene by the two women never
made a council agenda. The council relied on Town Attorney
John Randolph's opinion that it wouldn't pass a court test. Wyett
said, "In hindsight, it would have been simpler
to hear it, but it was too minor an issue." Instead of a suit
over a menorah, the council was surprised with
a suit over the Nativity scene ... Montgomery
said the women should have known their suit would bring out anti-Semites
... Gradually, the island's demographics changed. Condominiums rose
at the south end all the way to Lake Worth Beach, and
wealthy Jewish snowbirds moved in. People like Nelson Peltz
and Abe Gosman built sprawling oceanfront estates north of
Royal Poinciana Way. The Kennedys had Jewish neighbors, shoe merchants
from Boston. The old guard held the north end of the island and the
row of mansions from Worth Avenue south to Mar-a-Lago, except for
those who retreated farther north to breezy Jupiter Island, now chronicled
as America's wealthiest ZIP Code ...
A 1999 demographic survey done for the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach
County showed that 41.5 percent of the people
in Palm Beach, South Palm Beach and Manalapan combined are Jewish.
Council President Brooks estimates
it may be closer to 50 percent. "The new society in Palm Beach
isn't what the old society was," fashion designer Alfred Fiandaca
told Boston magazine. "In Boston, if your grandparents were somebody,
you were somebody. Palm Beach, on the other hand, says if you underwrite
this, and you give to that charity, you're somebody." The unifying
common denominator: money ...
To the new guard, the dispute over the Christmas tree
and the menorah is just a final, futile attempt to cling to an era
that has passed."
[This is an older article just sent to us, but it's appropriate
to the one above: i.e., Beverly Hills and Palm Beach, two of the richest
enclaves in America, have enormous Jewish populations. Most "Persians"
and "Russians" at Beverly Hills High School are Jewish,
along with the usual dose of Jewish Americans and Israelis.]
Party
Up, Kosher Style!,
By Michael Aushenker, Jewish Jounral
of Greater Los Angeles, Novembr 10, 2000
"Call it a beach party without the beach. The pouring rain didn't
stop Beverly Hills High School students from partying when they recently
converged on the campus football field for an early evening bonfire.
The up-tempo rally - which featured kosher hot dogs and school cheerleaders
busting moves to the beat of a live band - was organized by Rabbi
Hertzl Illulian, who, for seven years, has been organizing events
at Beverly Hills High School. Jewish and non-Jewish students alike
attend Illulian's functions, and the Chabad
rabbi said that the events he organizes are appreciated by Beverly
Hills High's prominent and diverse Jewish student body. According
to Illulian, half of the Jewish population
at the public school is Persian or Israeli, and about 15 percent is
Russian. "They feel very privileged to
be Jewish," said Illulian. "They have pride in themselves."
"I myself see people turning back to their roots," said former Beverly
Hills High student Flora Salih, 20, who assists Illulian
with events such as this, as well as Sukkot parties and Yom Kippur
programming earlier this season. Illulian's teenage daughter,
Brucha, was also on hand to help. Michael "Micki" Weinberg,
a 16-year-old senior and president of Shalom
Club at Beverly Hills High School, believes events such Illulian's
programs set a good example - not only to fellow Jews, but also to
non-Jews. "It shows that wherever Jews are around
the world, we're able to unite as a cohesive group," said Weinberg.
"And they see that a Jew doesn't fit a stereotype." Junior Debbie
Soroudi, 16, appreciates such activities, especially since she
had to cancel her plans to join a Sephardic Educational Center mission
to Israel because of the recent tensions there. "Personally,
I came from a Jewish school," said Soroudi. "To
have that reinforced here at Beverly, it's great. It's comforting
to meet other Jewish students and to know that we share the same beliefs."
[Everywhere the same story: Brazil, Mexico, Iran, wherever. Poor
countries with rich Jews. AND always the subtext of trans-world
Israel.]
AROUND
THE JEWISH WORLD. As Haiti burns, its few Jews choose business over
politics,
By Larry Luxner, Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
February 11, 2004
“The country is very poor and there’s no business here, so the Jews
don’t stay long,” said David Ades, an intellectual who
works in real estate and writes political articles for Le
Nouvelliste, a daily newspaper in Port-au-Prince. Ades,
71, is a Sephardi Jew whose father came from Syria and his mother
from Egypt. He recently returned to Haiti after more than 20 years
in Brooklyn. “After my divorce, I figured the best thing for me was
to go back to my roots,” said Ades, whose two sons still live
in New York ... Gilbert Bigio, the community’s de facto leader,
says that at one time as many as 300 Jews lived in Haiti. “Every Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur, our house was completely full,” recalled
Bigio, who noted that until recently all religious ceremonies
were held at his home. But attendance for the High Holidays has gradually
dwindled along with Haiti’s Jewish population. “The last Jewish wedding
here was my daughter’s, eight years ago, and the last brit mila was
that of my son, 30 years ago,” he says. Bigio, 68, lives
in a big, beautiful house in Petionville, one of the few upscale neighborhoods
in Port-au-Prince. Behind the well-guarded
house is a luxurious swimming pool and a gazebo for outdoor parties.
Like most Jews who remain in Haiti, Bigio
is considered extremely wealthy in a country where about 50 percent
of the population is illiterate and 76 percent of children under age
5 are underweight or suffer from stunted growth. “I don’t
think there’s resentment against people who are rich here,” says the
retired businessman, who speaks English, French and Haitian Creole.
“If you know how to manage success, people
admire you instead of hate you.” Other prominent Jewish families include
the Weiners, who are involved in coffee exports, and the Salzmanns,
who fled Austria right before the Holocaust and remain in Port-au-Prince.
These and other families helped build Haiti’s
modern infrastructure and stayed on during the brutal Duvalier dictatorship,
which ended in 1986 when Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was overthrown
and exiled to France. “Haiti wasn’t always a poor country,”
Bigio said. “When Haiti had 3 or 4 million people, everything was
beautiful. But between 1950 and today, the population has nearly tripled.
We suffer because Haiti hasn’t developed like all other countries
around us, especially the Dominican Republic.” “If most of the Jews
left,” he added, “it’s because they were hoping to live in a developed
country, where their children could marry among
themselves” ... The family prospered in the export of cotton,
cacao and campeche wood. “Most of the Jewish families in Haiti were
in the textile and retail businesses,” he said. “We’re also in industry
and trading. We have a small steel mill, we distribute edible oils
and we work a little in banking.” Bigio also
is the honorary Israeli consul in Haiti, which explains the enormous
Israeli flag in front of his house — as well as his bulletproof Mercedes
SUV. A few Israelis live in Haiti, including noted photographer
Daniel Kedar, whose wife, Maryse Penette,
is the country’s former tourism minister ... Bigio says Haiti
annually imports $20 million worth of Israeli goods, ranging from
telecom equipment to Uzi machine guns. There’s also an organization
in Port-au-Prince called Club Shalom formed by Haitians who have studied
in Israel, thanks to scholarships provided by
the Israeli government. Bigio declined to discuss politics
or offer a Jewish perspective on the current revolt against Aristide.
“Our principle, which we respect daily, is to not mix in Haitian politics,”
he explained. “Even after three generations,
we are considered foreigners. So we believe that to have good
relations with the government, we have to step aside. We take care
of business, and let them take care of politics.”
[More Jewish victims ... ]
Oppenheimers
get land back,
By Njabulo Ncube, New Zimbabwe, February
12, 2004
"THE powerful and influential Oppenheimer family, which
controls Anglo American Corporation, is getting back part of the land
seized during the chaotic land reform as government has, in a volte-face,
started removing landless peasants who had settled at one of the South
African family's properties in Matabeleland South. Hundreds of landless
peasants settled on Debshan Ranch, a huge property belonging to the
super-rich South African family, have been ordered off the farm ostensibly
in line with the recommendations of the Charles Utete land audit report.
Analysts said President Robert Mugabe, with his political back firmly
against the wall, has been forced to eat humble pie
in a thinly veiled attempt to win the support of one of Africa's wealthiest
families and bolster prospects for attracting elusive foreign investment.
But in the process, the Zimbabwean leader risks losing credibility
ahead of the 2005 Parliamentary elections, particularly among the
poor peasants who had abandoned their homes in search for more promising
lives on the farms at the height of the farm invasions in 2000 ...
In 2001, the government forcibly acquired 35 000 hectares from the
Oppenheimer-owned Debshan Ranch and later managed to successfully
negotiate for a total of 65 000 hectares to resettle landless peasants.
Officials said then the Oppenheimer family
owned land in Zimbabwe that is almost the size of Belgium,
a charge vehemently denied by the family, which argued that it owns
only 137 314 ha of land in the country. Belgium's total area is 3
051 900 hectares. Government sources that attended the meeting addressed
by Mandebvu in Insiza last Friday said the government was now content
with the 65 000 hectares offloaded by the Oppenheimer family. The
family controls two of Africa's biggest and richest companies, Anglo
American Corporation and De Beers, the continent's most powerful diamond
mining giant. In Zimbabwe, they are believed
to have owned the largest tracts of land by a single family."
[You had to have guessed that the omnipresently advertised "Franklin
Mint" -- selling silver-plated souveniers, medallions, expensive
"commemoration" items, etc. -- was a Jewish enterprise.]
Franklin
Mint Closes 30 Stores, Museum,
"The Franklin Mint, the company known for
its eclectic range of pricey collectibles, from Scarlett O'Hara dolls
to miniature John Deere tractors, has closed its 30 retail
stores and its "museum." Vice president and general counsel Howard
Lucker called the closures "the next step" after the November announcement
that the company would lay off 200 Delaware County workers. At the
time, the company had said the stores and museum would remain open.
The Franklin Mint would not say why it was downsizing, but it has
faced growing competition from companies such as eBay that auction
collectibles. Lucker said the stores closed at the end of January
and the museum shut its doors in December. The Franklin Mint will
employ fewer than 50 workers in Franklin Center but will continue
to sell products through its catalog and Web site, he said. The Franklin
Mint, founded in 1964 by Joseph Segal as the National Commemorative
Society and first known as a maker of coins, has sold thousands of
products including die-cast cars, Faberge-inspired eggs and porcelain
dolls. The company museum, located next to its headquarters, attracted
tens of thousands of visitors who flocked to see genuine artifacts
such as jewelry once worn by Grace Kelly as well as vintage Franklin
Mint collectables. At the highly publicized 1996 auction of items
owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the museum acquired her fake
pearl necklace, worn by Jackie in a famous 1962 photo, for $211,500.
The museum also had Princess Diana's so-called "Elvis" gown, purchased
for $151,000 at a charity auction in June 1997, a couple of months
before she died."
["Grubby money" as "holy" artifact? Here it
is folks, straight from a rabbi: the religious rationalization of
gross materialism. Jews worship money. (The "Holy Shekel?"
A shekel is a coin.) Hey dumb goyim. Infused
any twenty dollar bills with God lately?]
Jews
and money, A prominent author and historian gives the lowdown,
By Rabbi Berel Wein, Jewish World Review,
February 20, 2004
"In Temple times, the Talmud tells us, the collecting of the
half-shekel "tax" for the support of the Temple services began with
the entrance of the month of Adar. Therefore, in commemoration of
this ancient Jewish rite, this Sabbath is known as "Shabbes Shekalim".
The half-shekel was to be assessed "b'shekel hakodesh," by the
standard of the holy shekel. The Talmud
describes in great detail the actual amount of silver required in
each coin to meet that specification. But the Talmud indirectly
reminds us that part of the task of Judaism,
and therefore of necessity of its adherents, the Jews,
is to somehow invest a sense of holiness
into the shekel — into otherwise grubby money. According
to Midrash, Moses was shown a holy shekel of
fire on Sinai ... Thus, the notion of "shekel hakodesh" exists
in our world as strongly as it did in the times of the Temples in
Jerusalem. To take the ordinary shekel and transform
it into the "shekel hakodesh" is the mission of Torah and Israel.
There is an entire section of Shulchan Aruch
(the Code of Jewish Law) devoted to money and the task
of transforming it into the "shekel hakodesh." There
are many volumes of Talmud devoted to this issue as well
... The Talmud is replete with examples of "lifnim meshuras hadin"
in monetary matters. Money is a great test
in life. The rabbis of the Talmud held monetary probity
in such high and necessary esteem that groups of people (such as shepherds,
for example, who usually grazed their herds on other people's property)
who had bad reputations as far as money was concerned were held to
be unacceptable as witnesses in Jewish courts of law ... In current
world society, we speak of the value of money in purely economic and
social terms. But there is a value of money
in spiritual and holy terms as well. And it is that value of
money — the "shekel hakodesh" value — that needs to be addressed in
the education of our children and in our own personal and national
life. Throughout Jewish history, movements arose to help cleanse the
money of the House of Israel from immorality and cupidity. The Mussar
movement that originated in Jewish Lithuania in the nineteenth century
did wonders in developing a "shekel hakodesh" attitude amongst its
adherents. The influence of the Mussar movement was widely felt throughout
Jewish society. To a certain extent, even the secular Jewish labor
organizations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
also were trying to achieve a "shekel hakodesh" attitude and society,
being still based upon the Torah rules and attitudes
regarding money that were part of the Jewish psyche and soul over
the ages. Improving our attitude towards
money is a vital step in rebuilding ourselves spiritually and morally
and refocusing our attention towards creating a more just
society."
[The rich Jewish Lobby buys knighthood: honorary aristocracy.
Is this like hustling behind the scenes to get a star on Hollywood
Boulevard? The multi-million dollar smear- and propaganda factory
(and probably the pressure force beyond this propaganda coup), the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, also gets in on the action. The Wiesenthal
Center originally bought the use of Wiesenthal's name for $5,000 a
month. [Miller, Judith. One by One by One, 1990, p. 241]
Britain
to knight Nazi-hunter Wiesenthal,
Seattle Post, February 19, 2004
"Britain will give an honorary knighthood to Nazi-hunter Simon
Wiesenthal in recognition of a "lifetime of service to humanity,"
the Foreign Office said Thursday. Wiesenthal, 95, survived incarceration
in Nazi prison camps in eastern Europe during World War II and has
since dedicated his life to bringing those responsible for the Holocaust
to justice. The knighthood also recognized the
work of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, which
was founded in 1977 to promote remembrance of the Holocaust and the
defense of human rights. Because he is not a British citizen, Wiesenthal
cannot use "Sir" in front of his name, but he can put the letters
KBE after his name. The initials stand for Knight Commander of the
British Empire."
Frequently Asked Questions
and Answers on Soc.Culture.Jewish, Section 13. Jews as a Nation.
Who are the Crypto-Jews (also known as "marranos")?,
by Daniel P. Faigin, Jewish Cuba
"At the time of the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion from
Spain in 1492, Jews were offered conversion or expulsion. Many chose
to leave Spain (quite a few found safety in the Muslim Ottoman Empire),
but others stayed behind. "Marranos" actually started appearing with
the first riots in the Juderias of Spain. Many were forced to convert
to save their lives. These were naturally not faithful Catholics.
The laws in 14th and 15th century Spain became increasingly oppressive
towards practicing Jews, while providing an easy escape by conversion.
Large numbers of middle class Jews outwardly took on Christianity
to avoid the laws, while secretly practicing
Judaism. Most of the remaining Marranic practice in Spain and
Portugal today is from those religious Jews who escaped from Spain
to Portugal in 1492, only to be trapped there later when the expulsion
was instituted there as well. The most active Marranism in the Iberian
peninsula is in the mountainous border areas between Spain and Portugal,
in towns such as Belmonte'. ... The term "Marrano" was at one time
used to describe them, as the term refers to the swine which they'd
publicly eat to demonstrate their outward conversion. It isn't clear
if the "Old Christians" or the practicing Jews called them "marrano".
In Majorca the community was converted in the 1430's and are called
Chuetas, from "pork lard" since they regularly keep pork lard boiling
in cauldrons on their porches. They themselves still call themselves
Israelitas in private, and ask forgiveness from el Grande Dio for
worshipping in front of statues of a man. They typically sacrified
(in a figurative, not literal, sense) their first born sons to the
Catholic priesthood as a means of getting protection from Church persecution,
so, ironically, many of the priests across the
Baleiric Islands are from Marrano families. Crypto-Jew is the
correct term, as it also refers to Jews forced to adopt other religions
and political philosophies while maintaining Jewish practices. Crypto-Judaism
pre-dates the Inquisition, as Jews were forced by the Al-Mohavid invasions
of Spain to become Muslims, creating Crypto-Jews who gradually fled
to Christian districts for protection from the Muslims (see Roth's
History of the Jews). In modern times outwardly Muslim Crypto-Jews
are known to be in Meshed, Iran, and in Turkey. A number of Crypto-Jewish
communities survive today, especially in former Spanish-influenced
regions, such as the southwestern U.S.A. They
still maintain extensive secrecy after centuries. Other communities
were lost to assimilation, but maintained residual Jewish practices
such as lighting candles Friday night. Based on information in Cohen's
The Marranos and Prinz's The Secret Jews, the following are
some examples of these communities: The Antiquen~as of Colombia. Much
of Northern Mexico's middle and upper classes (Nuevo Leon is the "New
Lion of Judah"). The Naucalpan and Vallejo districts of Mexico City.
(Technically, Naucalpan is not in the Distrito Federal, but in the
greater metropolitan area). The Chuetas of Majorca. A look at Chueta
last names shows many surnames which have became quite famous in the
Hispanic world. They include Mir, Miro, and Marti.
Of course Joan Miro was Mallorcan. Any marranism in Fidel Castro's
family would be through his mother, as his father's family was Gallego,
and very few Jews ever lived in Galicia (of course plenty lived in
the Austrian Galicia, I'm refering to northwestern Spain). Interesting
about the mountains on the Spanish-Portuguese border being a hotbed
of marranism, particularly those on the Extremadura-Andalucia border
... Famous Hispanics who have acknowledged Marrano ancestry include
Rita Moreno and Fidel Castro. Jews have played an important
role in the history of Monterrey, Mexico. The Garza family,
one of Mexico's richest, of Cerveceria Moctezuma fame, are Jews.
Frida Kahlo's father, Guillermo Kahlo, a somewhat
reknowned photographer in his own right, was a Hungarian Jew. Diego
Rivera admitted having marrano ancestry as well."
[Jews are about 1% of the British population. Other than Abramovich,
the Sainsbury family is also Jewish. Others we suspect to be Jewish
on this top ten rich list include Philip Green, David Khalili (Name
change? We know of a billionaire Iranian British Jew named Nasser
Khalili who has hoarded vast quantities of Islamic art), and Richard
Branson. Maybe more?]
Chelsea
football boss Abramovich tops Britain's rich list,
Yahoo! News, March 7, 2004
"The owner of Chelsea football club, Russian Roman Abramovich,
is the richest person in Britain with a family fortune almost
seven times that of Queen Elizabeth II, a report by a British
weekly newspaper said. Abramovich's 7.2 billion pound (10.6
billion euro, 13.1 billion dollar) wealth puts him top of the Mail
on Sunday Rich Report 2004, ahead of food packaging tycoon Hans
Rausing and the Duke of Westminster who owns a swathe of properties
in central London. The report includes the 300 richest British-based
men and women whose combined wealth comes to 147.3 billion pounds
-- up 28 percent on on a year ago. The top ten listed were: 1 Roman
Abramovich 7.2 billion 2 Hans Rausing, Tetrapak billionaire: 6.6
billion 3 Duke of Westminster, landowner: 4.63 billion 4 Lakshmi Mittal,
steel dealmaker: 3.1 billion 5 Philip Green,
retailer: 2.87 billion 6 David Khalili, art collector: 2.7
billion 7 Bernie and Slavica Ecclestone, Formula One: 2.3 billion
8 Charlene De Carvalho, Heineken heiress: 2.1 billion 9 Richard
Branson, Virgin boss: 2.07 billion 10 Sainsbury family,
supermarkets: 2.05 billion
[German economist Werner Sombart's classic book is now online
-- all 291 pages of it. A few of Sombart's speculations don't hold
up over the years, but the foundation is sound and this should be
required reading for anyone interested in the subject of Jews and
money. What is the relationship between traditional Jewish identity
and the development of capitalism? It's all here:]
The
Jews and Modern Capitalism, [pdf form]
by Werner Sombart, 1911
[The pompous Jew Klux Klan Lobby, i.e., the World Jewish Mafia:
straight from the horse's mouth. Read carefully how Singer puts it,
almost heralding the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:]
'We'll Now Play by Brooklyn Rules,'
[Offline paper copy]
EU Conference Highlights Jewish Fears, and Anger, on anti-Semitism,
from Jenni Frazer, Brussels, Jewish Chronicle,
(UK), February 27, 2004, p.12
"'We are not hear,' declared European Commission president Romano
Prodi, " to beat our breasts and do nothing.' Indeed, through
last week's day-along EC conference on anti-Semitism in Brussels,
by far the most sustained applause came for those of the more than
40 speakers who put forward practical proposals ... Throughout the
day an estimated 1,000 people from all parts of the official an non-official
European community passed through the great 'salon' conference room
of the EC's Charlemagne Building, as Jews and non-Jews lined up to
denounce what Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks described "as the
greatest weapon of mass destruction -- not anthrax, but something
in the human heart, and its name is hate.'
'A sickness of the soul requires a spiritual response. Anti-Semitism
is not a doctrine, but a virus which
attacks the body politic,' he added ... [Israel Singer,
vice-president of the World Jewish Congress] by contrast, brought
his native New York bluntness to the issue. Recalling world Jewry's
successful fight on behalf of the Jews of the Soviet Union, he told
delegates: ' That's a reminder today that we are going to fight against
evil, the evil of people who don't like us, and
we are going to flex our muscles ... There is a new kind
of Jew here and people better get used to him. This is a Jew who has
decided to say: 'No more.' We are going to
play by our rules, which we found successful. We
are now playing by the rules of Brooklyn and Tel Aviv --
and I tell my European Jewish friends, we will try to do it your way,
but with some of our clout."
The
Rothschild story: A golden era ends for a secretive dynasty,
This week NM Rothschild & Sons pulled out of trading in gold, the
commodity that made their name in banking,
By Paul Vallely, The Independent (UK),
16 April 2004
"The news that the bankers Rothschild are to withdraw
from the gold market, in which they have been a major player for two
centuries, has been hailed as the end of an era. In one sense, of
course, it is. This was the company that smuggled
gold coins across the English Channel to finance the Duke of Wellington's
advance through France to his final triumph at Waterloo over Napoleon
(who, it turned out, had also borrowed money from the Rothschilds).
But in another way it marks out the continuation of an even older
tradition - the ability of the family which
has founded one of the world's largest private banking dynasties to
sustain their secretive fortune, which industry insiders count
not in billions but in trillions, and keep it within the family.
Secrecy has been a hallmark of the Rothschilds from the outset. Mayer
Amschel Rothschild, the son of an itinerant money lender and goldsmith
who settled in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt-am-Main
in 1744, specialised not just in clever accounting practices but also
kept secret books and subterranean vaults which he ensured were never
the privy of auditor, lawyer or taxman. As the paterfamilias
became more successful he despatched four of his five sons to different
European capitals to take advantage of the rise of capitalism and
the growth of international trade. Nathan he sent to London,
James to Paris, Saloman to Vienna, and Carl to
Naples, keeping the eldest, Amschel, at home with him in Prussia.
Of these the two most important proved to be London and Paris, where
the two main branches of the family developed a friendly rivalry,
with the English branch developing the edge in business and the French
in philanthropy, the arts and winemaking. But then in 1996 Amschel
Rothschild, a 41-year-old man who had lived in the flamboyant
style of many of his ancestors, hanged himself in a Paris hotel room.
He was the Rothschild who had been groomed to take over as
head of the English arm of the dynasty. So when the bank's chairman
Sir Evelyn de Rothschild retired earlier this year the succession
passed to the French side of the family. Baron David de Rothschild,
who had been running the family's Paris-based bank, inherited. None
of the Rothschild enterprises
have been banks in the sense as understood by the man or woman in
the street. What Mayer Rothschild founded in the
1760s was a business which grew from the humble beginning of selling
rare coins to becoming the prime moneylender
to greedy and spendthrift governments across Europe. One
German contemporary quipped that Mayer was "the
pride of Israel ... before whose money box kings and emperors humbly
bow". And the novelist Thackeray said of Nathan
that he was "not king of the Jews, but the Jew of the kings". The
brothers financed both sides in the Napoleonic wars and in the Austro-Prussian
war too. It has long been supposed that Nathan
increased the family fortune 20-fold by speculating
on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The Rothschilds
had a network of agents throughout Europe who, using fast boats, coded
letters and carrier pigeons, got information to the family ahead of
official sources. Victor Rothschild, third baron and former
chairman of the London bank, N M Rothschild, always maintained
that Nathan had made a killing by encouraging rumours that
Wellington had lost when he knew he had won, though the historian
Niall Ferguson in his magisterial history of the family recently disputed
that. Certainly, for all the family motto of Concordia, Integritas,
Industria (Unity, Integrity, Industry), Nathan's
ability to depress stock prices by using the network of agents to
spread rumours, true or false, and then buy the stock up after people
panicked, was legendary. More significant, however, was
that in the process the Rothschilds
created the world of banking as we know it today. Nathan operated
principally as an underwriter and speculator in the early 19th-century
bond market. He and his brothers invented, or at any rate popularised,
the government bond, which allowed investors, big and small, to buy
bits of the debts of sovereign states by purchasing fixed-interest
bearer bonds. Governments liked this because they could use them to
raise colossal sums of money. Investors liked them because they could
be traded - at prices that fluctuated in relation to the performance
of the issuing government - and shrewd investors could make big sums.
It brought investment in railways, the industrial revolution and ventures
like the Suez Canal. The Rothschilds
got a cut of everything. It was a new kind
of power. "I care not what puppet
is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the
sun never sets. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls
the British Empire, and I control the British money supply,"
Nathan said. The family developed a lack of awe for the powerful
and important. A pompous aristocrat one day called on Nathan who
was head down at his desk. Without looking up, the banker said: "Take
a chair." His caller, affronted, said: "You are speaking to the Prince
of Thurn and Taxis." To which Rothschild replied: "Take two
chairs." At one point he even rescued the Bank
of England after a run on gold caused the collapse of 145 banks.
In 1885 he was given the hereditary title of Baron Rothschild.
Many of the distinct characteristics of the family can be traced back
to the will of the founder Mayer Rothschild. It
stipulated that no public inventory should be made of his estate;
that key positions in the House of Rothschild
were to be held by family members; that the eldest son should
inherit unless the rest agreed otherwise; that the family was to
intermarry with first and second cousins to keep the fortune together;
that anyone disputing these terms would be struck from the will. And
that all this should apply in perpetuity. In part this was
about preserving not just their Jewish identity but a self-conscious
position as role models for their poorer co-religionists. The Rothschilds
expended much effort and money pressing for
Jewish emancipation and equality across the continent. Their
Jewish solidarity was not heterogeneous. In 1938 Nathan's great-great-grandson,
Victor, shocked an audience by saying that in spite of "the slow murder
of 600,000 people" on the continent "we probably all agree that there
is something unsatisfactory in refugees encroaching on the privacy
of our country, even for relatively short periods of time." And the
family split over the question of the dream of a Jewish homeland,
with some members supporting the first Zionist settlement in Palestine
and the Balfour declaration and others opposing it on the grounds
that it would encourage anti-Semites to question
the existing national identities of assimilated Jews around the rest
of the world. None of which has allayed the wild fears
of anti-Semites who throughout the 20th century branded the Rothschilds
as part of a Jewish plot to take over the
world. The world has changed around the Rothschilds.
At one point Nathan Rothschild was the richest man in Britain
and probably in the world. In today's terms
he was wealthier than Bill Gates. But they never gained the
foothold in America they needed. The world became corporate. Private
banking got left behind. Still, the family has moved down only from
fabulously rich to enormously wealthy. And they adjusted to the times.
They made billions in the 1980s from Margaret Thatcher's privatisations
of state-owned industries on which they advised. In France after their
bank was nationalised by the Socialist president Francois Mitterrand
they slowly built a new business which, under Baron David de Rothschild,
has risen to the top ranks of the merger and acquisition league tables.
They have pulled out of retail fund management - into which they went
with much fanfare only three years back - and now they are pulling
out of oil and gold in favour of the higher-margin areas of private
banking and wealth management. Do not spend too many tears. In 1997
the family's Swiss holding company increased its profits by 66 per
cent. The firm is not called Rothschild Continuation for nothing
... 2004: An international banking dynasty, Rothschild have 40
countries worldwide."
[An article from Brazil, and it is fascinating. The same Jewish-Zionist
influence is spread throughout the West, wherever Jews are, whether
America or Brazil. Jews are a miniscule percentage of the largely
Catholic Brazilian populace, yet here they are in typical fashion:
many enormously wealthy, many communist/guerilla activists in earlier
times, plenty with important government positions around the Brazilian
president (some even "former" communists and some "close
aides" who are Israeli), some married to powerful non-Jewish
politicians, and there's even the requisite censorial lawsuit against
a Brazilian magazine for comparing Zionism to the Nazis. Even the
former Brazilian president, Cardoso, had "Jewish family"
ties. Does all this sound disturbingly familiar? There is
a tribal web that links this Brazilian system to parallel Jewish Power
Networking in countries around the world.]
A
jolly good fellow,
by Jayme Brener, Revista Pangea Mundo
(Brazil), Nobember 2, 2003
"Brazilian President Lula da Silva starts to conquer the once
resistant Jewish community. The name of Brazil´s newly elected
Luís Inácio Lula da Silva has been enough to produce itches in the
vast majority of local Jewish community during the last 20 years,
mainly for the traditional links between Lula´s leftist Workers Party
(WP) and the PLO. But a screen on his Cabinet,
named last December, shows two Jews – Jacques Wagner (Labour)
and Italian born Guido Mantega (Planning), apart of President
spokesman, André Singer. Much more important, there
are clear signs of mutual simpathy between the community and its leadership,
and the new government. “There was an important
meeting between Lula and 60 Jewish leaders shortly before November
elections, when the now President expressed his admiration to Israel
and to our community in Brazil”, says Jayme Blay, President
of São Paulo Jewish Federation (Fisesp), the most important in the
country. In spite of a long tradition of Jewish leftism in Brazil
(see box) that drove many activists to the WP – or PT, for Partido
dos Trabalhadores, in Portuguese –, the overwhelming majority of Brazilian
120.000/150.000 strong community had identified itself with former
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and his centrist Social
Democratic Party (PSDB). During his eight years of government, Cardoso
had several Jewish aides, including Foreign Affairs minister
Celso Lafer. Cardoso (who has
Jewish family ties) and his PSDB also kept strong links with
Jewish business circles. As a natural consequence, Cardoso´s candidate
against Lula, José Serra, was supported by most of Brazilian Jews,
including community leadership and rabbi Henry Sobel who is
a very popular character for his commitment to human rights. But Lula´s
skills to sew a broad political alliance and set up a new productive
economic cycle, reducing Brazilian dependence toward international
finance had seduced a good bunch of Jewish businessmen and professionals.
Leading industrialists Ivo Rosset (textiles)
and Eugenio Staub (electroelectronics)
had openly left José Serra´s campaing for Lula, who also received
a more discret support of steel magnate Benjamin
Steinbruch. “Yes, I voted for Lula, since the last government
drove our economy to a stalemate”, explains oil
tycoon German Efromovich, owner
of the Maritima Petroleum group. “We hope that the new government
could promote changes for the best; otherwise, we´re sure that any
change will be done inside democratic frames”, agrees Gerson Keila,
chairman of the powerful Brazilian Franchising
Association (ABF), who represents US$ 8 billions/year in business.
Even the traditional links between the PT and the PLO don´t seem to
haunt Jewish leadership in Brazil. “Lula has clearly stressed his
commitment both to a Palestinian State and to the safety of Israel”,
grants Fisesp´s Jayme Blay. “There´re no expectations of a
major change in Brazil´s international policy”, adds Claudio Camargo,
Foreign Affairs analyst at IstoÉ weekly magazine ... The
honeymoon that Lula da Silva and the Jewish community are now enjoying
has been prepared by a long flirt, since the very birth of the WP
in 1979, melting new rank-and-file tradeunionists, former extreme
left organizations and the catholic gauche. The party´s central slogan
during its first electoral campaign, in 1982 (when Lula runned – and
was defeated – for the São Paulo State government), was a reddish
“workers shall vote for workers”, challenging the reformism of the
old Communist Party. Some leaders of the Palestinian community, openly
identified with the PLO, had then runned under the Partido dos Trabalhadores
banner. But several jews were among the first representatives elected
by the party, including now minister Jacques Wagner (a petrochemical
tradeunionist), Carlos Minc (former guerrilla fighter converted
to environmentalism) and Clara Ant, a trotskyite leader. Yes,
there were some frictions between the WP and Jewish community along
the last two decades. Ms. Luiza Erundina, then mayor of São Paulo,
has caused tensions in the kehilá in 1989, when she named a square
after State of Palestine. Incidentally, Yasser Arafat hadn´t already
formally declared the independence of his State. When
she saw the gaffe, Erundina called Jewish aides asking for names of
Zionist leaders, to baptyze other areas of the city ... The
own Lula da Silva has visited Israel,
following an invitation by Labour leaders. Former labour prime minister
Shimon Peres was one of the forefront international politicians
in Lula´s possession ceremony. A group of selected matchmakers has
played a very important role for this long engagement between Lula/PT
and Brazilian Jewish community. Among them were former trotskyite
leader Clara Ant, nowadays one of Lula´s
closest informal aides; Israeli born
businessman Oded Grajew, who is very active in social
initiatives and works as a major WP´s fundraiser; and Argentinian
born Felipe Warmus. Known by his “war name”, Luís Favre,
this shadowy former trotskyite leader,
who has close connections with French socialists, spreads jealousy
over WP´s leaders for the influence he gained
after marrying one of the party´s top stars: the mayor of São
Paulo, Martha Suplicy. If Jewish community is in growingly good terms
with President Lula da Silva and his majoritary faction in the Partido
dos Trabalhadores, the same cannot be said of the fringe far left
groups inside the party. The WP is one of the stars of the Porto Alegre
Forum, a broad coalition of antiglobalization groups, set up to counterbalance
the Davos Forum high finance yearly meeting. The Porto Alegre Forum
was named after a WP stronghold in Southern Brazil, that shall host
over 100.000 leftist militants next January for its yearly meeting.
Terms like Israel and Zionism are some of the
favourite blanks for those rank and file militants.
“Extremist factions, I imagine, will not play a decisive role in the
new government” evaluates economic analist André Friedheim.
“Radical voices have been put apart of the decision inside of the
party, which is showing an enormous common sense”, adds Fisesp´s president
Jayme Blay. Wishfull thinking or not, the fact is that monthly
magazine Caros Amigos, that usually voices the Forum de Porto Alegre
visions, has recently published an article written by a pro-Palestinian
activist, melting criticism to Israeli government with open racial
offenses. The article says, for instance, that Israel was created
by the Nazis and that Zionists were close collaborators to Hitler.
The magazine has refused to publish the rainfall
of critics received nor apologized to its readers, what motivated
Human Rights organizations to take legal actions. Many
of those protests against Caros Amigos came from non-Jewish and Jewish
activists of the Lula da Silva´s Workers Party.
... a tradition Simpathy towards Communism and
the Soviet Union was majoritary among Ashkenazim Jews in Brazil until
the 1950s. The Jewish Section of the pro-USSR Communist Party
was even larger than the Workers Section in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro,
the country´s largest cities during the 30s. There were two Jews in
the CP 8 strong São Paulo City Councilmen elected in 1946, including
Elisa Kauffmann, one of the first women elected for this post
in the country. The birth of Israel and the anti-semite campaigns
led by Soviet strongman Josef Stalin had splitted the Jewish community
– even institutions, like schools and clubs – between roitn (reds)
and sionistn (zionists). Although the economic progress of the vast
majority of Brazilian Jews had pulled them to the center-right, leftist
parties had always had many Jewich activists. Last CP general
secretary, for instance, was Salomão Malina, a veteran of the
Brazilian forces which fought Nazis in Italy, during the 2nd World
War. Several Jews had died fighting the military dictatorship (1964-1984),
including Maurício Grabois, one of the
commanders of the Maoist guerrilla warfare in the Araguaia
(Northern Brazil), in the 70s, and Yara Yavelberg, wife of
Carlos Lamarca, leader of urban guerrilla forces.
Chael Charles Schreier, then a Medical student in his early
twenties and a guerrilla sympathiser, died during brutal torture.
The upsurge of a new wave of students and trade union protests, in
the end of the 70s, with Lula as the big star, also
produced a new layer of Jewish activists, mainly of Trotskyite origin.
Those roitn kinder and Jewish survivors of the antidictatorship
fight – like historian and former guerrilla ideologue Jacob Gorender
– were among the founders of the Workers Party." *
SEE ALSO: Jewish Influence in Popular Culture
Jewish
Media Moguls in Action
The
Art World
* Not Enough? There's
much, much more about Jewish Influence in POPULAR
CULTURE, THE MASS MEDIA, ART,
THE LITERARY WORLD, GOVERNMENT,
and the ECONOMIC sphere.
