Jews Who Teach the Prosperity Mitzvah

Some of the Hasidic Jews were apparently tired of losing out financially to the prosperity-gospel Christians, so they came up with a wealth scheme of breathtaking scope. According to federal agents, Naftali Tzi Weisz, the grand rabbi of a Brooklyn-based sect called Spinka, and his gabbai (which roughly translates as “right hand man”), Moshe E. Zigelman, masterminded a money-laundering scheme whereby they solicited contributions for various Spinka charities, but told the donors that 95 percent of each donation would be secretly returned, so that the person could claim a tax deduction that would result in greater amounts of profit than the money donated. In order to do that, they had to wash the money, mostly through phony transactions in the jewelry district of downtown Los Angeles and wire transfers to secret bank accounts in Israel. (In case you’re having trouble following, we have Brooklyn’s Zigelman enabling Rabbi Weisz in a spunky Spinka spiral of trans-national finagling involving the trading of non-existent Los Angeles diamonds originating in Israel for non-existent charitable contributions resulting in very real transfers into shekels that are then paid to yeshivas back in Brooklyn, but not really, there’s just a little packet of currency kept for the original donor.) According to a 37-count federal indictment, the scam went on for more than ten years and resulted in more than $750,000 in profits just for Weisz and Zigelman alone. Six other people were indicted—three in Los Angeles and three in Israel. The case was broken by a secret cooperating witness who had himself given about $1.7 million to the Spinka charitable organizations, which included Yeshiva Imrei Yosef, Yeshivath Spinka, Central Rabbinical Seminary, Machne Sva Rotzohn, and Mesivta Imrei Yosef Spinka. (My eyes are glazing over. All you have to remember is that the Spinkites masterminded the whole meshuggah.)

Did Sandra Bullock Sign It?

Do documents like this—resolutions calling for peace between Iran and the United States, sponsored by Methodists and Jews—have any purpose beyond making all the signers feel like administrators in Hallmark Heaven? First of all, shouldn’t you have a Muslim sponsor as well? Maybe two of them, a Sunni and a Shia organization? The problem here is that everyone says they want peace. It doesn’t change anything to add a couple hundred names to those who say they want peace. What would make more sense—especially since this document was apparently cooked up in an effort to influence the Iowa primaries—is to say “Vote for this peacenik, he’ll get rid of the warmongers.” And anybody who doesn’t want world peace should be killed.

Get Your Christian Butts Out of the Prison

Americans United for Separation of Church and State won a big case against a Christian prison program, getting the InnerChange Freedom Initiative kicked out of a medium-security prison in Newton, Iowa, after four years running one of those total-immersion programs where prisoners are allowed to sign up for a very monkish regimen. (Only 104 guys wanted in, because it’s a 24/7 commitment and you don’t get any time taken off your sentence for participating.) This is one of those Chuck Colson programs that nobody who’s not already a Christian would be the slightest bit interested in. It probably transforms the life of the inmate more completely than the legal psychotherapy-based programs, but apparently it’s a moot point now. Listen up, people: the goal is to calm these mofos down, even if we have to say the G-word while we’re doing it.