Over the past month, there have been countless articles about the astounding fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff. Specifically, there have been several pieces about financial fraud and how schemes may target members of a particular religious community (in this case the Jewish community, and the multi-million dollar losses to American Jewish groups).
The first article I came across was written by Ronald Cass, the former dean of Boston University Law School. Cass discusses how Madoff could have drawn Jews into his scheme "at least in some measure because of a shared faith." He explains that the SEC two years ago issued a warning about affinity fraud, and gave examples of ethnic and religious communities that have been targeted. The underlying premise is that we are most likely to trust the members of our own community, causing us to fail to diligently or reasonably ask sufficient questions and do our financial homework. Cass argues that in reality legal measures are limited; the law cannot prevent people from using religion to make their funds look legitimate.
The New York Times has also reported that there is "something of a communal cry over a cost they say goes beyond financial to the theological and the personal." Many of Madoff's investors were Jewish and supported Jewish causes , and subsequently, the effect on the religious community has been quite strong. The NYT quotes several Rabbis, who explain that the fraud and subsequent losses "undermined the fabric of the Jewish community" and changed the Jewish world itself.
