Victims Press Brooklyn D.A. To Seek Abuse Suspect's Extradition From Israel
ONE YEAR PASSED----WE MUST GET MONDROWITZ BACK TO THE U.S.A.-- ACT AS IF IT WAS YOUR CHILD OR FAMILY MEMBER THAT WAS MOLESTED BY THIS MONSTER! EXPRESS YOUR OUTRAGE TO D.A. CHARLES HYNES, AND TO ALL THE POLITICIANS LISTED ON THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST!
Nathaniel Popper | Fri. Jul 28, 2006-The Forward
In the wake of new revelations about sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, pressure is mounting on the Brooklyn district attorney to seek the extradition of a man who fled to Israel after being indicted for sex offenses.
Avrohom Mondrowitz was indicted in 1984 on four counts of sodomy and eight counts of sexual abuse in the first degree after years as a school counselor in the Brooklyn Orthodox community. Three of Mondrowitz's alleged victims, who had not been aware of the original investigation, recently approached an Orthodox lawyer who has passionately taken up the case. One of those men has since given his testimony to the Brooklyn district attorney's office, which would be responsible for requesting extradition. Another of the victims plans to go to the district attorney, Charles Hynes, in the next week.
The district attorney preceding Hynes had pushed for Mondrowitz's extradition from Israel in the 1980s, but Hynes dropped the effort after he was elected in 1989, according to recently released government documents. The new set of victims to come forward say they are pained by Mondrowitz's continuing freedom, and the lack of effort by Hynes and the Orthodox community in pursuing the suspected abuser.
Every time somebody gets let down as a victim, it's a further continuation of the abuse, said Mark Weiss, who says he was abused by Mondrowitz during a summer week with the counselor when he was 13. He's just sitting there, taunting us, saying ˜Hah, you're never going to catch me, I know the system too well.
Weiss, who is now 39, said that just a few weeks ago a friend in Israel says he saw Mondrowitz on the streets of Jerusalem, speaking with a group of children. Mondrowitz has been a teacher at the Jerusalem College of Engineering, posting his lectures and syllabi online.
A spokesman for Hynes, Jerry Schmetterer, said the Brooklyn district attorney's office is ready to arrest Mondrowitz if he ever returns to the United States. But Schmetterer says the D.A.'s office is hamstrung by Israeli law, which in the 1980s did not classify Mondrowitz's alleged crime ” sodomy ” as rape. For extradition to go forward, the crime generally must be punishable in both countries. In fact, the Israeli rape law was changed in 1988 to include sodomy, but Schmetterer said the extradition treaty cannot be used retroactively.
Our position is that he cannot be extradited; he could not be extradited then, and he cannot be now, Schmetterer said.
That line of legal reasoning was explicitly rejected by the American embassy in Tel Aviv, soon after the Israeli law was changed. In a cable to the State Department, the embassy said that they had talked with officials in the Israeli Justice Ministry and determined that because Mondrowitz could eventually be charged under American rather than Israeli law, the retroactivity should not be an issue. The new law presents us, we believe, with an opportunity to reopen the extradition case of Avrohom Mondrowitz, the embassy said.
The government documents were uncovered by Michael Lesher, the attorney who has gathered together the three new alleged victims to press the case. Other legal experts told the Forward that while there could be legal complications, the district attorney's office could pursue the extradition.
I don't think the D.A. is being aggressive enough, said Douglas McNabb, who specializes in international extradition at a Washington, D.C., law firm. If I were a victim I would be very upset that the D.A.'s office is not pursuing this matter.
The extradition was a clear priority for Hynes's predecessor, Elizabeth Holtzman. Her office pushed the State Department on the matter. At one point the Israeli government signed a deportation order, but the situation ended in a stand off, according to a State Department memo. When Hynes took office, and his assistants were asked if they wanted to pursue the case, one of those assistants informed the State Department that they would not be pursuing the case any further at this time, according to another memo.
Schmetterer said that the Brooklyn D.A.'s office dropped the issue after knowing for years that it could not pursue Mondrowitz.
Anti-abuse activists in the Orthodox community say Hynes's silence may have been due to pressure from the Orthodox community, which they claim has historically been reluctant to see alleged sex offenders prosecuted. The activists, including Lesher, point to a 14-person Jewish advisory council that Hynes assembled soon after he was elected, comprising members of the Orthodox leadership in Brooklyn. One woman who has been at odds with the leadership for years, Amy Neustein, said she was told by two members of Hynes's council that the community did not want to see Mondrowitz prosecuted.
The rabbis have no comprehension of the injury of sexual abuse, said Neustein, an anti-abuse activist. They have no comprehension of why the victims want justice.
One member of Hynes's Jewish council, Rabbi Herbert Momzer, er Bomzer, said he does not remember Mondrowitz's extradition being discussed by the council. Bomzer did say that he knew Mondrowitz when the younger man was a counselor at Yeshiva University's high school, and that Mondrowitz had been loved by the students.
When asked if he would now support extradition proceedings, Bomzer, president of the rabbinical board of Flatbush, said: If he has managed to get to Israel and is protected by the law there then leave it alone.
Weiss, the 39-year-old alleged victim of Mondrowitz, said that from the beginning it had been clear that many members of the Orthodox community wanted him to let the case go. He said he had been molested when his father sent him to spend a week with Mondrowitz at a difficult moment in Weiss's adolescence. During that week, Mondrowitz's family was in the Catskills and, Weiss claimed, each night he was coaxed into bed by Mondrowitz.
What's difficult to think about is that he was so smooth ” so manipulative, Weiss said. It was as if it was all my choice.
Weiss said that he blocked the experience out for years, but a run-in with Mondrowitz during high school conjured up the memories and led to a breakdown. He first told his parents, but they told him he must be mistaken. He's a frum man, Weiss remembers his parents saying, using a Yiddish word meaning religiously observant.
A few years later, a principal at the yeshiva that Mondrowitz had attended summond Weiss ” but after giving over the details, Weiss said, nothing happened.
The incident faded into the background for many years, but in 2001, Weiss was drawn out by what was billed as a night for healing at a New York school for Orthodox boys. Weiss showed up with high hopes, but he says that the event turned into a series of speeches by rabbis who spoke in allegorical terms, rather than dealing with the victims in the room.
Weiss decided to go outside the Orthodox community when he read an article in New York Magazine last month, detailing the case of Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, a teacher at an Orthodox boys school in Flatbush who was sued by alleged former victims. Kolko has not yet filed opposition papers.
The second alleged Mondrowitz victim, who has already gone to Hynes and who wishes to remain anonymous also said it was the Kolko article that prompted him to step forward. For both, the hope is that Mondrowitz will be brought to justice and made an example of, in the words of the second accuser.
I want to show that abusers can't get away with it, that we as a community will no longer stand for the routine cover-ups of abuse, and to try to put some finality to that chapter of my life, he said.
It is likely that the new complaints would not be included in the counts, if Mondrowitz is arrested, due to the statute of limitations. But the men both say they hope their voices will increase the pressure on Hynes.
----------------------
Recently (June 14, 2007) Stefan Colmer was arrested in Israel at the request of U.S. authorities, who are seeking his extradition to stand trial in Brooklyn on charges of severe child sexual abuse involving at least two victims (ages 13-14), both Orthodox Jewish boys.
Sadly, it will come as no surprise to those familiar with these issues that Colmer is far from being the only party responsible for these crimes. Colmer's history of child abuse goes back more than ten years, and it was no secret to several rabbis, none of whom ever reported Colmer's crimes to authorities. Instead, Colmer was shuffled from community to community -- without so much as a warning to each new neighborhood -- while rabbis falsely claimed to victims that Colmer was "under control" or "being watched," and in some cases actively discouraged them from contacting police.
This is bad enough. But if we don't act quickly, another inexcusable injustice along the same lines will be committed. Even as Stefan Colmer's extradition is being sought from Israel for his crimes against our children in Brooklyn -- and despite pleas from victims and their advocates -- the Brooklyn District Attorney has so far refused to add an extradition request for Avrohom Mondrowitz, who has already been indicted for child sex abuse even worse and more extensive than the charges against Colmer. Under the current extradition treaty, Mondrowitz is subject to extradition just as Colmer is, and legally the case against him is ready for trial. Unfortunately, D.A. Charles Hynes continues to believe that the Orthodox community is unwilling to see Mondrowitz prosecuted for his heinous crimes against children, and is therefore -- amazingly -- ignoring this outrageous case.
WE MUST CHANGE THIS. NOW -- while the extradition of one child molester is being formally sought from Israel to Brooklyn -- now is the time to show the D.A. that WE WANT MONDROWITZ BROUGHT BACK FOR TRIAL TOO. This is a man believed to have abused or sodomized as many as hundreds of our children, and who has been living openly in Jerusalem for years, thumbing his nose at his victims.
WE MUST DEMAND JUSTICE NOW. With the recent improvement in the U.S.-Israel extradition, nothing is lacking to have Mondrowitz brought to trial but the will of the Brooklyn D.A. to stand up against the rabbis' wall of silence and demand the prosecution that is his legal obligation. It would be an insult to Mondrowitz's many victims if justice is selectively pursued for one hareidi child abuser who took refuge in Israel -- but not Mondrowitz.
PLEASE CALL THE D.A.'S OFFICE (718-250-2000) TO LET OFFICIALS KNOW THAT WE WANT JUSTICE FOR MONDROWITZ'S VICTIMS, AND THAT OUR COMMUNITY WILL NO LONGER TOLERATE COVERUPS OR THE POLITICAL OFFICIALS WHO PARTICIPATE IN THEM. THE HEAD OF THE SEX CRIMES UNIT IS MS. RHONNIE JAUS, ESQ. LET HER KNOW THAT SHE AND HER BOSS WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE IF THEY DO NOT PRESS FOR THE EXTRADITION OF THE INDICTED CRIMINAL AVROHOM MONDROWITZ.
URGE EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO DO THE SAME; URGE RABBIS TO SPEAK OUT PUBLICLY FOR THE NEED TO SEEK JUSTICE IN THIS CASE AND TO ENCOURAGE THE D.A. TO DO HIS JOB. (REMEMBER, IF THEY WILL NOT DO THIS, THEY CANNOT SERIOUSLY CLAIM TO CARE ABOUT THE SAFETY OF OUR CHILDREN.)
IF YOU PREFER TO COMMUNICATE IN WRITING, WRITE TO: KINGS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, SEX ABUSE AND SPECIAL VICTIMS BUREAU, 350 JAY STREET, BROOKLYN, NY 11201. REFER TO THE CASE AS STATE V. MONDROWITZ, INDICTMENT NO. 7693/84. AND YOU SHOULD SEND A COPY TO MICHAEL LESHER, ESQ., 22 LEITCH PLACE, PASSAIC, NJ 07055, WHO REPRESENTS SIX OF MONDROWITZ'S VICTIMS AND IS CLOSELY INVOLVED IN THE COLMER INVESTIGATION AS WELL.
DO IT TODAY, TOMORROW CAN'T WAIT. YOUR CHILD'S LIFE IS HANGING IN THE BALANCE!
Steve---A great friend of the blog, furnished us with these e-mail addresses. Kindly e-mail them as well!
Dov Hikind: hikindd@assembly.state.ny.us
Charles Schumer:
Go to the following website:
http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/contact/webform.cfm
Hillary Clinton:
Go to the following website:
http://www.senate.gov/~clinton/email_form.html
Elliot Spitzer:
Go to the following website:
http://161.11.121.121/govemail
EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!
EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
213 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 213 of 213I wish Yudel and UOJ would stop exposing me for the fraud that I am.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2007/07/hebrew-national-v-rubashkin.html#comment-3492587104694285296
Want to know what else is shocking?
New info I've been told about the OU client, Levana's restaurant.
Levana's of course was mixed up in the Le Marais scandal. They previously employed and fired the problem chef and seem to be assisting the OU in the cover up by denying the reason for his dismissal.
When Levana's was under the Chof-K, the "frum" owners themselves were caught red handed being machshil the rabim with treif. I know this from a rosh yeshiva who was involved after the Chof-K threatened the mashgiach to shut his mouth.
Now this story told to me last night in person by another former Levana's mashgiach:
Levana's had the contract to supply a cruise ship. There were times that the food would not be delivered on deadline unless it was made on Shabbos. The chef, who at the time was Jewish, would report in to cook on Shabbos. Mr. Kischenbaum's mother would then walk over from her Upper West Side residence to package the outgoing food. The mashgiach reported it to outside rabbonim knowing full well the Chof-K would cover it up and punish him a la midas Sdom. The Chof-K was infuriated that he reported it to outsiders, screamed at him, and demanded that he immediately come to a meeting with the hashgocho and client. The mashgiach refused, telling the Chof-K he will be fired anyway and at least if he doesn't come, he won't be threatened by everyone there. Kach hava that he was fired and it was covered up.
An OU official who has tried to cover up Levana's history has said and written that the Kirschenbaum's are "scrupulous Lubavitchers." (sic)
http://www.nugget.ca/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=596742&catname=Local%20News&classif=
Jennifer Hamilton-McCharles / The Nugget
Local News - Wednesday, July 04, 2007 @ 08:00
The body of a Toronto man missing since August has been recovered from Lake Nipissing.
Ontario Provincial Police said Tuesday the body of Eli Horowitz, 30, was found Tuesday morning in the centre channel of Callander Bay.
OPP Sgt. Joe Strba said the body was found near an island in more than a metre of water, surrounded by weeds.
The body was transported to Toronto for an autopsy and positive identification Tuesday.
"We've been waiting for this for so many months. There's been countless time, effort and money spent to get to this point and now his wife and family, who are desperate for this moment can get some closure," said Mendel Friedman, executive director of the Hatzoloh organization in Toronto.
According to Jewish law the discovery of Horowitz's body allows his wife the opportunity to remarry, Friedman said.
Funeral today
He said the funeral service and burial ceremony for Horowitz, who was a paramedic and member of the Hatzoloh organization, will be held today in Toronto.
Friedman said it was ironic that he received the call on the same day 10 Jewish rabbis were travelling to the Waltonian Inn on Lake Nipissing for a prayer service for Horowitz.
He said the rabbis were contacted and, when told the news, they went to the OPP station to help with identification and escort the body back to Toronto.
"His wife is under doctor's care and members of the Hatzoloh community are with her and the grandparents," Friedman said.
According to Jewish custom, following the burial service the family will reside at one location for seven days to accept the condolences of friends and members of the community.
Horowitz and his father-in-law, Heine Mondrowitz, 56, were staying at the Waltonian Inn on the south shorer. They rented a 19-foot boat to go fishing and swimming Aug. 21.
The rental boat was found empty at 5:30 p.m. that day after it drifted ashore near Premier Road in North Bay.
Family reported them missing at 7 p.m. when they failed to return to the tourist lodge.
An extensive search involved the OPP's emergency response team, helicopter, underwater search and recovery unit and the North Bay marine unit. The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre from CFB Trenton deployed a helicopter and several south shore residents provided boats and knowledge of the lake.
Members of the Hatzoloh organization, a volunteer emergency medical service which Horowitz belonged to, participated in the search efforts.
The family of the missing men hired three helicopters and an airplane.
Five days into the search, police recovered the remains of Mondrowitz near the shore of Lonely Island.
The search for Horowitz continued, but was called off in September. OPP said over the last nine months they've received many tips from the public, however all turned out to be false.
http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/ap/NY_New_York_Noise.html
I'm going to have Charlie Hynes ticket UOJ & Greenwald for making too much noise.
http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/ap/NY_Morgan_Stanley_Sex_Harass.html
Does Rav Scheinberg hold that a pencil has a din of penetration?
I can't believe the courts are starting to nix every one of Charlie Hynes's leniency deals. I hope it's not because I'm the only other guy as fat as Margo and Richard Klass.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06272007/news/regionalnews/glad_rat__sad_rat_regionalnews_alex_ginsberg.htm
Sigal Levi, the Brooklyn woman whose ex-husband, Avraham, had Garson's ear during their divorce, said she "almost threw up" when she heard prosecutors ask for no jail time.
"I believe that the judge felt that the public deserved some justice," she said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/06/27/2007-06-27_sleazy_shyster_to_join_expal_garson_in_j.html
Sleazy shyster to join ex-pal Garson in jail
BY NANCIE L. KATZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Posted Wednesday, June 27th 2007, 4:00 AM
Crooked Brooklyn lawyer Paul Siminovsky
A crooked Brooklyn lawyer planning to skip jail for helping convict disgraced judge Gerald Garson was led out of a courtroom in handcuffs yesterday - despite prosecution pleas for leniency.
Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Berry minced no words in nixing District Attorney Charles Hynes' misdemeanor deal with Paul Siminovsky, 48, for no jail time in exchange for testifying how for two years he wined and dined Garson - who was sentenced earlier this month to three to 10 years in prison - to get lucrative appointments and favorable rulings in divorce cases.
"There is no way I can look in the mirror if I give you probation. You deserve incarceration. You brought disgrace to lawyers ... and the judiciary and you did it to pad your own pockets," Berry told Siminovsky, as he sentenced him to a maximum one year in jail.
Siminovsky faced felony charges and up to 18 years behind bars before cooperating with the district attorney.
Siminovsky yesterday admitted he did "wrong." "I don't ask for forgiveness. I only hope to make things better," he said. "
But prosecutor Michael Vecchione begged Berry to forgive Siminovsky, who resigned from the bar and expressed humility and embarrassment.
I'm also as fat as Margo.
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=6&id=13861
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who represents the New York City’s 8th Congressional District, which includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, yesterday hailed the passage of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill because it includes funding for a Brooklyn-based non-profit. The measure, adopted last week, includes $231,000 for the Sephardic Angel Fund with offices on Kings Highway.
The spending bill must still be reconciled with the U. S. Senate before heading to the president for his signature, according to Nadler.
I hope no one reports my fake permit used to park in front of the Mir.
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=4&id=13701
A Brooklyn man could face prison for using a discarded government permit to get free parking in Manhattan.
David Hernandez, 47, of Marine Park, was arrested last Wednesday and arraigned the next day for criminal possession of a forged instrument, a felony charge. If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison.
On Tuesday, May 1, city investigators spotted what looked like a forged Department of Investigation (DOI) parking permit on the dashboard of Hernandez’s car, parked on Cedar Street in lower Manhattan. The placard was a different color than the official DOI permit and had expired in 2005.
Investigators arrested Hernandez seven weeks later, a block and a half away at 80 Maiden Lane.
Hernandez, a maintenance worker at a private Manhattan company, told investigators that he found the placard on the street. He gave it to them and apologized, saying it was “a big mistake,” according to the DOI.
Hernandez’s Legal Aid attorney, Douglas Lyons, declined to comment.
“This arrest comes as the mayor is trying to combat traffic congestion in the city and at a time when parking is at a premium,” DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said in a statement. “Forging a city parking placard to secure free parking is not just a crime, it adds to the bottlenecks already clogging New York City streets.”
UOJ & LVF should name the other Gerrorist molesters.
-----------------------------------
If you understand hebrew then listen to this link below, he admits to his wife that, no! not that young, but 12 &13 year olds.
his name is goldknopf, his father lives in bnei brak, and is the composer of many of the gerer niggunim that are composed each year.
Copy and Paste
http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/3850/1118542
Maybe Goldknopf should branch out and write some songs for Elton John.
Much more lucrative.
If anyone complains to the State Police about Berish (Bernard) Freilich, they can expect to receive a hazmana faster than Margo plows through a heaping mound of cholent.
Remember the putz fresser lawyer connected to the Agudah who rudely passed up on pikuach nefesh? Here's the latest.
Some dumb kollel yungerman and his wife approached the victim and told her she should reach out to the Blacks that attacked her because there is now tremendous anti-Jewish hostility in the neighborhood now. Even though the Blacks attacked the Jews in an unprovoked manner, the kollel couple morons don't want to be uncomfortable so they are blaming the victim for putting a crimp in their lifestyle. They didn't say lehedya that the victim should "apologize" but that was their retarded intention.
The putz yungerman is a waste of his shver's money. He doesn't go to any yeshiva known for it's prowess in learning to begin with, and is in particular lacking in kishronos and doesn't know much in learning.
It also emerged that the putz yungerman was himself attacked earlier that day by the Blacks who were hurling crushed metal cans at his children ages 2 and 3. The putz didn't call the cops or the building management and refuses to do so, saying he prefers to maintain "a low profile." He even refused to let someone do so on his behalf, but relented on at least that much after being screamed at that he is putting children including his own in danger.
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/pope-angers-jews-liberals-with-rite/20070707201509990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Rav Hutner did say that Vatican II is baloney and that the Papal chazir that comes out of the nahar still has a din of tzoah.
ON MAKING MONEY
by Jonathan Rosenblum
http://www.mishpacha.com
July 5, 2007
Most of us tend to be impressed by talents that we completely lack:
the ability to hit a fastball thrown at 100 mph, dunk a basketball,
solve differential equations. Me? I'm fascinated by those with the
ability to make money.
I don't mean the young hotshots in bright red suspenders pulling down
million dollar bonuses on Wall Street. No, the ones who really impress
me are the guys in frock coats who arrived in America without a penny
to their name, little or no English, few connections, and the kind of
education one picks up in the death camps or Siberia, and who somehow
managed to make millions selling one type of _shmatte__ _or another.
How does someone with that background end up manufacturing costume
jewelry for young Puerto Ricans or Lacoste knock-off sports shirts
that he would not be caught dead wearing? What does he know about
what will sell in Spanish Harlem or even how costume jewelry is
manufactured. And even if he does, what distributor would believe
him?
One Holocaust survivor who is rumored to own a fair percentage of the
oil wells dotting the Los Angeles landscape could only find a job
cleaning out leaves from under houses when he arrived in America. I
still cannot work out how many leaves one has to sweep out to
purchase one's first oil well.
This week I was chatting with a new friend. He and his brother took a
single failing bridal gown store and turned it into a chain of more
than a 100. From his description of his youthful poverty, it is
doubtful that his wife could have even afforded one of the
stores’ gowns when they were married. In short, he knew nothing
about wedding gowns when he and his brother scraped together enough to
purchase the first store, and I’m far from clear he knows much
more about them today. But in his early sixties he is able to spend
all his time on Jewish philanthropy, kvelling about his frum children
and grandchildren, and enjoying the King David Hotel when he’s
in Jerusalem.
Perhaps the maxim "buy cheap sell dear" is genetically encoded in
many Jews. If so, that gene continues to be passed on. My secretary
has two young female relatives with thriving eBay businesses.
Of course, necessity helps as well. Many of the post-war immigrants
to America had already started families in the DP camps or hoped to
do so soon after their arrival in America. They had no choice but to
find a way to make a living, and quick. Only in the Torah community
in Israel do neither genes nor economic necessity seem to have given
rise to a large entrepreneurial class.
That _hondling__ _gene has atrophied completely in the Rosenblum
family. If someone gave me a million dollars to start a business, I
would not have a clue what to do. My first instinct would be to
purchase a CD yielding 3% per annum.
Both my grandfathers made enough money to ensure that their children
and grandchildren would be able to afford fancy educations so that
they could end up as professionals or salaried employees. But as a
Satmar Chassid once told me, "An education is helpful for earning a
living, but it's irrelevant if you want to make MONEY." He made clear
that he preferred the latter.
WHEN I WAS IN COLLEGE, none of my friends would have admitted that
they planned to go into business or that they hoped to become rich.
Even doctors and lawyers were vaguely disreputable. Anyone planning
to go to law or medical school would invariably add that they were
doing so only to save humanity – or at the least the spotted
salamander – or to find a cure for cancer.
But as I've gotten older, my respect for businessmen has grown and
that for professionals waned. Anyone who has ever tried to collect
_tzedakah__ _from businessmen and lawyers will appreciate the
difference. (Please no angry Emails from my doctor and lawyer
friends. I know there are many exceptions to the rule, you chief
among them.)
Businessmen are far less likely to attribute their success solely to
their own abilities. Many of them have been up and down over the
course of their careers, and have lost fortunes as well as made them.
That makes them a lot more prone to recognize the role of siyata
d'Shmaya in their success.
"Hashem has been very good to me," is a phrase that rolls trippingly
off the tongues of businessmen, not of lawyers. The Vilna Gaon
comments on the verse (Mishlei 17:13), "[If] one repays good with
evil, evil will not depart from his house:" One who has been favored
with an extra portion of chesed from Hashem (the Gaon specifically
mentions great wealth) has an extra obligation to serve Hashem. Most
frum businessmen intuitively understand that.
The aforementioned hondling gene appears later than that for the type
of intelligence that gets one into a good medical or law school. One
of the community's major philanthropists jokes that he made a fortune
in real estate only because he didn't do well enough on the exam to
become a New York City school teacher, like his more studious friends
from yeshiva. Many successful businessmen are remembered from their
yeshiva days chiefly as the one who ran the laundry-machine
concession.
Because few of them grew up being praised as the next Rabbi Akiva
Eiger, successful businessmen rarely view their success as something
coming to them as a matter of right. Not so those who always got the
best grades. The praise showered upon them in their early years leads
them to forget that academic intelligence is also a gift from Hashem,
not something they earned.
The late Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick developed an
entirehttp://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n1-1.html. He
speculated that they grow used to teachers' praise in their youth,
and resent a system that apportions reward according to different
criteria than those for praising kids in school. "Why are my stupid
clients so much richer than I?" was the most frequently discussed
topic in my old law firm.
On second thought, the respect for so many of the entrepreneurs I
know derives not from the fact that they can do something I can't
– that would be true of most skills – but from the fact
that they have used their business acumen to both make themselves
better people and to help those less fortunate.
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