Is Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Jewish?

No, Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not a Jew. She is Catholic.

In the Times blogs, Charles M. Blow wrote about the religious composition of the court in his post called, "The Catholic Court":

"Thirty years ago eight of the nine Supreme Court justices were Protestant. Now only two are. Five are Catholic, and two are Jewish. If federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as a replacement for Justice David H. Souter, who is Protestant, she will become the sixth Catholic justice on the court."

Is Sotomayor the first Hispanic Supreme Court Judge?

Technically, you could argue that Sephardic Jewish judge Benjamin Nathan Cardozo was the first Hispanic judge to serve in the US Supreme Court. Cardozo served from 1932 until his death in 1938.

Cardozo was born in New York City, the son of Rebecca Washington (née Nathan) and Albert Jacob Cardozo. Both Cardozo's maternal grandparents, Sara Seixas and Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan, and his paternal grandparents, Ellen Hart and Michael H. Cardozo, were Sephardic Jews; their families immigrated from England before the American Revolution, and were descended from Jews who left the Iberian Peninsula for Holland during the Inquisition. Cardozo family tradition held that their ancestors were Marranos from Portugal, although Cardozo's ancestry has not been firmly traced to Portugal. [Wikipedia]

The AP reported via the StarTribune that, "Some definitions of Hispanic include Portugal and Portuguese-speaking cultures; others don't." [reposted]

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Is Peter B. Madoff Jewish?

Yes, Peter B. Madoff, brother of Bernard L. Madoff is a Jew.

Madoff's grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Poland, Romania and Austria, according to Wikipedia. Peter is a member of the Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation.

The Times reports that he will plead guilty to crimes connected to the Madoff Ponzi scheme.

For nearly four decades, as the second-in-command at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, Peter B. Madoff ran the family business alongside his older brother.

On Friday, Peter Madoff — more than three years after his brother, Bernard, confessed to running a vast Ponzi scheme that swindled investors out of billions of dollars — is expected to appear in Federal District Court in Manhattan and plead guilty to criminal charges, according to prosecutors. He would be the first relative of Mr. Madoff’s to admit to wrongdoing in connection with the fraud.

Peter Madoff has agreed to a prison term of 10 years, prosecutors said in a letter filed with the court on Wednesday. As part of his plea deal, he has agreed to forfeit $143 billion, a staggering penalty that he is not likely to be able to pay. But it is a government calculation based on the amount of money that passed through the firm and a clear indication that prosecutors will seize all of his assets....

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Where is the Fifth Avenue Synagogue?

Just where is that Fifth Avenue Synagogue, called by the New York Post shortly after the Madoff-Merkin scandals broke, the "Temple of Doom?"

Someone we know was invited to a life-cycle event at the Orthodox Fifth Avenue Synagogue but ended up at the Reform Temple Emanuel looking for the simcha.

How did that happen? Well Emanuel is actually on Fifth Avenue at 65th Street. And it really does look like a formidable synagogue. It is "the largest house of Jewish worship in the world." (See the picture.)

The Fifth Avenue Synagogue is not on 5th Avenue. It is on 62nd Street.

And the Fifth Avenue Synagogue does not look like a formidable house of worship. It looks like a modest row house with odd-shaped windows.

Now, there is nothing wrong with naming a place "Fifth Avenue" even if it is not actually on Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue has its main store on Fifth Avenue. But its branches in New Jersey are still called Saks Fifth Avenue. That makes them sound fancy and upscale, and that is the point.

Saks also has an "Off Fifth" store in the Bergen Mall in Paramus where they sell discounted fancy and upscale merchandise.

So for the record, in case you are looking for it: The Fifth Avenue Synagogue is off Fifth Avenue at 62nd Street. But just because it is off Fifth, don't expect any discounts or bargains on anything classy there. (Repost from 1/2/09)

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New Yorker's Talmudic Account of a Madoff Panel

From 1/19/09 we replay this (lightly) Talmudic analysis in the New Yorker of Madoff, starting with the premise that he was a goniff which is worse than a gazlan. With sex expert Ruth Westheimer quoting the sage Hillel. Also appearing Michael Steinhardt talking of the, "Banality of investing."

It was a clever current events report of a New York Jewish soiree that itself was an attempt to take a financial tragedy and try to kvetch it to death.

Reckoning: Thief or Crook?
by Lizzie Widdicombe

As anyone in New York can attest, there are multiple Bernie Madoff trials in the works, in addition to the bankruptcy case and the criminal one. “The Talmud makes a distinction between a thief and a crook,” Rabbi David Gaffney said last week, at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, on West Sixteenth Street, which was presenting a sold-out panel titled “Madoff: A Jewish Reckoning.” “A crook is somebody who comes in with a gun and holds people up. A thief is someone who comes in the night and steals his way into someone’s home. The thief is a more despicable person in the Jewish mentality, because he thinks he’s fooling God.”

This metaphysical accounting for Madoff’s alleged crimes was the theme of the panel, which was convened by Martin Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic, and included the historian Simon Schama, the philosopher Michael Walzer, and the prominent businessmen Michael Steinhardt, Mort Zuckerman, and William Ackman. Steinhardt, who has a bushy white mustache and wore an American-flag necktie, was standing in the lobby before the event, talking to his wife on his cell phone. He said that she had a problem with the event, and he handed the phone over. “I don’t like the title,” she said. “What do you think it means?” After a second, she added, “We’ll see what the geniuses say.”

First up was Zuckerman, who, Peretz noted in an introduction, “sits at the table of the mighty” and “also lost a pocket of money to Madoff.” (The Mortimer B. Zuckerman Charitable Trust was invested with the Madoff-connected fund manager J. Ezra Merkin.) Zuckerman said that he disliked the phrase “a Jewish reckoning.” “It’s a Ponzi scheme,” he said. “The last time I checked, Ponzi was not Jewish. He was Italian.” He pointed out that Kenneth Lay, of Enron, “was never identified as a prominent Protestant energy broker.” He brought up the word “credit,” which, he noted, comes from the Latin credere, “to believe,” and concluded, “What Mr. Madoff did and what Mr. Merkin did was to undermine trust.”

Next, Schama talked about the historical links between anti-Semitism and capitalism, going back to the tulip bubble of seventeenth-century Holland. Quoting Thomas Carlyle’s “The French Revolution,” he said, “O shrieking beloved brother blockheads of Mankind!,” and went on, “It may be necessary for us to grieve and shriek and sit shivah over this particularly ghastly moment in our collective life.” Steinhardt, who lost money with Madoff, too, wondered, more simply, “What was so special about this guy?” Echoing Hannah Arendt, he decried “the banality of investing,” and he came down hard on the charities that had trusted Madoff.

Ackman was next, and he used his turn at the lectern to defend Merkin. “My guess is that Mort, No. 1, never read the offering memorandums,” he said. “Mort called him up and said, ‘I’d like to give you some money,’ and Ezra probably said, ‘Terrific. I’ll send you a copy of the documents,’ and his secretary filled them out.” (Zuckerman had left the panel early. The next day, he told Ackman that this was not the case.) Ackman said that Merkin wasn’t a bad man. A hand went up in the audience: “Don’t you think that, at least, we can call Ezra Merkin a lazy man?”

Ackman said no, and this led to a dispute with Peretz, who is the chairman of the Board of Overseers of YIVO, about whether it’s appropriate for charity-board members to manage their own charity’s money. Peretz said, “Let me say, YIVO didn’t have a dime with Madoff.”

“But YIVO doesn’t have a dime,” Ackman replied.

Peretz said, “There are ways to remedy this.”

The conversation turned to the S.E.C. (“a bunch of wusses”), and Peretz grew impatient. “I want a Jewish question,” he told the audience. An older woman in a purple vest raised her hand. Speaking from a theological perspective, she asked, “What would be an appropriate punishment for Bernie Madoff? Excommunication? Strip him of money, an eye for an eye?” Someone else suggested, “Stoning?”

When the session was over, the audience poured into the aisles. “I think it was fascinating,” said Ruth Westheimer, the sex doctor, who’d been sitting up front. She was especially happy because at first she’d been stuck in an overflow room with a simulcast screen. “In the Jewish tradition, there is someone by the name of Hillel,” she said. “He didn’t have enough money to study, so he’d go up on the roof and listen. I paid for my ticket. Thirty-five dollars and ninety cents.” Peretz, too, was pleased with the panel, though he wished people hadn’t been so touchy about the title. The phrase “Jewish reckoning” wasn’t supposed to have Biblical overtones, he said. “I just made it up.” ♦

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J. Ezra Merkin settles Madoff-related lawsuit with New York | Reuters

Reuters, the Times and other sources report that J. Ezra Merkin settled his Madoff-related lawsuit with New York Attorney General. Merkin will make restitution. The Times reports, "Hedge Fund Manager to Pay $405 Million in Madoff Settlement," By DIANA B. HENRIQUES:

Clients of J. Ezra Merkin, a prominent Wall Street hedge fund manager who invested his clients’ money in Bernard L. Madoff’s epic Ponzi scheme, will recover more than $400 million under a civil settlement negotiated by the New York State attorney general’s office.

After shaking hands with him on Shabbat at the Jewish Center of Atlantic Beach, we had a distinct sense that after 3.5 years of litigation, Merkin was relieved.

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Video: The Jewish Channel Exposes Anti-Zionist Work of Former Republican Spokesman Yossi Gestetner

Bravo. Solid journalism by TJC.

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Slate: What is the Penalty for Eating a Non-Kosher Hot Dog?

Here we go. We knew this would not be pretty when we saw that ambulance chasing lawyers were suing Hebrew National. It is a desecration of the reputation of Judaism.

Now the whole premise of Kosher foods is coming under close scrutiny and it is not pretty. Because the secret is that today there is no earthly religious penalty for eating a non-kosher hot dog.

There is the danger that an Orthodox person who brazenly eats non-kosher will be criticized or ostracized in his family or community. But we guess that 90% of today's Jews don't keep kosher. In their eyes the practice is an irrelevant relic of the past. And nobody ostracizes them for that.

There are theological premises (theoretical and imagined) that it is wrong to eat treif and in some future world after one's death in some form or other, having eaten non-kosher things will not serve a person well. (Bestselling book Idea - Note to Self - "Heaven is for Real - Except for those who eat Hebrew National.")

Slate's explainer, explains some of this. Hebrew National lawsuit: What happens to Jews who eat non-kosher food? Oh yes, the larger fonted part of that Slate headline is "Swine and Punishment." Ha.

And next when the real comedians get hold of this affair, well it gets uglier.

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AP: Blackwell Burke Law Firm has Sued ConAgra Foods Over Hebrew National Kosher Claims

The AP reports that the Blackwell Burke Law Firm in Minneapolis has sued ConAgra Foods, owners of Hebrew National Kosher brands.

...ConAgra Foods Inc. says a lawsuit that claims its products aren't really kosher is without merit. The suit claims that ConAgra, based in Omaha, Neb., charges premium prices for Hebrew National meats, which it says aren't really 100 percent kosher...

We do not believe that this suit will last long before being dismissed.

It's quite simple why this matter will go nowhere in the courts.

ConAgra has ordained rabbis or their delegates on the premises. They monitor the production and certify the food as kosher.

According to Jewish religious law, as long as a rabbi declares meat kosher, it is kosher. It is the rabbinic decision that renders the food kosher. There are no percentage analog kosher standards. The status is binary. A food is either kosher or treif as determined by the religious beliefs and practices of Jews according to the laws of the Torah and the rabbinic laws of the Talmud, Codes and Responsa. See our translation of Hullin for many of those Talmud laws, Kosher Talmud: Babylonian Talmud Hullin.

To the best of our knowledge and judgement, that is pure religious practice, based 100% on religious beliefs, a matter that cannot and will not be adjudicated in our government court systems.

We'd guess that the simple and obvious decision to dismiss this case will be one page or less.

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Book Notice: Relics for the Present: Contemporary Reflections on the Talmud by Levi Cooper

Relics for the Present: Contemporary Reflections on the Talmud by Levi Cooper is a wonderful, learned book of comments and insights on the first five chapters of the Talmud Bavli Berakhot, the relic that the author brings into the present through his interpretations based on rabbinic authorities that he cites whose listing runs five plus pages.

The book is clearly written and deftly argued. The lessons that Rabbi Dr. Cooper extracts are sensitive and sensible.

We recommend this volume to anyone wanting to learn more about Jewish prayer through the prisms of great Talmudic and later rabbinic authorities.

By coincidence we have published an anthology of the texts of the first five chapters of Talmud Yerushalmi Berakhot in a Kindle ebook edition, Kosher Prayers: an Anthology from the Talmud Yerushalmi Berakhot. Like the Bavli, the Talmud of Land of Israel in Yerushalmi Tractate Berakhot presents many of the ancient rabbis’ discussions about Jewish prayers with particular attention to how to pray the major Jewish prayers, the Shema and the Amidah for the weekdays, Sabbaths and holidays.

Together the two volumes will enhance in different ways a person's understanding of the daily prayers of the Jewish liturgy.

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Is David Yerushalmi Jewish?

Previously we wrote about anti-Shariah crusader David Yerushalmi. He is back in the news again at the National Review and Mother Jones, according to Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches.

A strong objection at NR to Yerushalmi's crusade is that he proposes a preemptive solution to a problem that does not yet exist.

On 7/31/11 we wrote: The Times has a front page article on the lawyer, David Yerushalmi, "The Man Behind the Anti-Shariah Movement" by Andrea Elliot. It is quite negative in tone, critical of his anti-Shariah agenda, his campaign against Islamic law.

We are opposed to every facet of Yerushalmi's bigoted campaign. Let us make it as clear as possible. Attacking Sharia as an evil by association with terrorism is equivalent to attacking Nike shoes because terrorists wear them. Law, scripture, propaganda -- all those can be the clothing of evil and terror. Going after the garb to make it outlawed is a misdirection of gargantuan proportions that will accomplish nothing except to engender a backlash.

Finally, the Times is catching up and catching on. Nearly five months ago we criticized this agenda, based on what we read in a Mother Jones article. On 3/7/2011, we posted this about David Yerushalmi:

Yes, David Yerushalmi is a Jew. According to an email by him published in Mother Jones, he is an Orthodox, practicing Jew. He says, "My parents are Russian Jewish immigrants who came to this country ...in the 20th century." Yerushalmi is an attorney and a right wing political activist.

The article in Mother Jones is quite negative and accusatory from the title on through, "Meet the White Supremacist Leading the GOP's Anti-Sharia Crusade." Its author Tim Murphy summarizes his attack on Yerushalmi, "States across the country are considering far-right bills to ban Islamic law. For that, we have hate-group leader David Yerushalmi to thank."

He goes on to describe the Yerushalmi campaign quite negatively:

Last week, legislators in Tennessee introduced a radical bill that would make "material support" for Islamic law punishable by 15 years in prison. The proposal marks a dramatic new step in the conservative campaign against Muslim-Americans. If passed, critics say even seemingly benign activities like re-painting the exterior of a mosque or bringing food to a potluck could be classified as a felony.

The Tennessee bill, SB 1028, didn't come out of nowhere. Though it's the first of its kind, the bill is part of a wave of related measures that would ban state courts from enforcing Sharia law. (A court might refer to Sharia law in child custody or prisoner rights cases.) Since early 2010, such legislation has been considered in at least 15 states. And while fears of an impending caliphate are myriad on the far-right, the surge of legislation across the country is largely due to the work of one man: David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based white supremacist who has previously called for a "war against Islam" and tried to criminalize adherence to the Muslim faith.

The anti-Sharia movement gets quite Talmudic in the ways that tries to avoid the appearance of racism, while accomplishing its anti-Islamic aims. Yerushalmi's sample legislation, which he promotes, cloaks itself in language substitutions, as in,

...a sample bill Yerushalmi drafted at the behest of the American Public Policy Alliance, a right-wing organization established with the goal of protecting American citizens from "the infiltration and incursion of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, especially Islamic Shariah Law."

In a 40-minute PowerPoint that's available on the organization's site, Yerushalmi explained the ins and outs of the sample legislation. His bills differ from the failed Oklahoma amendment in one key way: They don't mention Sharia. Instead, they focus more broadly on "foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines." As Yerushalmi explained in an interview with the nativist New English Review in December, the language is "facially neutral," thereby achieving the same result while "avoiding the sticky problems of our First Amendment jurisprudence."

We are not pleased to read about Yerushalmi accusations that he supports racists and racism,

Yerushalmi has suggested that Caucasians are inherently more receptive to republican forms of government than blacks—an argument that's consistent with SANE's mission statement, which emphasizes that "America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white." And in an article published at the website Intellectual Conservative, Yerushalmi, who is Jewish, suggests that liberal Jews "destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite." Unsurprisingly, then, Yerushalmi offered the lone Jewish defense of Mel Gibson, after the actor’s anti-Semitic tirade in 2006. Gibson, he wrote, was simply noting the "undeniable Jewish liberal influence on western affairs in the direction of a World State."

Despite his racist views, Yerushalmi has been warmly received by mainstream conservatives; his work has appeared in the National Review and Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace. He's been lauded in the pages of the Washington Times. And in 2008, he published a paper on the perils of Sharia-compliant finance that compelled Sen. Minority Whip John Kyl (R-Ariz.) to write a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox.

Oy, we are liberal and Jewish and simply don't like being compared to "a fatal parasite" -- so Mr. Yerushalmi has not exactly won us over, even with his sharply argued Talmudic rhetoric.

The man replies after the fact to the article, having refused to be interviewed by the writer whom he accuses of "bigoted journalism." Okay but why now write an email? In it Yerushalmi denies that he is a "white supremacist" because, "As an Orthodox Jew, whose grandparents and parents were immigrants to this country, I am the first person that real white supremacists wish to murder. Have you not read neo-Nazi or KKK literature?" Murphy probably did read that literature, which adds to the contradictions that enhance the newsworthiness of this story.

Yerushalmi denies he is racist, even though he admits that his writings are suffused with racist discussions.

And he gets worked up because something else Murphy says.

Secondly, you suggest I am a racist because I criticize liberal Jews. I dare say that insofar as I am an orthodox, practicing Jew, my criticism of liberal Jews can hardly be counted as "racism;" yet, indeed, you make this asinine argument.

This fails the Talmud test, there is no logic here in the refutation. If Murphy sees fit to apply the tag racist to a Jew because of how he attacks other Jews, that is his right - and it is all the more ironic and interesting.

And then we listen as Mr. Yerushalmi calls other charges in Murphy's essay, "patently absurd" or a "patent falsehood" or "a bigoted ad hominem attack" and threatens Murphy with "a legal brief" and implies that he will sue Murphy for "actual malice."

Whew!

We are grateful that this article and reply came out before the Jewish holiday of Purim. It gives us a chance to point out a timely seasonal irony.

To preface this, when we were twelve we wrote a school report on Judah P. Benjamin, a Jewish politician who supported slavery in the US Senate and then rose to political prominence in the Confederacy during the civil war. While in the Senate, once after Benjamin delivered an eloquent pro-slavery speech, one of his opponents rose to criticize Benjamin, calling him "an Israelite with Egyptian tendencies." Even at the age of twelve we could see that this a was delicious political rhetorical irony.

Shifting to the case at hand, the enemy of the Jews in the book of Esther is the nefarious Haman, the Agagite.

He conspires with the King of Persia in a racist anti-Semitic plot to have the Jews killed,

Then Haman said to King Ahasverus, "There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not for the king's profit to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed..." (Esther 3:8-9).

Well certainly, Yerushalmi is not seeking to pass legislation to kill all the Muslims in our kingdom.

But  he does go after a certain people dispersed among us, the Muslims. And he does go after their laws that are different from those of every other people. We do think it is fair to rise in the chamber of debate and to ask ironically, is Mr. Yerushalmi a Jew with Agagite tendencies? Is he acting in ways that appear nefarious and racist against another people? Obviously, Murphy thinks that he is, and it makes for an interesting article.

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SPIEGEL: A Tired and Withdrawn Pope Ignores the Vatican Power Struggle

A highly negative article in Der Spiegel reports on the status of the pope, a man who leads a church with a membership of 1.166 billion people that employs more than 400,000 Catholic priests.

In the article summary: "The mood at the Vatican is apocalyptic. Pope Benedict XVI seems tired, and both unable and unwilling to seize the reins amid fierce infighting and scandal. While Vatican insiders jockey for power and speculate on his successor, Joseph Ratzinger has withdrawn to focus on his still-ambiguous legacy."

Note that the description "apocalyptic" does not fit the story. Except that it implies end times, the term denotes, "predicting or presaging imminent disaster and total or universal destruction."

While the pope may be judged a failure as a leader in some respects, there are no signs presently of any imminent destruction of the Catholic Church (or of the world) described in the Spiegel article.

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Happy Father's Day? Celebrate the Life of Your Dad

How can you be happy on Father's day when your dad just passed away a few weeks before?

I guess you celebrate his life and his achievements.

Here is an excerpt from the Kindle Edition which I published in honor of Zev Zahavy's recent sheloshim, thirty days after his passing. This book was originally published by my dad in 1978.

Whence and Wherefore by Zev Zahavy
The Cosmological Destiny of Man Scientifically and Philosophically Considered. An Analysis Relating to "In the Centre of Immensities" by Sir Bernard Lovell

Wherefore

1 A COURAGEOUS QUESTION

One wonders how many of the distinguished scholars who listened to the significant presidential address delivered by Sir Bernard Lovell on that singular summer day in August 1975 recognized immediately its extensive ramifications. The subject of the paper at the time of its presentation was pointedly designated, “In the Centre of Immensities.” Its title relates to the classic work Sartor Resartus, by Thomas Carlyle, which first appeared in Fraser’s Magazine in 1833-34, at about the time when England’s leading men of science were advancing the cause of their newly formed organization, the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Among others, Carlyle boldly addressed science and expressed his concern for man’s basic existentialist identity and destiny. He was prompted by a desire to develop meaningful relationships between man and the mysterious universe of extensive expanse.

It is my estimation that the purposeful selection of a quotation from Carlyle before a body representing the distinguished scientific establishment conveys more than merely a setting for cosmological analysis. I believe that it contains a hint of majestic proportions insofar as amending the current materialistic outlook and philosophy of science. It points the way for the assumption of a new posture by men of science in their encounter with problems of existentialist overtones, and this is somewhat implied by placing before them for serious consideration, Carlyle’s inquiry, wherein he says of man, “Stands he not thereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities?”

The New York Times deserves a measure of credit for exhibiting an alertness to the full significance of Professor Lovell’s presentation. It was published with some slight revisions as the lead cover-article in the Sunday magazine section on November 16, 1975, where it was endowed with the simple, but extremely provocative title, “Whence,” to which was further appended a rather enigmatic, philosophical subtitle, “We Are What We Know About Where We Came From.”

Quite appropriately, then, “Whence” may portray a milestone in the maturing of modern scientific thought. The essence of “Whence” signals to the contemporary scientist the explicit fact that other questions besides the normal “how” of the laboratory should come to the awareness of the researching mind. Perhaps this may come as a surprise to the current scientific generation, who, for the most part, are steeped in a materialistic attitude toward life and toward the tasks in their demanding discipline. Most of them, since their early freshman years, were indoctrinated with a scientific spirit that stressed the virtue of committing all investigations to the arena of “how.” Now, thanks to the courage of a leading scientist in the British Association, the staid rank and file are suddenly confronted with the challenge “whence.”

At first glance it may seem that the question “whence” may ruffle the traditional tranquility of the heretofore impregnable laboratory fortress of science and disturb its tidy security. After all, the query is a cardinal interpolation and points to an ultimate origin of some sort. “Whence” suggests the need to explore a philosophical abode where abstract concepts prevail. It anticipates the need to consider the broad domain of idealism. Science, however, is committed mainly to research in the world of concrete substance, and indeed the physical cosmos is now envisaged as extending into the remote areas of the atom’s invisible nucleus as well as unto the farout reaches of space. Does “whence” imply that the candid scientist in the coming space age must inevitably turn his sights in the direction of the divine domain?

Let us further consider the implications of Professor Lovell’s reference to an essential motif in Sartor Resartus. It is possible to discern in Carlyle’s work additional parallels that are quite relevant to our contemporary turbulent era of advanced technology. Some of the problems viewed by Carlyle in his generation may currently apply to our own day and age, as well. Behind a facade of amusing satire and frivolity, Sartor Resartus enunciates some very earnest and prudent thoughts.

For example, Carlyle was moved to produce his masterful work as an expression of disdain for the extensive materialistic outlook of his generation. Like the prophet of old, he ranted against the spiritual deficiencies of his age. The book’s title is commonly translated “Tailor Retailored,” and the philosophical influence of German spiritual idealism is strongly evident.

According to Carlyle, civilization is a tired robe enveloping the essential. world soul. Since appearances are deceiving, physical Identities can hardly claim reality. The most important aspect of life is the divine principle, but it is concealed by the extensive garment of nature. While the godless ones experience negative points in a life bereft of spiritual values, the Godly ones endeavor to retrieve valid meaning from life’s depths through dedication and spiritual heroism.

Life is woven with tragic elements such as the finitude of worldly dimensions dominated by time and space. Nature’s garments symbolically conceal from man the true essence and meaning of the universe. God’s divine spirit is hidden behind the .splendorous vesture of creation. Contrary to popular belief, which sets happiness as the ultimate goal III life, Carlyle suggests that communion with God is a greater achievement. Life’s enigmas are not readily discerned, nor can life’s rewards be easily attained.

In reference to the science of his day, Carlyle notes that It had hardly penetrated the shrouded spiritual mysteries concealed behind the outer vestment of nature. Carlyle abhors the condition of man enslaved to custom. The seeker of truth must wage relentless battle against the futile elements of custom. Science, however, is enamored with custom, and in dogmatic fashion, it helps to maintain human bondage.

Sartor Resartus reflects Carlyle’s own spiritual struggles to set a meaningful course in life. In some respects, his work evokes an existentialist mood. Carlyle rejects the assumption of a negative attitude toward life, since it would eradicate God and foster a hopeless existence. Instead, he announces his faith in God, and he endorses the possibility of reaching divinity through hard labor and courage.

If we may assume that Professor Lovell’s citation from Carlyle is indicative of a sympathy toward its broader, general implications, then we are presented with a statement of far-reaching proportions. Let us examine at further length the text of the selected quotation. The passages appear in chapter ten of Sartor Resartus, which is endowed with the title “Pure Reason.” This calls to mind Kant, who was one of the foremost discoursers on pure reason.

The paragraph containing the quotation commences in the following manner: “To the eye of vulgar Logic ... what is man? An omnivorous Biped that wears Breeches.” The famed exponent of logic is Aristotle. Carlyle here indicates a none-too-great affection for that peripatetic philosopher. Carlyle returns to the Platonic theme of his literary symphony, and continues his exposition with evident warmth.

To the eye of Pure Reason what is he? A Soul, a Spirit, and divine Apparition. Round his mysterious ME, there lies, under all those wool rags, a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses), contextured in the Loom of Heaven; whereby he is revealed to his like, and dwells with them in Union and Division; and sees and fashions for himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thousands of Years. Deep-hidden is he under that strange Garment; amid Sounds and Colours and Forms, as it were, swathed-in, and inextricably over-shrouded: yet it is sky-woven and worthy of a God. Stands he not thereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities? He feels; power has been given him to know, to believe; nay does not the spirit of Love, free in its celestial primeval brightness, even here, though but for moments look through? Well said Saint Chrysostom, with his lips of gold, “the true SHEKINAH is Man”: where else is the GOD’S-PRESENCE manifested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in our fellow-man?

The strains of idealism continue to flow from the philosopher’s pen with delicate charm:

In such passages, unhappily too rare, the high Platonic Mysticism of our Author, which is perhaps the fundamental element of his nature, bursts forth, as it were, in full flood: and, through all the vapour and tarnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in his exterior and environment, we seem to look into a whole inward Sea of Light and Love; –though, alas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together again, and hide it from view.

Carlyle invokes a thoughtful mood of theistic idealism, which suggests the revelation of the Divine Presence, the Shekinah, so to speak, through an awareness of ego noesis; and a brief glimpse of the Divine Personality through the appearance of natural law from whence emanates the vibrations of dynamic moral norms. We shall discuss such concepts more fully in a later chapter. At the moment, let us briefly examine some aspects of idealism and materialism that prominently relate to the contemporary scene.

There are some who submit that basically philosophy is comprised of two principle systems: idealism and materialism. Idealism sponsors the view that mind or spirit is primary in the universe. Materialism proposes that matter is primary in the universe. More specifically, idealism looks beyond that which appears to common sense experience in search of an ultimate nonphysical abstract reality. It considers the concepts and values consequently emerging from such an exploration as the fundamental mainstay of the cosmos. Materialism, on the other hand, regards all such emergent notions as items readily reducible to material things and processes.

Idealism embraces a number of subordinate doctrines such as subjective idealism, objective idealism, and to some extent, pantheism. The latter would come under this heading by virtue of its opinion that only God, including His attributes, alone exists. For the pantheist, the material world is either an aspect of God, or the entire appearance of God. As an aspect of God, some elements of idealism may be professed; however, if the universe is considered to embrace the entire appearance of God, then such a pantheistic notion could better serve the interests of the materialist. In all, idealism entails a divergent spectrum of classifications ranging from Platonism and panpsychism to personalism and absolutism. Our interest in the term refers to a thesis common to all elements of Idealism. Perhaps we may offer as its identification the term “theistic idealism.” In contrast, when we speak of materialism, we refer to what could be called “atheistic materialism.”

The idealists reflect an essential aspect of Platonism by regarding ideas and ideals as prior to and fundamental for material construction. At the other pole, materialists consider ideas as a derivative of matter and of secondary significance, much as did Democritus, Empedocles, and Lucretius. An important point in absolute Idealism is the emphasis upon relating the identity of reality with the Absolute.

It is tempting to depict the fluctuations in human intellectual history on a simplified scale, with a pendulum swinging between two integral doctrines. If one yield: to such a description of intellectual variations, the two basic extremes deserving to be so cited are idealism and materialism. Generally speaking, then, the main contours of western social and intellectual expression could be depicted as inclining toward either idealism or materialism. The type of idealism or the cast of materialism a generation chooses to reflect can be expected to influence the popular mores and social behavior of its society. For this reason, the promotion of theistic idealism could have far-reaching beneficial effects, since it subscribes not only to God, but also to a high moral code considered to be of divine essence.

Theistic idealism exalts God as the creator of a universe beyond or outside of His own being. Although the material world is dependent on God, it is not an aspect or appearance of God. Beneath the banner of theistic idealism a metaphysic becomes possible that may favorably synthesize religious doctrine and belief in accord with its principles. Theistic idealism upholds God as the fundamental, perfect creator of the universe. Theistic idealism does not necessarily dismiss the physical cosmos as an illusion of the mind. It does regard the material world as conforming to laws and formulae that preceded all existence.

Idealism traces its roots back to Plato, whose “Doctrine of Ideas” exalted the Idea or Form as being more real than its actual material counterpart. The Idea described a universal as permanent in contrast to its particular, temporal counterpart. When the particular conforms to the universal, it can only approximate the perfection of its formula, blueprint, or design. That which is real for Plato must be eternal, indestructible, and intangible. The abstract idea, as apprehended by the intellect, fulfills these requirements. Medieval philosophers established the Ideas as paradigms for divine creation, and they therefore were considered to exist in the divine intellect.

The being of all data that is experienced by the senses is only transitory in its nature. Perceived matter is temporal, variable, subject to the vagaries of time and tide, and therefore impossible to identify at any given moment as the permanent embodiment of its species or class. The Real, on the other hand, exhibits an indubitable permanence, because it serves as the law to which matter is committed. Such law is enduring and immutable. It is beyond the tangible reach of the senses. The Idea as the Real is uniquely self-subsistent; it is dependent neither upon the mind nor upon the material world for its existence.

First there was the Idea or Form, then there followed the implementation of the Idea through the appearance of matter. The objective of matter was to subscribe to the law, the formula, or the equation to which it was committed. Matter itself could not compose its own paradigm, nor could it propose its own Idea. The pre-existent idea determined the manner of particle composition and behavior. Even the erratic quantum qualities act in accordance with their pre-existent Idea, which endorses their erratic motion.

But, from whence came the Ideas themselves? Their source derived from what Plato identified as the “Good.” Perhaps an acceptable explanation of this concept would simply be God.

When Carlyle espoused the spirit of Platonism in line with German idealism, he was inspired by the recognition of a universal as the supreme entity in the cosmos. The idealist notes that matter itself is committed to an ideal, namely its Idea or Formula. For the materialist, matter is responsible to nought but itself. In a civilization inspired by idealism, man recognizes the supremacy of a higher authority. In a self-serving, materialistic society, man assumes that he is only responsible to himself.

The grand tradition of idealism occupies a distinguished chapter in the history of British thought. George Berkeley (1685-1753) developed what he termed “immaterialism” in an age of English empiricism, when the doctrines of the determined materialist, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the empirical dualist, John Locke (1632-1704), and the empirical skeptic, David Hume (1711-76), were competing for the favor of British acceptance. Berkeley considered that man can only know his own ideas. He upheld the concept that all we know are sensations and ideas, and considered a proof for the existence of outer material substance as unlikely. The world of ideas was paramount, and he conceived two varieties, namely: ideas within the mind wholly; ideas that come to us from without, we know not whence-sensations. Since there are no material substances, the cause must be incorporeal. We assume that our ideas belong to our spirits, so these outer ideas are similarly in the custody of a “spirit,” who is better identified as God.

In Germany, idealism blossomed along several hues. Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), a rational idealist, sponsored a metaphysical idealism, contending that reality consists of monads that affect each other. He proposed a series of realms of being. God is the supreme, uncreated spiritual source. Created substances are immaterial, and the self-conscious members are formed in God’s image.

The towering figure of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) arises in the age of Enlightenment. It was a period that glorified knowledge, extolled the sciences and the arts, and encouraged civilization and progress. The Enlightenment in England was somewhat slower in its development and not as radical. Nevertheless, the English influence is strongly apparent, with the ideas of Locke practically formulating the whole spirit of the Enlightenment. Generally speaking, the Enlightenment developed the scientific view of the material world, and absolutized scientific knowledge.

Often overlooked is the English influence on the development of German idealism. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century English thought was transmitted for German study through the translations of Locke, Hume, and the English moralists, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Ferguson. Consequently, German philosophy assumed an eclectic disposition, with emphasis on the rational, teleological aspects of the universe and mankind’s history. Reason was applied to remove the blemish of popular superstition. A rational theology developed, emphasizing nature, so that when Kant brought forth his transcendental idealism, he reflected the spirit of the times.

Kant was intrigued with English empiricism, and it motivated his own philosophical thinking toward the contemporary issues of his age. His purpose was to diminish the skepticism of Hume and to eradicate the specter of materialism, fatalism, and atheism. Kant’s philosophy is enormously complex, so that we shall suffice by mentioning only a few of its highlights. Hume’s skepticism moved Kant to distrust physical science as a total explanation of knowledge. Kant adopted a Neoplatonic position insofar as conceiving a suprarational self through which an ethical motif may gain ascendency. He regarded knowledge as universal and necessary. In his analysis of pure reason, he concluded that the will and not reason is decisive in determining things. Practical reason is superior to theoretical reason. Religion within the bounds of reason is exemplified in a high morality. The moral law is a categorical imperative.

The spirit of absolute idealism is reflected in the writings of Johann Fichte (1762-1814), Friedrich von Schelling (1775-1854), and Georg Hegel (1770-1831). The problem for these post-Kantian idealists was the search for a common denominator for the purpose of unifying the systems of knowledge embracing nature, science, morals, and aesthetics. It was desirable to solidify the various tendencies into a systematic form.

Kant had left a lasting impression on his successors. In his opposition to the naturalistic world view ,with its mechanism, atheism, and hedonism, Kant limited natural science to the field of phenomena. There was, he concluded, a higher type of truth than that offered by scientific facts. What Kant called das Ding an sich, “the thing-in-itself” or noumenon, remains beyond the reach of sensual identification. As an abstraction, it becomes a necessary idea of reason, and a regulative principle desiring a unification of the soul, the world, and God. Within man, the cognizance of moral rectitude implies the existence of a supersensible world, and this is closed to the physical methods of research. This moral law is Kant’s categorical imperative. The mind possesses concepts and presuppositions that are useful in assessing the world. It is not a question of reflecting upon cosmic phenomena, but endeavoring to understand and interpret them. Man’s concepts provide him with the tools for interpreting, by applying the principle of synthesizing.

Kant’s philosophy found favor in the eyes of the new generation. By minimizing its claims to knowledge, it offered an opportunity for turning from the natural sciences as the predominant influence in life. Along these lines, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel commenced their inquiries with the intelligible world, or freedom, emanating from the moral law. The ideal or supersensible world, the world of the mind or spirit, was installed as the real world. All knowledge and experience was considered to flow from self-determining spiritual expression, and with it the attempt to solve humanity’s problems became more conceivable.

Mention should be made of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who was a distinguished theologian and an essential spokesman of the German idealistic movement. He sought a concept of reality that would be acceptable to both the intellect and the feelings. Schleiermacher turned away from Fichte’s view that considered the Ego as the source of all reality. Instead, he assumed the existence of a real world, and he inferred a transcendent basis for all thought and being. Since our perceptions are not equipped to gain sufficient knowledge concerning the original source of things, it is necessary to seek the absolute principle, and know the identity of thought and being. God is this principle. He is the absolute unity or identity of thought and being. Schleiermacher endeavors to harmonize elements of pantheism with dualism by identifying God and the world as a unity. Although God and the universe are inseparable, things and the world have a relative independence. God is a spaceless, timeless unity. The world is a spatial-temporal plurality.

The preceding constitutes the basic concepts of German idealism that Thomas Carlyle helped to introduce upon English soil. He was ably joined in this project by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Ruskin. It is strange that these four personalities are popularly known for their literary contributions, but hardly at all recognized for their philosophical pursuits. Chiefly representative of a subsequent school of English idealism are Thomas Hill Green, Bernard Bosanquet, and F. H. Bradley, along with Edward Caird, John Caird, and James Ward.

Thomas Hill Green (1836-82) sponsored an objective idealism that sought to supplement natural science with a spiritual metaphysic. Utilizing Kant’s criticism, he turned upon the popularly viewed concepts of empiricism and utilitarianism. Specifically, he attacked the empiricism of Hume, the hedonism of Mill, and the evolution of Spencer; and he adduced as a common major failure their assumption that phenomenon is a product of itself. Although man is a biological phenomenon, he also possesses spiritual qualities, and it is the spiritual principle in man that makes knowledge possible and morality meaningful. It is not possible to derive a purposeful knowledge of nature without a unifying spiritual principle. The intelligence of man makes it desirable for him to transcend nature. Man may apply his will toward realizing the idea of the self.

Bosanquet’s idealism stressed the point that every aspect of finite existence must transcend itself. Through such a process, it becomes possible to turn to other existences. Subsequently, the existing particular may confront the whole. This concept reflected the general principle, which gained wide popularity in the early twentieth century, that philosophical truth was an all-embracing unity.

Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924) took up the cudgels of Green in his battle against empirical and utilitarian assumptions. In line with the German idealists, Bradley upheld the importance of metaphysics in the search for truth. His conclusions followed the patterns of Hegel and Kant. Man is impelled to reflect upon ultimate truth, and his knowledge of the Absolute is certain; however, it is also incomplete. The ultimate reality is a self-consistent whole embracing all differences in an inclusive harmony.

Once more returning to Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923), who influenced Bradley and was influenced by him, we note that he disagreed with the latter on several points. Bosanquet stressed the adequacy of thought as a means for reconciling immediacy and logic. He also identified a concrete individual or whole in higher synthetic experiences, and he further conceived the existence of a collective will.

Green, Bradley, and Bosanquet, as the foremost spokesmen of objective idealism, sounded a call for universal harmony, wherein the organization of experience could be welded into a living totality and systematic whole, thereby healing all conflicts, unifying all differences, and harmonizing all discords.

Having cursorily identified the allied forces of idealism, let us pause momentarily to glimpse some of the notions expounded by the proponents of materialism. The materialists assert that the essence of the real world is limited to the material elements therein, as they appear in various states and relationships unto each other. In their view, only matter exists. The mind or spirit is dependent upon reality for its operation and function. Since matter is the subject of science, the many states of matter become the object of scientific inquiry and evaluation. The mind and all ideas are subject to matter. Conscious perception and all of the uniquely human functions, such as emotion, ambition, and desire, are excluded from the serious concern of the materialist, since they do not appear to be properties of matter. Matter has no psychological backbone, and neither souls, nor spirits, nor gods exist, since they are conceived as divorced of matter. Everything that appears or occurs in the universe is the consequence of some antecedent physical condition.

In this respect, the proponents of materialism turn out to be the staunchest supporters of a determinist doctrine, yet recently, some materialists have turned away from determinism, particularly in consideration of the enigmatic quantum behavior. Science, however, is largely favorably disposed toward a materialistic doctrine, because most of its analysis involves matter, and its basic methodology relates to applicable physical situations. Materialists consider that their views serve science best, and to reinforce their assumptions, they point to the progress science has made in explaining the physical nature of the world through a program of investigation based upon materialistic principles.

The ancient forerunners of materialism were the Greek thinkers Democritus, Empedocles, and Epicurus. Generally speaking, the materialistic position described above well reflected their views. The famous Roman Lucretius was motivated along similar lines of materialism when he wrote his well-known piece De Rerum Natura. During the period dominated by Aristotelianism and the Church, the voice of materialism remained at low ebb. With the coming of the Renaissance its theme was renewed. Thomas Hobbes appeared as its most vociferous patron. Quite simply stated, Hobbes advocated the notions that the mind is a brain substance; images and ideas are motions in the brain; and the whole universe is particles of matter in motion. He further postulated that incorporeal substances cannot exist, and he rejected angels, the soul, and religion’s God.

We may also take note of an interesting materialist and a contemporary of Hobbes who sought to harmonize Epicureanism and Christianity. Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) subscribed to a materialist interpretation of the universe by upholding the supremacy of matter in the whole physical realm. Yet, he conceived God as the creator and director of the cosmos, and he permitted man an immortal intellect apart from his corporeal soul.

The advancements made in science, especially in chemistry and biochemistry during the early nineteenth century, resulted in an increased support for materialism. A compelling impetus on its behalf was the appearance of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, and his Descent of Man in 1871. Materialism welcomed the sanction of one of Darwin’s tenets that survival of the fittest was an impersonal trait of nature, beyond the reach of any immanent power, and bereft of any transcendent purpose. It was further strengthened by Darwin’s assessment that man was nothing more than a biological entity at the end of a meaningless physical chain. From that point onward, the swift advance of materialism could not be curbed. Contemporary materialism holds sway in all walks of life, on all levels of existence, and dominates the academic and cultural environment of the human family. Whether it be in the sphere of science or philosophy, psychology or technology, materialism reigns supreme.

It is no little wonder, then, that a pro-idealist quotation emanating from a prominent scientist in the late twentieth century should command widespread interest and attention. Sir Bernard Lovell assumes a courageous position of leadership in what may yet develop into a resurgence of space-age idealism on all fronts of human endeavor. It is not easy to be a pioneer or forerunner in modern society. The strong British materialistic tradition of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is sustained by the influential power of Locke and Hume; the psychological-epistemological theories of the British School; Bentham’s Utilitarianism· and Comte’s Positivism. Add to these forces Mills’s skeptical empiricism; Darwin’s theories; Spencer’s cosmic evolution; Haeckel’s monistic philosophy of nature; and Ernst Mach’s new positivism, and one is exposed to a formidable array of anti-idealistic sapience. For over a period of almost two centuries science has been mainly committed to a mainstream of atheistic materialism, and the ethics that such a viewpoint could tolerate for society may dismally reflect, as Spencer taught, a hedonistic and base utilitarianism.

It is therefore important to gather together like-minded parties to support and further endorse the view that Professor Lovell has boldly brought to the attention of the British Association and the world at large. If we interpret Professor Lovell’s presidential address correctly, he is pointing to the timely need for a neoteric transfer from the heretofore rigid scientific commitment to atheistic materialism unto a more flexible position that could tolerate the basic principles of theistic idealism. If this be indeed the case, then “Whence” assumes the stellar quality of a historic declaration. It calls for the sighting of new directions by the scientific establishment; for a progressive, new era in its scope of purpose; and an upward adjustment of its attitude in regards to the ultimate destiny of man in his universe. An invitation to scientists to consider the significant rewards that may accrue by seeking new corridors of thought in theistic idealism is surely a momentous event at this critical point in human history.

Professor Lovell should take heart in pursuing such a course, because he reflects the grand philosophical tradition of British idealism. Indeed, he travels in the highly respectable company of such distinguished scholars as George Berkeley, Arthur Collier, Thomas Hill Green, F. H. Bradley, and Bernard Bosanquet. Of course, we must not overlook the fact that he treads a path that was once heroically outlined by the fearless pen of a Thomas Carlyle.

If the full message of Carlyle’s classic work is not only implied, but moreso, conscientiously taken to heart, then possibly the time may be near at hand when bold scientists will express a desire to penetrate beyond the substantial veil of nature’s physical formulae, to seek truths of nobler existentialist significance. Perhaps, like Carlyle, the scientist may now be prepared to escape from the custom of a bland servitude to a rigorous materialism, and soar unto the ethereal heights of idealism in search of more meaningful explanations for the existence of the universe, its generation of organic life, and its gifted intellectual product, man.

But, what is the consequence to scientific thought if such a search leads to God? Must then the scientist, who has been bound by custom to an iron-clad atheistic materialism, hang his head in embarrassment, and burrow his way back to the world of physical “garments” and laws, where he has permitted a widespread agnosticism to prevail, and from that nether point of concealment deny that God exists? Or is it possible that, out of the depths of despair to which civilization has fallen, the need for hope and promise becomes an existentialist imperative, so that it may even behoove the modern scientist, as Carlyle was so moved, to endorse the possibility of reaching divinity through hard labor and courage?

These and other enquiries which we postulate in the following folios come to mind hard on the heels of the courageous question “whence,” which seems to suggest the need for a new type of idealism to which modern man may become committed. While Professor Lovell may harbor some sympathy for the high-minded principles of traditional English idealism, he does not seem to find any of its particular representations as potentially applicable to current situations. Perhaps the classical spirit of philosophical idealism and realism sufficed for a preatomic civilization; something more appealing may be needed for the perplexed generations of a coming space age, as Professor Lovell states, “Today we cannot evade this deepest problem of our existence by an escape into philosophical idealism or realism.” (Sir Bernard Lovell, Supra, p. 35.) If the old idealism and realism are insufficiently endowed to service a modern society, what other intellectual direction appears as an alternative? Considering that certain elements of idealism are desirable and useful, can they be updated and wedded to a meaningful existentialist accommodation? Does an existentialist idealism offer a vision of promise for the future? Let us consider this in the ensuing chapters.

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Please Excuse My Son's Absence from Class. He will be Moose Hunting.

We used to ask our college students to inform us in advance if they knew they were going to miss a class. One Friday a young man came up to me after class and told me that he might miss class on Monday.

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm going moose hunting with my family," he explained.

"And why is that a valid excuse?" I pressed him.

"It is special because we have one of the few permits that are awarded by lottery in Minnesota each year for moose hunting."

"Can't argue with that," I agreed.

"If we kill a moose by Sunday I will be in class on Monday. Otherwise not," he explained.

"And exactly how does one find a moose to kill?" I probed, not having learned much about such things growing up on East 68th Street in Manhattan.

"If it snows, it's easy to track the moose. If not It's a bit harder," he said.

I nodded and made a note of his possible absence. Best excuse I ever heard.

Now twenty plus years later, The New York Times has caught on to how special a moose permit can be:

New Hampshire Holds Lottery for Moose Hunt 

In one of the few states with enough animals for a hunting season, an annual lottery drew 13,400 people who hoped to secure one of 275 permits to hunt moose...

By the way: Yes, Moose is kosher when slaughtered and prepared properly.

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Teaneck's Moshe Butler pleads guilty to criminal bank and wire fraud

Forbes reports on the tangled web of crimes of a scamster from Teaneck, Moshe Butler, age 33, "Motel Art, Flat Screen TVs, Bad Trades, And Bouncing Checks Collide In Federal Case."

In 2009, Butler was charged in a criminal Information with running a $2.25 million scam, to which he was released on bail pending sentencing.

The final tally has Butler pleading guilty to two criminal Informations charging him with bank and wire fraud....

On June 13, 2012, he was sentenced to 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release; and ordered to pay restitution in the amounts of $2,259,311.35 for the television scheme and $207,375.25 for the check scheme; and ordered to forfeit $208,172.21....more

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