Anti-Semitism and the Madoff Scandal

December 19, 2008

The financial scandal surrounding allegations that Bernard Madoff ran a $50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme has given anti-Semites fodder for their bigoted views. There has been a dramatic upsurge in anti-Semitic comments on a wide range of Web sites since the Madoff story broke in the news.

Anti-Semitic reaction to the Madoff scandal was prevalent on some of the most popular newspaper sites, blogs and message boards on the Internet. Most of the anti-Semitic comments tended to focus on alleged Jewish greed and thievery, as well as conspiracy theories linking financial losses to Israel. Extremists, including white supremacists and anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists also added their comments to the anti-Semitic mix.

Just a few years ago, anti-Semites only had their fellow cohorts with whom they could share their anti-Jewish views and conspiracy theories. Today, these same anti-Semites can be found ranting on mainstream Web sites from the comments sections of mainstream newspapers and blogs to financial message boards to Internet discussion groups. Their views are seen by hundreds of people who visit mainstream sites for news and information.

With much of the controversy surrounding Benard Madoff's presence in Florida, it is not surprising that Florida Web sites bore the brunt of anti-Semitic comments posted by users. By far the most active comment board containing anti-Semitic content was the Web site of the Palm Beach Post, a Florida-based newspaper. The Sun-Sentinel, another Florida-based newspaper, also had anti-Semitic comments.

From the Palm Beach Post

• Adolf wrote, "Just another jew money changer thief. It's been happening for 3,000 years. Trust a jew and this is what will happen. History has proven it over and over and over. Jews have only one god - money."
• Billy Whitebread American wrote, "Very few people wake up one day and decide to hate someone. It results from years or decades of negative experience. Consider that the average middle class person goes through, being surrounded by jews in PBC…. Do most jews treat the common people around them with respect? Y/N? …. Do most jews revel in "getting over" on the rest of society? …. Do jews overdo it with trying to make money on every little thing they can? … What effect on the regular persons view of jews, do you think all of this has over years of exposure to it? Whether you think it is "right" or "wrong" for people to cheer the losses from this fraud, think twice before you dismiss all of it as unprovoked racism."
• William Peals wrote, "Jews ripping off Jews, the economy must really be tough. The gov't will probably bail out these loses like it does to all other Jewish loses."
• Frank Veltner wrote, "Haha, this whole story reads like a holocaust story with the poor jews once again as victims, even though most of them have been getting paid BIG TIME by his fraud over the past 30 years. You wonder why Congressmen and Senators from both parties keep getting re-elected when they kiss AIPAC's butt? Because for every jew like Madoff paying them millions there are a hundred more jews scraping off the top of some other organization. At banks, Corporations, so-called "not-for-profits like NPR and Universities, jews have ensconced themselves so they can direct money to jewish causes. When you read how bad jews were hurt by the guy, you should laugh heartily, he made lots of money for his jew friends over the years and the few that are still holding the bag at this point in time are rare exceptions to the rule…"
• Htos1 wrote, "Ha!The monied NY jewish cabal is destitute."

From the Sun-Sentinel

• Thieving Bastards wrote, "The SEC is filled with Jewish gatekeepers who routinely turn a blind eye to Jewish financial bandits...It's no conspiracy that the Jews are the source of all financial troubles in the world."
• Adolf commented that Madoff is "just another jew money changer who robbed everyone…Jews worship only one god -- money. They are taught to hoard money from age 13."
• Bigbaby described Madoff as "a jew, jewing fellow jews, who were greedy jews."

• Anti-Semitic comments about the Bernard Madoff scandal appeared on popular, mainstream Web sites:
• "The greed and corruption of the Jews has brought the financial system and the American economy low," wrote Jeanrenoir on portfolio.com.
• "Ho hum, another Crooked Wall Street Jew. Find a Jew who isn't Crooked. Now that would be a story," wrote an anonymous poster on dealbreaker.com.
• "One jew thief robs another bunch of jew thieves - I suppose that's what you'd call a victimless crime," wrote XDFXDFXDF on nymag.com. "I suppose if he'd not scre*ed his fellow Jews - and robbed us poor gentiles it would've been absolutely kosher, eh?"
• "Jews ripping off jews. Priceless! haha now do the right thing Madoff and blow you brains out," wrote Avengers on nypost.com
• "Nice he could manage to send money to Isreal and pass the losses on to US investors," wrote Cbmiked on forbes.com.
• Responding to another poster who asked where the funds Madoff collected went, Guppyinthecesspooloflife wrote, "Money Heaven hmm, let me think , that'd be a underground vault somewhere in the Negev Desert in Palestine {isr-eal}," on huffingtonpost.com.
• "Well now we know…How Israeli banks have emerged unscathed as the rest of the world`s economy went into freefall," wrote Chris Linthwaite on haaretz.com.
• Patriot11 wrote on huffingtonpost.com: "What's more shameful are the charities that Madoff and peers fund... Since the uncovering of Madoff scheme, a whole underworld is now exposed. It's funny how a club can freely be called Jewish and exclusive. If it was any other way it would be again considered racist."
• An anonymous post on dealbreaker.com wrote, "Race, religion, party... None of that bullshit matters to me. People are people in my book. BUT - IT MATTERS TO THEM. From early childhood they are taught to look at the world in terms of 'Jew' or 'Other'. Thus, there will never be peace in Palestine, or anyplace to which they lay claim. In my experience, the worse thing you can assert to a hardnose JEW is that 'everyone is equal'."

Anti-Semites commented on the Bernard Madoff scandal on mainstream Internet discussion groups on Yahoo! and Google Groups focusing on finance.

Yahoo! Finance Groups

• Teething_teeth wrote, "This is what happens when you let Jews run amok in a country for too long."
• Brg89kl alleged that "You are guaranteed to get screwed when trusting a JEW."
• Kristineromans argued, "He is a jew, remember GODS CHOSEN PEOPLE , so he gets away with sh!t cuz the fukking dumb evangelicals are totally brainwashed !"
• HeferN wrote, "Jews should be banned from working on Wall Street. All they do is steal our money."
• Cube matrix wrote, "And history once again repeat it self for the so called chosen people!"
• Mark Graffis stated: "Wall Street crooks are about 95% Jewish with a lot of influence from the Russian Jewish mafia. The SEC was told about what Madoff was up to for years and did nothing."
• Sdmiller4747 commented, "Jews make up about %5 of the American population. That sounds about right when they say that %5 of the American population control %95 of America's wealth."

Google Groups

• Mr. Mediadumb remarked, "Notice how the jew owned media 'ignore' this news about this corrupt criminal jew."
• Kangarooistan wrote, "jews NEVER lose on the stock market scams THEY RUN THEM.."
• Winning man commented:
   

  WORLD'S MOST SUCCESSFUL THIEVES
  Latest ranking of the world's most successful
  thieves by name, home country or state, age where known, wealth in billions of dollars and the source of their stealing.

  1. Bernard Madoff, New York, 70, $50.1 Billion, J. Q. Public [JEW]
  7. Paul Allen, Washington, 53, $22, Microsoft, investments [JEW]
  11. Roman Abramovich, Russia, 39, $18.2, oil [JEW]
  12. Michael Dell, Texas, 41, $17.1, Dell [JEW]
  14. Sheldon Adelson, Nevada, 72, $16.1, casinos, hotels [JEW]
  15. Lawrence Ellison, California, 61, $16, Oracle [JEW]
  24. Steven Ballmer, Washington, 50, $13.6, Microsoft [JEW]

A regular source of bigotry, extremist Web sites also contained anti-Semitic comments about the Bernard Madoff scandal:

• An article from Judicial Inc., a virulently anti-Semitic Web site, described Madoff's acts as a "Zio-Ponzi scheme" and implied that the stolen money was sent to Israel. It also alleged that the people ripped off my Madoff were non-Jews and that Madoff's eventual trial will be overseen by a "Zionist judge" who will prevent him from going to prison.
• "Kentuckyanna True News," an anti-Semitic blog to which neo-Nazi figure Will Williams contributes, featured a comment from an individual calling himself Hawthorne, who said, "A good by-product of this... The parasitical nature of the jew is here for all to see. They will even prey on their own."
• On Stormfront, the largest and most popular white supremacist Internet forum a member named Blueearth wrote: "This is the jew in his natural environment, his modus operandi. I was reading earlier that, healthcare accounts for a huge percentage of our economy…The jews have controlled our science and our medicine for long enough. Just think if there was no profit to be made from medicine. I am sure cures have been found many times for certain diseases but, there is no profit in cure, only in long drawn out lengthy lifetime medication and therapy.:mad: The jew is malevolent to the core."

• Former Klan leader Don Black, who operates the Stormfront forum, co-hosts an Internet radio program with well-known anti-Semite and white supremacist David Duke. During a December 15, 2008, program, Duke discussed "these insider Jews;" Don Black viewed the scandal as the catalyst that will make others realize "who's behind a lot of these problems." He explained: "That's pretty much the psychology is that whatever's good for Jews is all we have to worry about…It think a lot of people will be waking up as to who's really behind all of these problems, so it's up to us to understand that they ensure the full truth and what's really going on, so that's the purpose of programs like this…We are reaching more people and it's up to all of us to ensure that we continue to reach more people with our message and the truth behind what's really going on…they're looking for answers, so it's up to us to provide them for them."
• On the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network (VNN) forum, a Virginia-based anti-Semite using the name N.B. Forrest stated, "If ever there were an ideal poster boychick for Big Kike financial thieves, this beady-eyed, plantain-snouted coin clipper is IT, jack."
• Also on the VNN forum, a New York-based individual called Gman wrote of Madoff: "This satan's whelp jew is no doubt typical of jews that run all the money in this country and around the world!! The level of jew complicity in our current financial situation is probably 100%!! Such evil bastards, all of them and this jew is a perfect example of that!! ….I would guess that it was his fellow jew parasites who were fleecing white clients of his filthy jew firm! If one studies the history of the jew, one will see how this race of vagabond parasites takes over a host and bleeds it dry as we are now being bleed dry! The jew becomes so intertangled with the host that the host does not even know it is being bled dry by the jew parasite!"
• Western Voices World News, the news Web site of the white supremacist European Americans United group, posted an article entitled "Zionist Financier Busted in Ponzi Scheme." The article states that "there is no denying that some ethnic Jews have played a disproportionate role in the events leading to the financial crisis…"
• In the neo-Nazi National Alliance's forum, NorseViking commented on the ability of anti-Semites to exploit the incident to spread their views. He wrote: "Lets [sic] just hope we see a lot more of this."

Anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists weighed-in on the Bernard Madoff scandal:

• An article by Christopher Bollyn, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, alleged that lost money from Bernard Madoff's failed scheme was funneled to Israel. He argued this was in keeping with long-standing Jewish financial practices, taught in the Talmud, that aim to "cheat the 'goyim'… and steal their money." Bollyn wrote that "all of the key players in the current financial crisis are Zionist Jews from a very small political/ethnic community in New York City." He also alleged that: "Indoctrinated by the Zionist-controlled mass media, most Americans are simply unaware that all of the key players in 9-11 and the current financial crisis come from a very small club, i.e. the Zionist Jewish criminal gang in the United States and their comrades in Israel."
• A Web site run by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense, featured an article authored by Henry Makow, another anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist and columnist for the Toronto-based Street News. In his article, Makow discussed the Madoff scheme and asked "whether there is some flaw in Jewish culture that makes so many Jews sacrifice personal integrity for financial success and power."