Madoff--Very Bad for the Jews

Bernard Madoff is bad for the Jews in just about every meaning of the term.  But, I've never really been concerned with the 'bad for the Jews' thinking when it means how non-Jews view us.  There will be antisemitism in the world.  Antisemites will find every possible reason to hate us; they don't need Madoff as an excuse.

Of course, Madoff is also bad for the Jews because Jews lost a lot of money.  And, while I don't want to discount the importance of that, what angers me most about Madoff is that he specifically took advantage of his role as an 'insider' in the Jewish world to prey upon Jews that trusted him BECAUSE  he was Jewish!  And this is in my opinion the absolute worst part of the tragedy.  

When all is said and done, though we don't like to admit it, Jews tend to intuitively trust other Jews 'a bit more' than non-Jews!  There's a certain connection between Jews whether we want to admit it or not.  We tend to think--or we want to think, that a Jew wouldn't rip off another Jew.  Of course, it's not really true...there's crime in Israel!  Some Jew is ripping off some other Jew.  But, that is one individual against another.  That's one guy robbing one other guy and Judaism is incidental to the crime.

But, we tend to believe (or again want to believe) that one Jew would not perpetrate a crime against JEWS in general!  But in the Madoff crime, Judaism and Jewishness was at the very heart of the crime.  Madoff ingratiated himself to other Jews using his own Jewishness and Judaism and then bilked them for every last dollar!  

Madoff is like a modern day Haman...his name will become that infamous.  But, say what you will about Haman...at least he wasn't a Jew!  So, you get it!  But, no one would expect Mordechai to be do in his people.