Or why Let Love Get in the Way of a Good Swindle?

by Jeff Davis

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports a truly modern Jewish love story. Move over, Fiddler on the Roof and Crossing Delancey, here comes “Bernie and Sherie”.

The Ha’aretz article reports “An accountant and former chief financial officer at Hadassah who lost all of her personal savings in Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud revealed that she and the disgraced financier previously had an affair, Bloomberg News reported. The financial news agency reported that Sheryl Weinstein, 60, is publishing the account of her ties to Madoff in a book titled Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me, on August 25. Weinstein was in the New York courtroom on June 29, when Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for operating the massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded and bankrupted dozens of investors. According to Bloomberg, Weinstein told the judge that she and Madoff met 21 years ago when she was chief financial officer at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. ‘I now view that day as perhaps the unluckiest day of my life because of the many events set into motion that would eventually have the most profound and devastating effect on me, my husband, my child, my parents, my in-laws and all of those who depended on us,’ Weinstein said at the New York hearing.”

Apparently all the dirty sordid details of the affair will be revealed in Ms. Weinstein’s book “Sleeping with Weasels.” (OK. I made up that book title, but it would be fitting.)

The article notes “Hadassah, which also lost millions in Madoff’s scheme, in December lowered estimates of its losses. Hadassah initially said it had $90 million placed with Madoff, but clarified in a Dec. 29 letter that two thirds of that amount – $60 million – constituted the huge, but probably imaginary, profits that Madoff reported to the organization over two decades. The group’s principal investment with Madoff, it said, totaled only $33 million. (Whew! That’s a relief!) Another $7 million in Madoff funds, possibly real, possibly fraudulent, were donated by a French backer in 1988.”

Now, this begs several questions. First off, shouldn’t Ms. Weinstein be investigated for investing $33 million in a Ponzi scheme? Exactly how “innocent” was she –if you can use the word “innocent” with Bernie Madoff’s mistress. At the very least, should she have been investing money with someone she was sleeping with?

Is anyone surprised Madoff had a mistress? Madoff stole 60 billion dollars in the biggest financial swindle of all time. Is anyone really shocked that he was cheating on his wife? And how would the Jews be treating Madoff if he restricted his swindle to Gentiles? He would probably be a sort of Jewish folk hero. Madoff however was an equal opportunity swindler and cleaned out quite a few of his fellow Jews, who apparently hate him with a passion. Some people might say that some Jews hate Madoff more than Hitler. Madoff after all took away their money, which is apparently the worst thing you can do to a Jew.