Unfortunately this concept is not one in which the US justice system has operated in recent years. The poor are too often favored with leniency. The rich are too often excessively punished. Justice has NOT been blind.
The liberal media loves to stick it to the wealthy. Their attitude has been that the poor criminal can’t help himself and needs mercy regardless of how violent his crime was. Many of those poor are black resulting in a much higher proportion of black incarceration. The wealthy are more often white and privileged. They are therefore just greedy and deserve the book thrown at them - regardless of the lack of any violence. When it is an Orthodox Jew the media seems to justify that even more. (No media outlet is more guilty of that than the New York Times. More about that later.)
This is how Shalom Rubashkin was treated. He got a 27 year prison sentence for the federal crime of falsely inflating receivables to secure a 27 million dollar bank loan for purposes of saving his business.
Just to be clear. I do not at all condone what he did. But anyone who thinks that his punishment fit his crime has a warped sense of justice. As it turns out his sentence was commuted by the former President to the 8 years of ‘time served’. He was released from prison but he should not be celebrated as some sort of hero. He is not. But I believe he has paid for his crime.
A prison sentence like Rubashkin’s is the reason that - despite the rarity of bipartisan support for anything these days – both Democrats and Republicans supported prison reform. Hakeem Jeffries, a liberal Democrat, was one of the sponsors of a bill that rewrote sentencing laws. Congress passed it. (91% of the beneficiaries of The First Step Act - were black.)
There were many people involved behind the scenes that made this happen. One of whom was the former President’s son in law, Jared Kushner. He was given major credit for his part in this by both Democrats and Republicans. But there were others. Among them the Aleph Institute, an Orthodox Jewish organization that works with non-Jewish allies to help win clemency for indigent prisoners, including many non-Jews suffering excessive sentences.
Aleph was founded in 1981 by Rabbi Shalom Lipskar a Chabad Rabbi whose shul is located in Florida (Surfside). They have helped countless numbers of individuals of all faiths enduring harsh prison terms far beyond what their crimes warranted.
Joined by others - their latest success has been in getting the former President to grant clemency to some wealthy white collar criminals – among them Orthodox Jews.
Enter Kenneth P. Vogel, the reporter responsible for an abominable front page story of the New York Times. This has to be one of the worst smears against Orthodox Jews in the ‘paper of record’s history. The following is what the Algemeiner’s Ira Stall had to say about it:
A Jewish organization worked tirelessly with non-Jewish allies to help win clemency for indigent prisoners, including many non-Jews, who had been sentenced to excessive sentences.
Rather than praising it, the New York Times targeted it on the Sunday front page with what the paper itself described as “an investigation.” The Times inaccurately smeared the work as an effort for “wealthy or well-connected people,” the product of what the Times called a “network” of “influential” “Orthodox Jewish leaders” operating “behind-the-scenes.” As if anyone could miss the point, the Times illustrated the article with a Protocols-of-Elders-of-Zion diagram in light blue and mustard yellow showing how all these rabbis have their tentacles in President Trump.
A thread of tweets by Newsweek editor Batya Ungar-Sargon did a fine job of assessing the situation, likening the Times investigation to neo-Nazi propaganda.
“Who needs the Daily Stormer when you’ve got the New York Times? An Orthodox Jew helps free more than 4,000 Black men from prison. NYT: A LOOSE ALLIANCE OF ORTHODOX JEWS USED THEIR MONEY TO UNDERMINE JUSTICE AND PUPPET MASTER THE PRESIDENT.
Anyone else who had done as much to mitigate mass incarceration would be lauded as a hero. But when Orthodox Jews do it, the whole enterprise is tainted by their ‘lobbying,’ their ‘lawyers,’ their ‘loose network;’ and of course, the crime of being Orthodox Jews to begin with! You can’t bring yourself to write about the First Step Act? Fine. You can’t bring yourself to admit Kushner did something good? Fine. But you don’t get to use your institutional allergy to reporting the facts to spread disgusting anti-Semitism.”
Need I say more? There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of yellow journalism. Their pretense of objectivity has been demolished as far as I am concerned. There is no apology that would suffice here. They have cried ‘wolf’ once too often. Any apology from their quarters cannot be taken seriously – even on the outside chance that they make one.
I see no value in this paper as a source of news. As far as I am concerned, they deserve an ignominious death that should be applauded if it happens. At least by those among us that have a shred of decency and care about the truth.
