http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/28216/format/html/displaystory.htmlIf Abramoff is truly frum, I’ll eat my black hat
by eliyahu stern
The New York Times and ABC News just could not understand why Jack Abramoff, a master of public relations, would walk out of a courtroom — where he pleaded guilty earlier this month to three felony counts — wearing a Mafioso-styled black fedora. Whose sympathy exactly was he after?
While the Times could not understand the bizarre spectacle, Jews recognized Abramoff’s headgear all too well as a sign of Orthodox piety.
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I’m sorry, but no matter how much you keep kosher and castigate Americans about sexual morality, if you support corrupt power and act unethically toward other human beings, you are a failure as a Jew.
Abramoff’s hat signals the extreme lack of self-reflection in his religious life. Before the Bible says anything about black hats, abortion or kosher restaurants for Washington insiders, it says “Do not steal.” What can be more Jewish than that?
Hypocritical moralizing treats the public as fools and does a disservice to all those who take Judaism seriously. Being a frum Jew entails being an example for humanity. It means that we hold ourselves to a higher level of ethical correctness. If using an Orthodox yeshiva to launder ill-begotten money does not embarrass us, then what does?
Eliyahu Stern is a scholar-in-residence at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue and a member of Edah, an advocacy movement for modern Orthodox Judaism.