Was it necessary for Jews to demonize poor Madoff to such an extent?

The chorus line of Bernard Madoff's victims who rushed to damn him on the airwaves last week following the ridiculously over-the-top 150-year prison sentence made me sick. At least one of the victims was a Holocaust survivor, which only made me feel worse.

He of all people should have retained some sense of proportion, having lost things of much more value than his money. Yes I know, Madoff was your friend, you trusted him with your money and he abused that trust, as he abused the trust of so many others. But why exactly is that worse than so many other corrupt embezzlers? Is it just because he managed to steal so much more? Because he made away with your confidence in such a consummate manner?

But what really gets my goat is that all those vultures hovering around, looking to take one last swipe at the Madoff carcass seem to be members of his own tribe. And it was as if they wanted everyone to know that.

Look how we, the Jewish people, consign our former brother to the eternal hell of the federal penitentiary. I'm surprised no-one has yet performed a herem (excommunication) on Madoff, with a shofar and black candles, and invited Fox News to broadcast it live.

The motivation here is clear. Madoff is the worst thing to happened to American Jewry since the Rosenbergs and now everyone has to scramble like crazy to get a foothold on the slippery slope because the alternative is almost unthinkable: an undercurrent of anti-Semitism the like of which American Jews haven't experienced for eight decades. More

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Hang 'Em High