SHONDEH IS THE JEWISH CRITERION

What Bernard Madoff did, to the gentile world, was an enormous crime. To the Jew it was a “shondeh,” the harshest Yiddish word for “disgrace.” I honestly don’t know how many gentiles are saying among themselves, “There goes another money-grubbing Jew.” It doesn’t really matter. I am ashamed by Madoff not because his story might generate anti-Semitism. For a Jew to betray the heritage to which we claim to be born is a shondeh.

This I tell you: We take no glory in Bernard Madoff even when you are not around. I’ve heard no one say in the covert Greenfield’s bagel place, “Boy, he really knew how to screw those dumb goyim.” Aside from swiping millions from Jewish institutions, he grabbed money from smart Jews, and plenty of smart goyim, who trusted him. The word I hear most when you are not around is, you guessed it, shondeh.

When I moved south in 1975, I was a snotty/snooty urban damnyankee pacifist. My assumptions were built on burning crosses, fire hoses, Bull Connor, George Wallace, and slurs against Jews almost as vituperative as they were toward African Americans. (“If them G.D. Jews hadn’t gotten them ni**as so stirred up, we wouldn’t be having the problems we do today!”). I assumed that little towns were places where Jews chose to live only at their own peril, and not only because you couldn’t get a hot pastrami sandwich there.

Then I received my delicious dose of reality: I found that for every Christian who wanted to convert me, a thousand venerated me because I was a leader of the Chosen People, and another thousand were simply curious.

Listen up now, Mr. Madoff, Mr. Shondeh: The decency and respect of the Jewish storekeeper in rural Upstate is legendary: Sarlins of Liberty, Fedders of Easley, Vigodskys of Westminster, Poliakoffs of Walhalla, Karelitzs of Fountain Inn, Burgens of Seneca . . . all of them venerated as saints – extending credit at no interest, building the community, stimulating education, leading in patriotism and civic organizations, charity without question from the cash register, often the only ones who were helpful to minorities.

Ask our anchorman Michael Cogdill. He will tell you that he was set on his direction of prominence by the Jewish storekeeper in his little town in North Carolina, who brought him into his home as if he were his own child.

No, they could not all have been saints 24-7. But, this I will tell you: They were not shondeh Jews, either. When I meet someone from Liberty and ask him if he knew the Sarlins, he always regales me of some act of kindness that they bestowed. I chalk another one up for not being a shondeh, but for being an exemplary member of the Chosen People. And Jerry Fedder? Not a “shyster Jew-lawyer,” but an honest man who never played fast and loose with the truth. And I chalk another one up for being one of the Chosen People, not a double-talking shondeh.

Ralph, Jerry, et al, did not do it to impress. Of this, I am sure. They had good mommas and poppas, who in turn had good mommas and poppas. They were quite sure of their chosen-ness without a scintilla of false pride.

Yes, there is a downside to being a member of a Chosen People. When you tarnish your chosen-ness, you are not just a crook or a thief. You are a shondeh. I am consistently surrounded by people who rightfully wear their chosen-ness with distinction. Jerry and Ralph, may he rest in peace, and the others, have set a backdrop of stiff comparison. When I do something wrong, I know full-well that it is a shondeh, not merely an oops or oversight. Where was Bernard Madoff’s armor to ward off shondeh? Where were the “Jerry and Ralph” in his life? Where did he lose it?

This is the sobering truth whether you and I accept it or not: When a Jew steals, it is not the same as when a gentile steals. He’s not a bad boy with his hand stuck in the cookie jar. He is a shondeh, a shondeh.