I've missed the Madoff story. Because of my own issues, my assimilation and intermarriage and fears that angry Jews are about to tie me to a menorah and run me out of town, I've keyed into the ethnocentric aspects of Madoff's empire: all the Jews he was associated with, all the Jewish causes he was involved with. And that is there, of course: the ethnocentrism of Madoff's associates, and their Zionism.
But far more interesting is what Madoff reveals about the Jewish place in American life. We are at the top, and in many ways indistinguishable from other powerful people; and the great necessity, of running the American power structure, has broken down the ghetto walls. John Mearsheimer pointed this out to me yesterday:
There is an angle to this affair that should be dear to your heart, but
which nobody is talking about: assimilation. The fact that Jews are: 1)
so thoroughly assimilated into American culture, 2) so successful, and
3) and faced with philo-Semitism, not anti-Semitism, has caused a
significant weakening of tribal solidarity, which caused Madoff not to
care much about shafting his fellow Jews and caused those shafted to
let down their guard.
Like Franken-Coleman in Minnesota, Madoff shows the degree to which Jews are just another component of the Establishment, and Jewishness does not define their presence (again, leaving out the Zionism and tribal drums, for just one second). The news media are looking at all the Jewish causes Madoff ripped off. Madoff will be associated forever with the Lappin Foundation against assimilation, which has had to shut down, but here is Madoff's own niece, Shana Madoff, marrying blond Eric Swanson, of Minnesota. Madoff's marquee non-Jewish victim, Walter Noel, is represented by Howard Rubenstein, an ethnocentric Jew (and a fine man, I've always liked him); but ethnocentrism can't hold out against the duties of establishment life.
Equally significant to the Jewish causes Madoff burned are all the non-Jewish causes. Here at dailykos, for instance, my leftwing compatriots lament the destruction of progressive benefactors who were widely invested in Madoff funds. This couple, the Levy-Church's (who sound pretty goddamned assimilationist, to quote Holden Caulfield), gave millions to fine causes, like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Nation Institute; well, now the Levy-Churches' JEHT foundation (Justice, Equality, Human dignity, and Tolerance) is going under because of this shyster.
So Madoff's presence actually touches on a point I've made before, from my own life experience: that Jews are members in good standing in the Establishment, they come and go socially in upper class places. And no one really notices the Jewishness. They're just Jewish. Is it significant that Jews top the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, and are all over the goldlined turrets of neoconservatism? Of course it is– this has corrupted our foreign policy. But as time passes, and the blonde waves of philosemitism crash at the walls, Jewishness in the Establishment will signify less and less difference.
