WHEN A JEW MISBEHAVES

Many years ago, I was watching the news on TV with my father-in-law when there was a report about an insider trading scandal involving Ivan Boesky. Clearly agitated, my father-in-law asked, “He’s a Jew?” I said that I thought so.  “Ah-ha. This is the way they start.”

It occurred to me that on its face, the comment might have sounded anti-Semitic: “they” meaning “those crooked Jews.” But my father-in-law was a Polish Jew, a holocaust survivor who had lived through the era when Jews were made scapegoats for all the ills of Europe. He had witnessed the escalation of grumbling: whispers that led to graffiti, to beatings, then to pogroms, and eventually, to disaster. But it began with the anecdotal accusations, one person’s wrongdoing being attributed to all.

Years later, I heard the same complaints from black acquaintances about stories accusing Michal Jackson and O.J. Simpson of crimes. The first response was to deny, to attribute the charges to racism. “They always want to knock down the uppity Negroes,” the wise old heads shook. “As soon as we make it, they will go after us.”

 (In the lily-white golf community, the fall of Tiger Woods was seen as comeuppance that was inevitable: “Of course, he cheats on his (white) wife.” The fact that Woods avoided identifying with any racial causes (which annoyed some in the black community) did not deter white haters from enjoying his downfall, or most blacks from bemoaning it.) 

It hurts, it really hurts bad when something happens that seems to confirm the beliefs of the haters about you. You can almost hear them saying to each other, “I told you so, you can’t trust those people.”

As a Jew, I’m forced to be aware of the image I project to the world. I try to avoid all the stereotypes that sting. For example, I pick up the checks at lunch so that I won’t be called “cheap.” (I had a Scots-Irish friend who teased me: “We Scots are thrifty, you Jews are cheap.”)

Money dealings of all kinds are the traditional subjects for ugly anti-Semitic mumbling. The Nazis were not the first, nor the last, to demonize Jews as the bankers and financiers who are supposedly responsible for every ill from economic recessions to world wars.

So, Ivan Boesky was accused of cheating on stock deals. That doesn’t mean all Jews are cheats. Fine. So, what about Michael Milken, and then what about Bernie Madoff?

Well, in truth, stock swindles and Ponzi schemes are common crimes that have been repeated often without involvement of any Jews. In fact, the alleged victims in the Boesky, Milken and Madoff cases were often Jews, investors who trusted the men to be honest and wise. (Sadly and predictably, this fact, too, is fodder for haters: “the Jews who got fleeced were too greedy.”)

Powerful men in various fields have recently been accused of sexual misconduct. The first of these to be widely exposed in the media were in the movie business. This led to other entertainment forms, including the opera, ballet, television, and sports. Then it spread to the workplaces of other businesses, to the offices of politicians, and then to schools, judge’s chambers, the armed services, and so on and on.

Yet, it seems to me that the names most prominently mentioned by the media include a disproportionate number of people of Jewish descent, including: Harvey Weinstein, James Levine, Al Franken, Andrew Kreisberg, Louis C. K. (Szekely), Brett Ratner, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Jeremy Piven, Mark Halperin, James Toback, Bob Weinstein.

(BTW, as a Jew and a lawyer, I am doubly offended by the Michael Cohens of the world who allegedly cover up the crimes of Trump and others by using their skills and wits to devise unbreakable nondisclosure agreements and pressure emotionally fragile victims to accept them.)

Of course, there are many others caught up in these scandals who are not Jews, but the ones who stand out to me are all too Jewish. Frankly, some of them even “look Jewish.” I mean, to be honest, Harvey Weinstein looks like a Nazi stereotype of the “Jew predator”: balding, somewhat obese, jowly and squinty-eyed, a bit slovenly in appearance.

There is a certain nasty snicker effect added to the stereotype. Jewish men supposedly have multiple sexual hang-ups. Comics like Woody Allen and Garry Shandling have traded on these foibles for ages. Now, we are fed Weinstein’s alleged habit of luring aspiring actresses to his hotel rooms so that he might masturbate in front of them. (This apparently was the favorite way that Louis C. K. allegedly would get off as well).

This revelation was a shock to me. It seems such an odd thing to do! I mean, if you need to jerk off, why go to so much trouble? Why bring in an innocent witness? If that is your thing, why not hire a sex worker to cheer you on? You’ve got the money, and they won’t complain.

The answer, of course, is that—just like rape—this particular perversion is hardly about sex; it is mostly about power, raw brutal power. Watching the victim squirm uncomfortably with no means of escape is what keeps his dick hard. He knows she can’t complain because he can ruin her chances at a career, can even use his resources to accuse her of seducing him. People are all too willing to believe a girl will do anything to be in show business, aren’t they?

The fact that so many of Weinstein’s crimes follow the common M.O. of entertainment executives throughout the ages is also troubling. It recalls the painful clichés of the so-called golden era of Hollywood’s movie factories, in which the “casting couch” was common. The culprits then were the studio moguls, who, coincidentally, also happened to be predominantly Jewish. Put a photo of Harry Cohn, head of Columbia at the time, next to that of Harvey Weinstein and their multiple victims would have a hard time choosing between them.

Actually, these culprits do have things in common that account for their crimes other than the fact that one or more of their parents happen to have been labeled as Jews. They are all men who hold power.

(Sports figures who violently abuse women exert power of another kind; physical dominance over their prey. The business types exert a more subtle form of power, inciting fear by threat to career or reputation, in addition to the frequent fear of physical harm.)

I suspect that of the two factors, the most important one is power. While it is true that men are guilty of abuse far more often than women (and that includes abuse by men of boys) that may not always be the case.

As more women enter the upper regions of power in business and the professions, there are certain to be more instances of abuse of that power. While sexual predation is a crime that is traditionally attributed to males, the temptations of power accompanied by our enlightened society’s loosening of sexual restraints might well lead to more instances of abuse by women.

I wonder whether abuses committed by women against males are under-reported, just as incidences of rape by men of females are. Traditional male self-image would tend to deter boys or men from complaining that their teacher, or aunt, or superior at work had fondled them, propositioned them, or made sexually insensitive remarks.

What boy is likely to complain to his parents about that sort of thing? He is more likely to fantasize hopefully about the possibility, to read any provocative gesture by a woman as an invitation. Men in the workplace, moreover, are subject to the same pressures as women vis-à-vis a superior’s approval.

Can’t you imagine an angry boss who is female joking in the not-too distant future about a subordinate’s masculinity, say, in conversation with other women executives over drinks?

CRIMES OF THE FATHERS

Recent news has exposed a truth about religion that we sometimes forget. Churches act like any organic institution. They deem the most important goal as the survival of the institution. Expedience overcomes ethical considerations if the threat is perceived to be to the institution. In this, churches are no different than dictatorships, police departments, armies, corporations, or any other bureaucracy. 

Cover-ups of misdeeds are justified by institutional logic. The church is needed and therefore is good. If someone within the organization, especially acting under the color of organizational authority, does wrong, the impulse of the hierarchy is to protect the image of the organization. If that goal is perceived to be best served by concealment of the wrongdoing, so be it.  

This was the motivation of the French army’s deceit in the Dreyfuss Affair, Chevrolet’s concealment of the Corvair’s defects, tobacco companies denial of medical evidence, and the Nixon administration’s crimes in Watergate, among innumerable examples throughout history.  

In New York, the Hasidic community recently has been shaken by exposure of the practice of deterrence and punishment of those who complain of abuses by rabbis and other men upon girls and women. Claiming the right to self-correction which all religious institutions have defended, the organization has protected the culprits and harassed accusers, contrary to secular law. “Abuse Verdict Topples a Hasidic Wall of Secrecy” New York Times, December 10, 2012.

The ongoing saga of sexual abuse cases by Catholic priests is marked by the long time policy of concealment of the abuses by church officials which compounded the crimes. The asserted rationale given for the cover-ups is interesting, if not completely credible, given the self-serving nature of the reasoning. Priest pedophiles were provided counseling and treatment in the belief that religious re-education and prayer could “cure” the moral failing perceived as inherent in “conditions” such as homosexuality. The claim was undercut by the frequent practice of repeated re-assignments of offending priests to different parishes despite reports of continuing abuses.  

California’s law mandating reporting of child sexual abuse claims by clergy as well as psychotherapists and school officials went into effect in 1974, forty years ago. Churches were thus on notice that their cover-ups were serious criminal acts. Because it is accepted that recidivism among pederasts is very high, knowingly risking exposure of children to known abusers is considered as serious a crime as child molestation itself. 

Statutes of limitations may have run on many of the abuses revealed recently because they go back even beyond forty years. (However, recent laws have extended the statute to certain abuse cases.) The Catholic Church seems more concerned with the financial ramifications of the scandals. Several dioceses in the United States have declared bankruptcy in efforts to limit their liability for law suits arising from claims by victims.  

Like many of my criminal clients, Cardinal Mahoney’s defense is to mitigate by pointing to his many good works. Fine, I am all for considering mitigation, which does not excuse or justify or even explain, but puts a whole life of a wrongdoer in perspective. 

Unlike the Church, I would not condemn, excommunicate, torture, or burn at the stake a sinner or deviant from the faith. However, nor would I excuse the sins merely because the sinner confessed or repented or claimed to have “found religion” after his crimes.