Several years ago there was an incident in Chicago involving a religious Jew who was laundering money for the Colombian drug cartel. He was a family man and nominally Lubavitch. He was eventually caught and was put into the witness protection program in exchange for his testimony against the Columbian drug dealers. It also cost him his marriage. This religious Lubavitcher did not see anything wrong with what he was doing. His only problem was getting caught.
Today we once again have a money laundering scheme. Only this time it is higher up the Lubavitch ladder.
From a Jewish Telegraphic Agency news release:
Israeli police arrested the leader of the Young Chabad movement. Yosef Aharonov and three others are accused of embezzlement, tax evasion and money laundering. The arrests and a Nov. 13 raid on the community of Kfar Chabad follow an eight-month investigation by the Israel Tax Authority and the Central District Fraud Squad.
Arkady Gaydamak, an Israeli-Russian billionaire and a potential Jerusalem mayoral candidate, is accused of donating $256,000 to the money-laundering facilities allegedly run out of Kfar Chabad, according to Israel's Channel 10. He and other prominent businessmen are currently under investigation.
Young Chabad, also known as Lubavitch Youth, is a nonprofit organization and one of the more prominent Chabad institutions in Israel. It has a budget of about $7.7 million a year, including allocations from the Israeli government.
One of the things that have always bothered me about how Chabad operates is that they subscribe to the belief that the ends justify the means. I was told of this many decades ago (in the early seventies) by a close friend who was then a Chabad Shaliach in a major metropolitan city. He told me that the purpose for Chabad Shiluchim…the emissaries of the Lubavitcher Rebbe… was to reach out to their non religious brethren. In trying to achieve this, they would do what ever it took… using any means necessary, even if the means were questionable. The goal was the thing. The means… were purely incidental. If one could achieve making someone religious, it was worth doing whatever worked!
The example he used was the State of Israel. He said that Chabad realized that most American Jews were very pro Israel. And back in the seventies there was hardly any divisiveness about that. If you were a non Charedi Jew back then, you automatically supported the State and the Prime Minister. Israeli leaders and their policies were never questioned..
But, like many ultra- Orthodox Jews, Chabad was of the mentality that the secular State and its secular leaders were anti Torah and privately they were very condemning of the state, its founders, and its leaders. At that time Golda Meir was the Prime Minister. Needless to say she was vilified along with other secular Zionist leaders by virtually all Ultra Orthodox Jews. Chabad was no exception. But their criticism was not well known outside their own circles. Their public relations machine would speak very proudly of Golda Meir as though she was the heroic figure that most of the non- Ultra Orthodox world thought her to be. In other words they lied.
But they believed that to lie was permissible because that would win people over. My friend the Shaliach then told me that once they won over a fellow Jew to Chabad, he would eventually be trusted with the truth. ‘Why should that be a problem?’ my friend asked me. ‘As long as the goal was reached, who cares if it was a lie that got them there.
Apparently this ‘ends justifying the means’ approach does not only apply to Kiruv. It applies to other areas as well. Like fundraising. As long as one does not get caught why not launder money for a criminal? The money will be used for good purposes. Who will get hurt? Tax evasion… embezzlement… no biggie. They need the money for all their good works!
It should be noted that this organization is not an extremist one in Lubavitch. It is very mainstream and very prominent.
Officials at Chabad say:
"Clearly, every individual is instructed by the Torah to uphold the laws of his/her land, and this is, of course, a basic principle of Chabad Lubavitch operations. We are confident, therefore, that the authorities will receive full cooperation in their efforts and that, ultimately, the results will be satisfactory. "
There does seem to be a pattern. The Shaliach’s testimony to me about legitimizing falsehood… the Lubavitch money launderer for the Colombian drug cartel… and now this new money laundering scheme in Israel. Of course each these can be explained away: The Chicago drug money launderer was not acting on Lubavitch principles but rather on his own lack of them… The Shaliach’s testimony about Chabad’s modus operandi in outreach was not truly representative of Chabad… and the current accusations have yet to be proven. All true.
Time will tell if those charged are truly guilty. But after a lengthy government investigation and now these arrests, I’d like to know what possible explanation they can give about these accusations that will exonerate them? …other than ‘the ends justified the means’. I don’t think that will work very well as a legal defense though. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
