Fort Lauderdale, FL – South Florida’s Jewish community just can’t catch a break. First Bernie Madoff, now an alleged Ponzi scheme by Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein — what gives?
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Madoff lured Jewish friends at the Palm Beach Country Club to be investors in his Ponzi scheme, and when his fraud collapsed, Jewish charites lost hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s not yet clear how Rothstein’s scandal will impact Jewish investors.
One thing is obvious: Rothstein’s imprint on the Fort Lauderdale Jewish community is indelible, and very visible. The chabad center on Broward Boulevard bears his name — The Rothstein Family Downtown Jewish Center Chabad.
Rothstein, who has referred to himself as the “Jewish Avenger,” was clearly a generous contributor to the Orthodox chabad. He’s even featured in photos of the chabad’s grand opening party.
But he’s not the kind of donor people are eager to embrace at the moment. When the Juice called the chabad’s Rabbi Schneur Kaplan to inquire if Rothstein’s name would be removed from the building, the answer was short and polite: “It would be inappropriate for me to make any comments at this time,” Kaplan said.
Here’s hoping Kaplan knows a good lawyer.
Are they going to have to return all the money they got from him? Thats a big loss to chabad. Nebach they keep getting hit lately.
maybe he can hang out with rubashkin in the slammer.
is he shomer shabbos?
i did not see this chabad center on the oficial chabad web site. chabad.org
In the early 20th century, there was a famous bank robber named Willie Sutton. After he was caught and went to jail, he gave an interview to a reporter. The reporter asked, “Mr. Sutton, why did you rob banks?” Answered Willie, “Because that’s where the money is!”
There are a lot of older, wealthy Jewish retirees in South Florida. Not surprisingly, they are the target for crooks and swindle artists of all kinds. One should keep in mind that while the scoundrels involved in these financial crimes are often (though not always) Jewish, so too are their victims often Jewish.
Are you asking if he is walking around dressed as an orthodox Jew, or if he dutifully keeps the Shabbos from sundown to nightfall? Because the ‘Shomer Shabbos’ part (where if you keep Shabbos correctly , its as if you keep kol ha Torah kula, would not apply if indeed the allegations of him stealing money are true.
If he is parading around as an orthodox Jew, I would imagine the chillul Hashem is greater; although with a last name like Rothstein, anybody can make a good guess as to his religion.
I know a guy whose teacher told him if the guys were planning on speeding, they should at least remove their yarmulkas first. this teacher was not condoning speeding, only saying that if they were to break the law, they should not also embarrass their brethren.
Nah he was a secular guy who threw money around to all charities.
it seems many people who are involved in scamming, try to buy their way into heaven by giving their illicit gains to charity in a very flashy way.
Maybe chabad and others should due diligence take big money, and return it if the money was stolen.
It’s not unusual for ganovim to donate huge sums to Yeshivas, Shuls, etc.. and to have their names put on the buildings. Maybe it takes away some of their guilt about how they got the money.
chilul hashem!
may he be locked behind bars for good
What happens often is much worse than a person who assuages guilt by giving charity. Sometimes as in the S. case several years ago and the R. case last year, a person found his victims by becoming a macher in a charity or several synagogues and yeshivos. Then he asked people who were his fellow board members to join him in a fabulous new investment, and used his contributions to the charities as evidence of his prior successful investments. When the investments collapsed, the donors to these mosdos were therefore disproportionately hurt, and the community institutions took a serious hit.
not that it matters much, but Schneur Kaplan is not authrorized to use the Chabad name in his activities, which is why his center is no longer listed on the Chabad website.
Perhaps they are a mushroom (=unofficial chabad house not sanctioned by the official chabad org, usually they are meshichists.)
for the record! there are two chabad centers in ft laudedale! Both the shlichim come from Gezair lubavitch
JJ hecht, Gutnick and Kaplan. Just not the offical shluchim! nonmishcstim!
Chabad rules!
When these people give charity they are not giving away there own money therfore it is much easier for them to give.
Chabad is not a business, but it does have the right to choose who can represent it and the Rebbe. Rabbi Kaplan’s center is not officially recognized as a Chabad Shliach (not because of this matter), for a variety of reasons, despite his being very well-connected family wise in Chabad.
3-26-2010 Today I spoke on the phone with Abraham Korf, the Miami rabbi who serves as regional director of all 145 chabads in Florida. Rabbi Korf confirmed that Scott Rothstein’s former chabad, the Downtown Jewish Center Chabad in Fort Lauderdale, isn’t sanctioned by the World Lubavitch Headquarters.
He said Rabbi Schneur Kaplan has nothing to do with the hierarchy anymore.
“He is out of the picture,” said Rabbi Korf of Kaplan. “He does not follow the rules and regulations that chabad stands for, so we removed him from the group. I can’t get into details, but he did not want to follow the rules. If everyone did what they want, not act by the regulations, there would be no more chabad.”
Rabbi Korf said he didn’t know Scott Rothstein’s name before the Ponzi scheme imploded, but he had heard about the mysterious lawyer who was giving lots of money to Kaplan’s renegade operation.
“I heard about somebody that gave Rabbi Kaplan a lot of money, a certain lawyer, but I didn’t know who that lawyer was and I don’t how much money he gave,” said Korf. “I had just heard that he had gotten from this lawyer a lot of money.”
Although it is known that Kaplan had broken ranks from Fort Lauderdale Rabbi Moishe Meir Lipszyc, Korf wouldn’t get into details of what caused the split and, ultimately, the excommunication of sorts of Kaplan. He said he would have to get authorization from his own superiors in the organization to tell the story and wasn’t inclined to do it.
“We warned [Kaplan] many times, but it didn’t help, so we had to remove him,” said Korf. “It’s not right for me to tell what he did. We have our own system. We don’t do things in public, and such things could lead to court cases, and I don’t have the money or the time to get involved in such things.”