Jews in the Mornin’ News

Some Jewish students in Southern New Jersey were surprised to find federal agents removing some data from the Deal Yeshiva Jack and Rachel Adjmi Learning Center this morning. In a coordinated effort to make arrests, U.S. federal agents from the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI arrested two New Jersey mayors, a smattering of rabbis, and a few others for money laundernig and corruption.

According to The New York Times, The Newark Star-Ledger and the NJ Asbury Park Press, over thirty politicians and others were arrested in an early morning sweep.

Rabbis from Brooklyn NY and Deal and Elberon NJ (along the Jersey shore) were taken into federal custody.

The politicians seem to have been caught taking payoffs from an informant interested in real estate developments. Some say that part of the case began with when Solomon Dwek was arrested for bank fraud in 2006 for passing a bad $25 million check. Yes. $25 MILLION. Dwek, the angelic looking son of a prominent rabbi, Rabbi Isaac Dwek, turned informant after he was arrested and had to file bankruptcy. He was accused of owing $400 million to his creditors.

Some of the non politicians who were accused included Mordchai Fish (a/k/a “Mordechai Fisch,” a/k/a “Martin Fisch,”) who served as a rabbi for Congregation Sheves Achim, a synagogue located in Brooklyn; Lavel Schwartz, (a/k/a “Albert Schwartz,”), the Rabbi Fish’s brother who also served as a rabbi, and Yolie Gertner (a/k/a “Yoely Gertner,”). Arye Weiss was accused of conspiring with Eliahu “Eli” Ben Haim, the principal rabbi of Congregation Ohel Yaacob of Deal, New Jersey and the leader of several charitable tax-exempt organizations, and a coconspirator in Israel to launder funds. Also, Moshe Altman (a/k/a “Michael Altman”) was accused of conspiring with a Jersey City Building Inspector to obstruct and extort. Shimon Haber, a real estate developer, has been accused of conspiring with Altman and Itzak Friedlander. Charles Amon is accused of meet with a person at a restaurant in Lakewood, New Jersey. to hatch a scheme wherein the person would make corrupt payments to a public official in Lakewood Township in exchange for permitting the person to illegally utilize a residence in Lakewood as a commercial office.

In one of the craziest indictments, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn was accused of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant for $160,000 USD. Rosenbaum told the undercover FBI agents, posing as a businessperson and his assistant who needed the kidney for an ill uncle, that he had a decade of experience brokering deals between U.S. patients and Israelis with extra body parts. “I am what you call a matchmaker,” Rosenbaum said, according to the criminal complaint. He warned the undercover FBI agents that buying and selling human organs is against the law. Therefore, the payment would be a gift for the donor’s time, he told them. I wonder if the kidney was smooth…. I mean, “glatt.”

What a nice way to wake up.