{"id":1561,"date":"2009-07-24T16:16:52","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T16:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/07\/nj-corruption-probe-shines-unw.php"},"modified":"2009-07-24T16:16:52","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T16:16:52","slug":"nj-corruption-probe-shines-unw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/07\/nj-corruption-probe-shines-unw","title":{"rendered":"N.J. Corruption Probe Shines Unwelcome Spotlight on Syrian Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"

DEAL, N.J. — This wealthy seaside town might not have a Syrian Jewish
\ncommunity at all if it hadn’t developed as a summer escape for
\nBrooklyn’s Syrian Jews, more than 10,000 of whom visit each summer.
\nIndeed, in the Syrian Jewish community, Deal is known as “Brooklyn
\nSouth,” and the approximately 1,000 who stay here year-round have built
\na dozen or so Orthodox synagogues, several religious schools and a wide
\nselection of kosher restaurants.
\nOn Thursday (July 23), federal agents arrested five rabbis, two New
\nJersey state legislators, three mayors, and dozens of others in a
\npolitical corruption and money-laundering probe that spanned from
\nHoboken to Israel. The sting has brought an unwanted spotlight to the
\nSyrian Jewish community, which has long tended toward insularity.
\n“These are only allegations. All these people are innocent until
\nproven guilty,” said Yosef Reinman, an author and rabbi in Lakewood’s
\nsizable Orthodox Jewish community, which is less than 20 miles from
\nDeal. Though he is not Syrian, Reinman has worked with Syrian Jews for
\nmore than a decade.
\n“Even if some of them did stuff over the line, it should not reflect
\non the community,” he said. “They help the poor. They service people in
\nhospitals. They go to visit people there, entertain them, cheer them up,
\nit’s a very big thing.”
\nAmong the Syrian Jews arrested were:
\n— Edmund Nahum, 56, principal rabbi at Deal Synagogue in Deal.
\nAuthorities said he laundered $185,000 between June 2007 and December
\n2008. He was released from custody on $700,000 bail.
\n— Eli Ben Haim, 58, principal rabbi of Congregation Ohel Yaacob in
\nDeal. Authorities said he laundered $1.5 million between June 2007 and
\nFebruary 2009. He was released from custody on $1.5 million bail.
\n— Saul Kassin, 87, chief rabbi of Congregation Shaare Zion in
\nBrooklyn. Authorities said he laundered more than $200,000 with the
\ngovernment’s cooperating witness between June 2007 and December 2008.
\nKassin was released from federal custody on $200,000 bail.
\nIn 1994, Kassin succeeded his father as chief rabbi of the Syrian
\nJewish community in the United States.
\nThe Syrian Jewish communities in Brooklyn and Deal are known for
\ntheir ability to flourish financially in the secular world, particularly
\nin the garment and electronics industries, while retaining centuries-old
\nreligious customs and traditions.
\n“It’s a community that is committed to its rabbis and their rule,”
\nsaid Jonathan Sarna, an American Jewish history professor at Brandeis
\nUniversity.
\nThe Syrian Jewish community is also noted for adherence to the
\nabsolute authority of its religious leaders, and nowhere is this more
\nevident than in a 1935 ban by Syrian rabbis against intermarriage,
\nincluding people who converted to Judaism and who are openly accepted in
\nmost other Jewish communities. The decree is believed responsible for
\none of the lowest rates of intermarriage of any Jewish community.
\nThe penalty imposed for marrying outside the faith or to a convert
\nis severe: excommunication. “It really was designed to ensure that blood
\nwould be preserved,” Sarna said.
\nThe publicity surrounding Thursday’s arrests was a major blow to the
\ntight-knit community whose leaders have long guarded its reputation and
\nindependence with care.
\n“We would prefer that you not discuss it on the news. It’s not good
\nfor anybody — especially us,” said a man outside Brooklyn’s Shaare Zion
\nsynagogue, who said he’d been receiving calls about the news all
\nmorning.
\nSarina Rosse, a Syrian Jew from Brooklyn who has studied and spoken
\nwidely on the history of the community, said this inwardness is rooted
\nin the Jewish experience in Syria. “You learn to live under the radar
\nand not draw attention to yourself,” she said. “You get into an argument
\nwith a Muslim, it’s Muslim court, Muslim law, they take the word of a
\nMuslim over the word of a Jew. You learn to be apolitical.”
\nIn the early 16th century, Jews expelled from Spain made their way
\nto Syria, where the Ottomans extended a relative welcome. Another wave
\nof Jews came from Italy and France in the mid-17th century; they had
\nbeen granted special privileges to trade without paying taxes, said
\nYaron Ayalon, a doctoral student in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton
\nwho will teach at the University of Oklahoma in the fall. Many of the
\nJews became traders in silks, spices and other luxury goods.
\nSyrian Jews began emigrating to the U.S. in the early 20th century,
\nbut left Syria in droves after pogroms sparked by the 1947 U.N.
\npartition of Palestine.
\nWhen they arrived in America, they were considered uneducated and
\ndidn’t speak Yiddish, making for a hostile welcome among the Eastern
\nEuropean Jews already settled in New York, Rosse said. “It was just a
\nvery rough start for them,” she said, and that contributed to their
\neffective isolation.
\nThough Syrian-American Jews eventually assimilated in many ways,
\nincluding dress and language, they have retained their traditions,
\nincluding naming practices, religious customs and a cuisine that looks
\nand tastes more like the Arabic cuisine of Syria than other regional
\nJewish foods.
\n“It’s a community that has been deeply proud of its identity and its
\nsuccess in America, of the fact that it has managed through several
\ngenerations to maintain some of its distinctiveness, unlike other
\nsub-ethnic Jewish groups,” Sarna said. “No doubt this will lead to some
\nintrospection, especially if significant members of the community are
\ntaken into custody.”
\nBy JEFF DIAMANT and VICKI HYMAN
\n(Jeff Diamant and Vicki Hyman write for The Newark Star-Ledger.
\nCarly Rothman and Chris Megerian contributed to this story.)
\nc. 2009 Religion News Service
\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DEAL, N.J. — This wealthy seaside town might not have a Syrian Jewish community at all if it hadn’t developed as a summer escape for Brooklyn’s Syrian Jews, more than 10,000 of whom visit each summer. Indeed, in the Syrian Jewish community, Deal is known as “Brooklyn South,” and the approximately 1,000 who stay here…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nN.J. 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