When Victims Rule (pdf)

WALL STREET, JEWISH / ISRAELI ETHICS, AND THE WORLD OF FUND RAISING
In 1997, John Perry, the Jewish editor of an Indian weekly newspaper, The
New India-Times, was charged in New York City for eleven counts of conspiracy
and mail fraud. Perry called the charges “a witch hunt” and sounded out a possible
defense of anti-Semitism from Israel and Jewish American newspapers,
and the Anti-Defamation League. [FORWARD, 5-23-97, p. 8]
In 1995 the former Executive Director, Lester Kaplan, of the Jewish Community
Center of Greater Washington DC, was imprisoned for embezzling a
million dollars from the organization. Three others, including the Chief Financial
Officer at the organization, Jay Manchester, were also implicated. Kaplan
could have gotten up to 95 years in jail, but was only sentenced to seven years;
he was freed after eight months. [RIVAS, p. D5] The State Attorney General’s
office investigated and prosecuted the crime despite the Jewish organization’s
decision to avoid publicity and not report the situation to police. [ZOROYA,
p. B1] Despite his record, in 1997 Kaplan was hired as a Montgomery County
public housing agency supervisor. “Kaplan,” noted the Washington Post, “approached
HOC [Housing Opportunity Commission] chairwoman Barbara
Goldberg-Golden – a board member at the Jewish Community Center – and
asked her for help [in getting a job].” [PEREZ-RIVAS, p. D5]
In 2001, “Montgomery County prosecutors … opened up an investigation
into the handling of a charity fund at one of the Washington area’s largest synagogues
[Congregation Beth El in Bethesda, Maryland], after its senior rabbi
reimbursed $300,000 to the fund because of questions about how he had used
the account.” The rabbi, Jonathan Maltzman, “transferred more than $220,000
from the charity fund to his brokerage account at Fidelity; used $7,950 from the
fund for his child’s b’nai mitzvah parties; and used about $11,500 to pay his selfemployment
taxes. An additional $62,000 was withdrawn in cash at ATMS …
About $700,000 had passed through the fund during the 11 years Maltzman administered
it, [but] only about $20,000 could be identified as having gone to
charities.” [MURPHY, C., 5-10-01, p. B2]
In 1999, a Cincinnati rabbi, Jacob Lustig of congregation Kneseth Israel, was
found guilty of skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars of profits from a series
of synagogue bingo games spread across three counties in 19 storefronts.
“The instant bingo,” noted the Associated Press, “took in more than $1 million
in 1996 and 1997, but his congregation received only $250,000 of that. Lustig
and his associates (Gerel Payne, Ralph Lipsky, and Sam Semet) avoided prison
time, although Lustig was ordered to surrender $920,000. The Cincinnati Enquirer
noted that “Judge Cartolano said the lack of cooperation from the congregation,
which still supports the rabbi, was a problem for prosecutors.”
[HORN, D., 6-9-99, p. B5]
In 2000, the Temple Sinai synagogue in Dresher, Pennsylvania, sued its fired
Executive Director, Barry Wilf; his wife Barbara who was an assistant bookkeeper
at the synagogue; bookkeeper Betty Shusterman; and Shusterman’s husband,
son, and son’s wife. They were accused of embezzling $700,000 over the
years through a bank that was also named in the suit. [FELDMAN, S., 5-4-2000,
p. 9]
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