Saban: 'You made it big, you jerk!'

I have an article in this week's Jewish Journal about the $10 million Cheryl and Haim Saban pledged this month to the Los Angeles Free Clinic, where Cheryl was a patient 25 years ago, a few years before she married the man behind "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." While writing that article, I came across this 15-month-old piece from Ari Shavit, one of Ha'aretz' great writers, about the family's Christmas tree and Haim's journey from Egyptian ghetto to Beverly Hills billionaire.

As the gaping guest walks by the neatly trimmed lawn and the wooden wheel of the imaginary water mill and the windows of the chateau, a heavy door opens for him, beyond which a gigantic Christmas tree sparkles and shines with its decorations. In the long stone corridors that lead to the wood-paneled guest room, the familiar songs of Naomi Shemer play softly: Whatever you wish, let it be. Whatever you wish, let it be.

Saban himself enters a few minutes later. He is somewhat excited. He didn't really want to be interviewed, but decided there was no choice. At the weekend he will convene the Saban Forum for the third time, and the gathering obliges public relations. Since he lost the hold he had in the White House through his good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution and the Saban Forum have become his levers of influence on political Washington and on Jerusalem. (For the sake of proper disclosure: The author of this article was invited to lecture at the Saban Forum.)

n recent years, the ability of the colorful Israeli-American billionaire to bring together Ariel Sharon and Bill Clinton, Shimon Peres and Henry Kissinger, Tzipi Livni and Condoleezza Rice has become one of the achievements of which he is proud. During the two years in which his personal fortune grew from $2.2 billion to $2.8 billion (according to Forbes), Saban succeeded in adding to the list of power centers he controls this prestigious annual gathering of senior Israeli and American figures for a joint dialogue.

Does Haim Saban understand the suspicions that his large and well-connected fortune arouses in Israel? Does he see the problematic character of the relations between big capital and government? Even before he sits down in his armchair, Saban goes on the attack.

My favorite part is the headline, which seems to have no place in the text: "You made it big, you jerk."

As for the Christmas tree, Cheryl is Christian; they're raising their kids as Jews.

The search for Hitler's gold

It's March Madness, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the greatest player in college basketball history. So check him out on "The Colbert Report," in search of Hitler's booty. (Warning: It's actually not that funny.)

The decaying urban church

The New York Times paints a familiar portrait of an ailing church that was once a Jewish center:

She and the other members worship on the Sabbath, filling the church each Saturday, where they are flanked by rich-hued stained glass windows depicting the Israelites’ flight from Egypt, the story of Esther and other scenes from the Hebrew Bible.

“We once talked about taking out these windows,” said Paul Gregory Graham, who was an associate pastor 10 years ago. “Talk about cultures changing, many of us are from a West Indian background, so what does this mean to us?”

A lot more than people thought. One Saturday, Mr. Graham preached an entire sermon on the history of the Jewish people using the windows as vivid illustrations. There were lessons to be learned, he said, from their respective journeys. “These windows are a history of a people and their worship,” he said. “They give us tradition.”

Throughout the city, houses of worship built in the last century for Jewish and Christian immigrants from Europe are now home to congregations with roots in Latin America, the Caribbean or the American South. Some are grand palaces that occupy a regal spot in a neighborhood, while others are modest halls nearly indistinguishable from bland storefronts. They sustain communities by helping slake spiritual and material thirsts.

Many of these buildings are under threat, crumbling from years of neglect and deferred maintenance in the case of impoverished congregations, or becoming targets for acquisition by developers in neighborhoods where choice real estate is scarce.

Preservationists have begun to sound alarms, warning that rich urban traditions of art, religion and community service are imperiled.

“You see in these buildings history and continuity, and the influence of new populations and new religions,” said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. “The face of the city will change and an important part of our history will be lost if these buildings disappear.”

This is not a phenomenon unique to New York, but is in fact afflicting urban churches and religious centers throughout the country. As people have fled to the suburbs and exurbs, finding or creating megachurches there, beautiful, history-filled sanctuaries have been left behind, some to rot, others to struggle along.

Spinka leader charged with tax fraud

The leader of an Orthodox Jewish sect was arrested Wednesday after authorities unsealed a sweeping 37-count indictment alleging that he operated a decade-long tax fraud and money laundering scheme stretching from Israel through New York to downtown Los Angeles' jewelry district, authorities said.

Grand Rabbi Naftali Tzi Weisz, head of the Spinka religious group, and his executive assistant, Gabbai Moseh E. Zigelman, are accused of soliciting "tens of millions of dollars" in contributions to Spinka charities while secretly promising to refund up to 95% of contributors' donations, federal prosecutors said. The contributors then illegally claimed tax deductions on their bogus donations.

Spinka is a Hasidic brand that hails from Romania. If the charges, reported here by the LA Times, are true, this scheme would be based on a pretty familiar model. Also in hot water:

Six associates, four of whom were arrested Wednesday, were charged in connection with the scheme. Those arrested were identified as: Yaacov Zeivald, 43, of Valley Village; Yosef Nachum Naiman, 55, of Los Angeles; Alan Jay Friedman, 43, of Los Angeles; and Joseph Roth, 66, of Tel Aviv. Authorities are looking for Los Angeles diamond merchant Moshe Arie Lazar, 60, and Tel Aviv attorney Jacob Ivan Kantor, 71, both believed to be in Israel.

Five Brooklyn-based Spinka charities are also defendants in the alleged money laundering scheme: Yeshiva Imrei Yosef, Yeshivath Spinka, Central Rabbinical Seminary, Machne Sva Rotzohn and Mesivta Imrei Yosef Spinka. The charities are accused of making out false receipts for phony donations as well as receiving the money laundering fees, according to the indictment.

When you're wealthy, you don't need God

Sometimes, the religious get rich because of their faith, and not always for wholesome reasons. But more commonly, the wealthier people are, the smaller a role God plays in their lives. This was the reasoning behind Jesus' famous aphorism that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

I've repeated this reasoning to my friends often because, being a fairly self-sufficient, not-poor American, it's easy to forget to say "Thank God" when people ask how I am doing. (I admire Orthodox Jews who are better about remembering this.)

Anyway, I'm a journalist, and for journalists a story becomes newsworthy when a new study that proves reality. Thanks Pew Research Center.

Pew found that there is “a strong relationship between a country’s religiosity and its economic status.” The poorer a country, the more “religion remains central to the lives of individuals, while secular perspectives are more common in richer nations.”

The United States is the “most notable” exception. Other exceptions are oil-rich, mostly Muslim nations like Kuwait.

There is no simple interpretation of the findings. Perhaps as “people get less religious, they get wealthier,” wrote Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog. “Or perhaps the other way around. Or perhaps there’s something else behind both trends.”

Mr. Drum concludes that it’s “probably a bit of all three.”