Zell: 'Being Jewish means that you're vulnerable forever'

"I think that being Jewish means that you’re vulnerable forever. Was there a stronger Jewish community anywhere in the world—more intellectual, more successful—than Germany in the late twenties and early thirties, before Hitler? And seven years later they’re building concentration camps! So, do I expect something like that to happen in the United States? Of course not. Do I think it could? Absolutely."

Those are the words of billionaire investor Sam Zell. Last spring, when Zell bought the Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Chicago Cubs baseball team, The Forward and The Jewish Journal ran articles about the "tough Jew" who was about to take over two former bastions of WASP society.