Starring Michael Douglas, Directed by Oliver Stone (both Jewish)

"The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing; I own. We make the rules, Buddy, the news, war, peace, famine, upheaval; the cost of a paper clip. We pull the rabbit out of the hat while everybody else sits around their whole life wondering how the hell we did it. You're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy are you, Buddy?" - Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas

"Among the economic fields in which Jews today are especially visible is investment banking, - 'Wall Street' - including interconnected networks of lawyers and other legal and economic power players stretching deeply into politics, the mass media, and Hollywood... Since the 1800s the "Old Crowd" of German-Jewish banking families (the Seligmans, Lehmans, Goldmans, Sachs, Warburgs, Schiffs, Loebs, etc) had predominated the field; a "New Crowd" of Jews has in recent decades taken their place. After World War II, economic power in America and Wall Street was shifting... Fresh faces came forward as if answering a call... They were the children and grandchildren of Italian, Irish, Poles, and other Europeans who were not of Anglo-Saxon ancestry. But most of all they were Jews." - Judith Ehrlich & Barry Rehfeld, The New Crowd: The Changing of the Jewish Guard on Wall Street, 1990

*This is not to suggest of course that the seminal Jewish American investment firms are today inconsequential. Far from it. In 1999, for instance, Goldman, Sachs and Co. stretched across the world to become the "single largest and controlling shareholder of South Korea's largest bank, Kookmin.

A French Jewish author, Bernard Lazare, noted Jewish propensities in high finance in the late 1800s, "The man of the lower middle class, the small tradesman at whom speculation has probably ruined has much clearer ideas of why he is an anti-Semite. He knows that reckless speculation by financiers, with its attendant panics, has been his bane, and for him, the most formidable jugglers of capital, the most dangerous speculators, are the Jews; which, indeed, is very true."

Concerning the heavy concentration of Jews in investment banking and related activities, Jewish writer Gerald Kretetz notes, "It can be suggested that Jewish wealth is generated from the financial side rather than the operational side. Many wealthy Jews have climbed the corporate ladder through law, accounting, and investment banking. Apparently, they are more at home massaging numbers than dealing with technical or substantive problems of production... If Jews are drawn to the financial side, it is probably due to the fact that in the last decade or two the financial tail wags the industrial dog." - G. Krefetz, Jews and Money, 1982

Financial journalists Judith Ehrlich and Barry Rehfeld continue to write:

"Finance, investment banking, brokerage, and commodities are the speediest ways to get rich in America; by 1988 the stock and bond market and linked economic activities totaled 12 trillion dollars a year (six times the value of the assets of Fortune's top 500 companies). Where the money went, and what happened to it were greatly influenced by Wall Street power brokers. Corporate mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers have become an especially lucrative field. By the 1980s, along with (Gentile) T. Boone Pickens, and a few others... the Jewish New Crowd was at the very core of the mergers and acquisitions field. This circle of money men bought luxurious homes, expensive art, high-priced foreign cars, designer clothes and jewelry; they hosted or appeared at the right parties. The old WASP establishment had seen its wealth eroded by changing tax laws and inflation... arriviste Jews began to appear on the boards of such time-honored WASP institutions as the Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Public Library...

The New Crowd... extended profit centers to newer financial activities such as block trading, risk arbitrage, a wide range of retail securities products, financial futures, listed trading of options, and junk bond financing that helped companies expand and made almost every company vulnerable to a takeover, a leveraged buyout that restructured corporate entities and raised critical debt levels... There is a long list of Jewish entrepreneurs on Wall Street who, as a group, have been influential in literally changing the American economic system. Sanford I. Weill, for instance, amassed a brokerage empire and eventually became President of American Express; he was later recognized as one of the most powerful Jewish businessmen in the nation... John Gutfreund rose to become the chairman of Solomon, Inc., one of the most powerful securities firms in the western world. Felix Rohatyn, perhaps more than any other, was linked with the flood of massive corporate combinations that reshaped American business for much of the past three decades..."

Another Jewish business author Steven Silbiger writes:

"Jews took the lead in the '60s, with new investment banking techniques that helped introduce a conglomeration craze by using multipurpose holding companies... The concentration of Jewish-owned securities firms created well-paying employment opportunities at all levels of the securities industry: securities analysts; portfolio managers; and stock, bond and futures traders; brokers and deal-makers. Among the equity holders of the Jewish investment banking and trading firms on Wall Street are hundreds of Jewish millionaires. Upward mobility based on merit and high salaries has made working on Wall Street a Jewish-friendly career choice... Although exact figures for the numbers of Jews are not available, they no doubt have a leading and disproportionate role on Wall Street." - Steven Silbiger, The Jewish Penomenon, 2000

Recently, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., valued at around $3.5 billion and with assets of $90 billion, is one of the biggest closely held U.S. money managers. It manages $55 billion for institutions, such as pension funds, endowments and foundations, and $35 billion for wealthy individuals. Also, Quantum Fund (George Soros), Carlyle Group (David Rubenstein), New Bridge Capital (Richard Bloom), are very active on the scene. Other influential Jewish Wall Street 'players' (financiers, lenders, borrowers, advisers, lawyers, et al) include Alan Greenberg, Ira Harris, Bruce Wasserstein, Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis, Peter Cohen, Joseph Flom, Martin Lipton, Victor Posner ("a onetime Baltimore slumlord" who was indicted in 1982 for $1.25 million in income tax evasion and filing false tax returns - Posner is "the flamboyantly wealthy Miami Beach financier - who has - been discredited as one of the most unprincipled and destructive modern corporate raiders.), Nelson Peltz, the Belzbergs, and many others. Alan Greenberg is the head of Bear Stearns, Stephen Schwarzman founded the Blackstone Group, a prominent investing firm. Well-known traditional Jewish investment banking houses include Lehman Brothers, Lazard Freres, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers, Bache & Co., and Cantor & Fitzgerald... (Source: Bloomberg News, Forbes, International Herald Tribune)

Jewish doughboy Michael Milken

In 1986, Dennis Levine was the first to be caught, a "dealmaker" at Drexel Burnham Lambart, for his insider trading (exploiting confidential company information) which opened the doors to the greatest scandal in Wall Street history, "a scandal that caused grave concern within the Jewish community". Not long after, Martin Siegel was also arrested. As the scandal opened up, it was discovered that these wealthy criminals were overwhelmingly Jewish, including all its central players (Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Martin Siegel). "What was particularly upsetting from a Jewish perspective, was the fact that the (criminal) network began, in part, when one member first introduced another to a third at a United Jewish Appeal function." - Judith Ehrlich & Barry Rehfeld

Jewish bloodsucker Ivan Boesky

Dennis Levine on front cover

Jewish journalist Connie Bruck observes:

"Privately, lawyer Martin Lipton expressed another concern, one shared by many of the businessmen and lawyers who were part of the Jewish establishment in New York, and by some of the Drexel contingent as well. They feared that the common strain among these nouveau entrepreneurs and their nouveau banks at Drexel - an overwhelming majority were Jews - would unleash a backlash of virulent anti-Semitism... Drexel is making these huge sums of money and the banks comparatively little. The problem is, all the entrepreneurs are Jews with the exception of T. Boone Pickens and Carl Lindner - and Lindner, a long time supporter of Israel, is the most Jewish non-Jew I've ever known. (In 1999, Lindner became controlling owner of the Cincinnati Reds professional baseball team)... The biggest fish caught in the Wall Street scandal, however, was super billionaire Michael Milken, the "junk bond king," who was charged with racketeering and mail and securities fraud.

Milken single-handedly threatened to fulfill in real life the most profound of traditional anti-Semitic nightmare fantasies. A former Milken associate, saw in Milken "the force of... obsession, the megalomania, the conviction of a cause so just that the end justifies the means and, finally, the conceptualization of the corporate vehicle as a means of extending control nationwide - and then worldwide... Many billions of dollars were at his command... capital, as Milken had been saying and proving for a long time, was not a scarce resource. The only limits to his power, it seemed, would be the limits of his fertile imagination... Milken, sometimes present at Simon Wiesenthal functions, was well-known for being able to assemble billions of dollars overnight to aid corporate takeovers. At a yearly Milken-centered conference of the world's leading corporate takeover specialists, affectionately called the Predator's Ball, a close Milken associate, Donald Engel, arranged for high-priced prostitutes to service the gathered "predators."

"The goal of Milken and his predatory cronies, says Leon Black of Drexel Lambart (the company that was ostensibly Milken's employer) was to finance "the robber barons who would become the owners of major companies in the future. (Black's father, Eli, was the "rabbinically-trained corporate chieftain of United Brands" who in 1975 jumped out a skyscraper window when it was revealed that he was paying bribes to foreign governments)... Among the players in this scenario, Black particularly noted robber barons Carl Icahn, Henry Kravits (who guided a $6.2 billion buyout of the Beatrice company), Samuel Heyman (chairman of GAF who bid $6 billion for Union Carbide), Ronald Perelman, and Rupert Murdoch (who was financed by Milken to take over Metromedia)... By 1985, Milken was moving his players across the M&A (corporate mergers and acquisitions) field as though it were a chess board." - The Predator's Ball, 1988

Ronald Perelman

"Milken ended up spending only a little over two years in prison, a small sacrifice for the staggering amount of wealth he accumulated. He was sentenced by a Gentile woman judge who was married to a prominent Jewish lawyer. Eventually she found grounds for sharply reducing his sentence... The skill of some Jewish billionaires in skirting the limits of the law but somehow emerging unscathed, with the aid of high-priced Jewish attorneys, and a compliant press, was remarkable." - Norman Cantor, The Jewish Experience, 1996

*Milken's 'junk bond' scam eventually led to the massive collapse of Savings & Loan institutions nationwide in the early 90's (aka. S&L scandal). In the wake of debacle, many ordinary Americans lost their savings, and the U.S. Government had to pour in about $500 billion of taxpayers money to clean up the mess.

'Most Feared Corporate Raider' Carl Ichan, a Jew

Another Jewish financier, Carl Icahn "rose from obscurity to become one of the most feared corporate raiders in the country, Chairman of TWA, the largest shareholder in Texaco and USX (formerly US Steel) and a billionaire... Icahn was perhaps the most successful financial predator of them all... Icahn is particularly notable for his repeatedly ruthless campaigns to take over unwilling companies, loot them for obscene profits, and - successfully taking them over or not - spitting them out again, leaving a wake of relative ruin. In 1982, for instance, Icahn warred with the whole community of Danville, Virginia, in his hostile bid to takeover a corporation called Dan River. Townspeople unified to resist him, investing retirement money and other savings into company stock. The company finally resisted the financial predator with a leveraged buyout; Icahn, however, managed to strip the town's economic lifeblood of $8.5 million. In another much publicized financial effort, during early attempts (eventually successful) to take over TWA Airlines the company president, then C. E. Meyer, Jr., called Icahn "one of the greediest men on earth." By 1998 he was attempting to take over Pan Am airlines." - Judith Ehrlich & Barry Rehfeld

"In an attempt to ward off Icahn's efforts to take over the Phillip's petroleum company, it had to go $4.5 billion deeper in debt, as well as cut hundreds of millions of dollars of capital expenses, sell off $2 billion in assets, limit investor dividends, and tighten budgets. 5,000 fewer employees were working for Phillips by the time Icahn was through... Icahn walked away from Phillips unsuccessful after a 10-week struggle to seize the company, but $52.5 million richer... The business establishment took notice of Icahn's recurrently nasty dealings, One close associate of Icahn recalled that Laurence Tisch(Jewish), chairman of Loews and now of CBS, Inc., said to him, 'Tell Carl to cut this out. It's not good for the Jews.'" - Connie Bruck, The Predator's Ball, 1988

James Stewart, a non-Jew and an editor at the Wall Street Journal, came under fierce attack for "anti-Semitism" for his book about Milken and the Wall Street scandals, the Den of Thieves (1992). The title was taken from the New Testament verse: "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the table of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves. And say unto them, it is written. My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." (Mathew, 21:12)

ImClone CEO Sam Waksal; the fast-talking jewboy who sent Martha Stewart to prison

JEWISH WEEK - Jewish community weekly
"Four years ago, Jewish banks in the Jewish state conspired in what has become known as Israel's bank shares scandal. Of the four banks, one was owned by Histradut (Israel's labor federation), one by the Jewish Agency, and one by Mizrachi. Last year, a New York yeshiva that was the seat for a grand rabbi was involved in a money-laundering scheme for area businesses. Some of them were reported to be illegal. Two officials of the school were indicted and convicted. This year a prominent Wall Street figure and a lay leader of the New York Jewish community pleaded guilty to insider trading violations on what is said to be a massive scale. Several others have since been indicted - and most so far are Jewish. And then there are the various corruptions plaguing New York: public officials betraying the public trust by lining their own pockets - and, or so it would seem, almost all of them Jewish." (May 15, 1987)

"Ironically, one of Agudath Israel's featured speakers at a yearly gathering two years before was David Schick, an Orthodox investment counselor, who lectured about ethics in business. He also chaired that Agudath Israel of America national convention. A year later he himself was accused of swindling at least $150 million from hundreds of Orthodox Jewish investors... in a massive real estate investment scam... His potential cooperation with law enforcement authorities is sending shivers throughout the frum Orthodox world because of potential involvement by the Internal Revenue Service into investors who used unreported cash in the investment scam." (May 17, 1996)

GUINESS FOUR - corporate scandal in Britain
Across the ocean, England had its own very publicized Jewish financier scandal at about the same time in the so called, "Age of Greed". It was known as the "Guinness Four" affair. The Times (London) noted, "... On trial were Gerald Ronson (head of Heron International), Ernest Saunders, Jack Lyons, and Anthony Parnes. They were all convicted, but each received reduced, short-term jail sentences. All four defendants... are Jews... Any attempt to incite anti-Semitism because of Jewish financial misbehavior has to be deplored and opposed. But any attempt to minimize or excuse the offenses is also unacceptable... In folk prejudice the 'Jewish banker' is an unkind cliche, but herein lies the problem. He exists... Quiet voices are to be heard that such 'beat the system' attitudes are more common than ought to be any Jewish financier. And recognizing that such a malady exists is the first condition for curing it." (September 1, 1990)

(Some other examples of Jewish wealth)

"When I read through the Newsweek story of the 'Overclass 100,' I began counting the Jews, something I've done since childhood, but soon gave up, overwhelmed by my tribe's prevalence among the powerful, troubled by what this means in the new American class paradigm of haves and have-nots." - Philip Weiss, New York magazine, January 29, 1999 

THE GREENBERGS - Jewish Insurance mogul

"If America's powerful Greenberg family, which dominates the US insurance industry, are planning to gather to celebrate Thanksgiving next month, conversation over the dinner table could be somewhat gloomy... Jeffrey Greenberg, the chief executive of the giant insurance broker Marsh & McLennan, is fighting an $800m lawsuit brought by New York's attorney general, leaving its value nearly cut in half since the case was launched last week. Calls are growing for Greenberg to step down... His father's company, American International Group (AIG), has been named in the suit, which alleges a scam to steal millions of dollars from customers in inappropriate fees... Ace, the Bermuda-based insurer, is also named in the suit, the brother of Jeffrey and the son of the AIG chief, Maurice, took the top job at Ace earlier this year. Already, three executives, two from AIG and one from Ace, have pleaded guilty to having taken part in a bid-rigging scheme... The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering bringing civil charges against AIG for hiding underperforming loans. Before that, AIG was fined $10 million by the SEC for helping one of its distributors hide $12 million in losses through a financial scam... Jeffrey Greenberg is under even more pressure. It's on his watch that Marsh's subsidiary fund management company, Putnam Investments, was the first money manager to be charged with the controversial trading practice of market timing. And earlier this year another Marsh company, Mercer, admitted it had not given the board of the New York Stock Exchange the full picture about the $140 million pay package of its chairman, Dick Grasso.

THE GREENBERG DYNASTY

Jeffrey Greenberg - Chief executive of Marsh & McLennan since 1999 and its chairman since 2000, Jeffrey Greenberg, 53, joined the insurance broker in 1995. Before that he was at AIG. On the day Hurricane Andrew hit Florida, he caused embarrassment by calling the storm an "opportunity to get price increases".

Maurice "Hank" Greenberg - Greenberg is one of the clique of powerful business supporters of President George Bush. Born in 1925 and nicknamed Hank after an American sports legend - the Detroit Tigers baseball player who came close to breaking Babe Ruth's home runs record - Hank Greenberg built his own record as one of America's iconic long-standing businessmen. Since joining in 1960, he transformed AIG from a small holding company with scattered overseas holdings to the largest insurance company in the world, with $81.3bn in revenues and $9.3bn in earnings last year. Note -- According to Forbes, Maurice Greenberg took a $1 million salary, and a $5 million bonus last fiscal year. They also report he made $12 million in stock gains and $12 million in "other income" -- for a total of $29 million. Forbes goes on to compare this to the average yearly compensation for CEOs in the insurance industry: $3 million.

Evan Greenberg - The younger son of Hank, 49-year-old Evan also learned the insurance trade at AIG. He headed up its Japanese and Korean business by 1991 and became AIG president in 1997. He quit without warning in 2000, not naming where he would go. Evan joined Ace in 2001." - The Independent, October 20, 2004

JERRY SPEYER - Jewish real-estate mogul
He married into the Tishman family, also Jewish; the family's firm "Tishman Realty" became the largest "builder-owner" in the United States. Fellow Jewish real estate developer Bernard Mendik told the New York Times Magazine in 1998 that "right now, Jerry Speyer is the Number 1 real-estate developer in the world." Today Speyer's Tishman-Speyer Properties owns 36 million square feet of building space, valued at $10.5 billion. Among other sites Speyer's firm owns include Manhattan's Chrysler Building and the Messerturm in Frankfurt, Germany (Europe's second tallest building). He has served on the boards of both Columbia University and the Museum of Modern Art. Speyer, says journalist James Traub, "operates in that elite sphere in which wealth, public-spiritedness, and proper table manners converge to form a colossal nexus of power, but one almost invisible to the outside world." (Traub, New York Times Magazine, December 20, 1998)

JEWS AND U.S. REAL-ESTATES

In the U.S., the great majority of landowners are Jews. New York for an example, the families of Uris, Menskoff, Durst, Tishman, Rudin, Horowitz, Ravich, Milstein, Goldman and Rose own almost all of New York's prime real estate. New York Jewish real estate mogul Samuel J. Lefrak alone owns 55,000 apartments and 30,000 condominiums in New York. The Reidus family owns buildings in New York, worth $1.5 billion. Eighty percent (80%) of New York builders and contractors are also Jewish. Most of them a loyal to Israel and have contributed huge sums of money to the Jewish state. In San Francisco - Walter Shorenstein owns one of the nation's largest real estate empires, worth $405 million. 25% of San Francisco's downtown rental property is his. Richard Swig - winner of Israel's Golda Meir Award, founded the posh Fairmont Hotel chain in San Francisco. The Sutro family (Jewish immigrants from Russia) own roughly 1/12 of the land in San Francisco. In L.A. - The largest homebuilder in Los Angeles is Eli B. Raoud. Also a Jew. Albert Truman, another real estate mogul in L.A. purchased 77,000 acres of some of the best land between L.A. and San Francisco. Of course, we cannot forget Frank Lowry, a self-proclaimed holocaust survivor. He keeps a large mansion in L.A., and owns one of the country's largest shopping mall chains: Westfield America. Eight of them on California's West Coast and four in New York.

THE NEWHOUSE MEDIA EMPIRE
This Jewish media empire was founded by the late Samuel Newhouse, an immigrant from Russia. When he died in 1979 at the age of 84, he bequeathed media holdings worth an estimated $1.3 billion to his two sons, Samuel and Donald. With a number of further acquisitions, the net worth of Advance Publications has grown to more than $8 billion today. The Newhouses own 30 daily newspapers, including several large and important ones, such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Newark Star-Ledger, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune; Newhouse Broadcasting, consisting of 12 television broadcasting stations and 87 cable-TV systems, including some of the country's largest cable networks; the Sunday supplement Parade, with a circulation of more than 22 million copies per week; some two dozen major magazines, including the New Yorker, Vogue, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Bride's, Gentlemen's Quarterly, Self, House & Garden, and all the other magazines of the wholly owned Conde Nast group.

EDOUARD DE ROTHSCHILD - Jewish financier in France
In December 2004, Edouard de Rothschild(46), acquired French daily newspaper Liberation, the country's third largest. Liberation is a very important French newspaper. Its circulation is around 160,000 copies per day, countrywide. It ranks third after Le Monde (leftist), which sells 380,000 copies daily, and Le Figaro (rightist), which sells 350,000. Liberation was started in 1973. Initially the newspaper was a hotbed of ultra-leftists and even Maoist extremists. Since that time, it has matured and is now considered "mainstream," though still on the left. Edouard de Rothschild is the half-brother of David de Rothschild, the main shareholder and chairman of the Rothschild investment bank. He stated that he intends to found a "large press group" with Liberation at its center. In June 2004, France's sole rightist national daily newspaper Le Figaro was also purchased, along with its whole media group Socpresse, by Jewish billionnaire Serge Dassault (real name Serge Bloch).

JEWISH MONEY AND U.S. POLITICS

In 2001, May issue of Mother Jones magazine listed the top 400 individual contributors to political (Democratic and Republican) campaigns. These are the people who seek to influence the American political process by economic means. Although Jews represent merely 2.5 percent of the American population, at least 51 (and quite likely a few more) of the first 100 people listed were Jewish, including four of the top five. Of these first four, three are noted as having strong ties to Israel:

#1 was S. Daniel Abraham, former mogul of Slim Fast Foods, who "has spent most of his political and charitable energies in the last decade supporting Israel and the troubled Middle East peace process. He has helped fund Birthright Israel, a program which sponsors tours of Israel for young American Jews." Abraham contributed $1,518,500 to the Democratic Party.
   
#2 was Bernard Schwartz, CEO of Loral Space and Communications, a defense contractor moving more and more into the telecommunications industry. Schwartz donated $1,317,000 to the Democratic Party.
    
# 3 was David Gilo, head of the wireless communications company, Vyyo. Gilo was born in Israel and "emigrated to the United States in 1982, retaining dual citizenship." Gilo contributed $1,311,000 to the Democratic Party.

#5 was Haim Saban, who is also immigrant from Israel.

CALVIN KLEIN - Jewish fashion mogul
In 1995 Jewish garment mogul, Calvin Klein, who had a serious problem with cocaine and Quaaludes over the years, was condemned by a range of parent and social welfare groups for an advertising campaign featuring images by Jewish photographer Stephen Meisel. Adolescent models were photographed in various stages of undress, poised to offer both sexual pleasures and the fantasy of sexual availability... Angry critics... called the images suggestive and exploitive, and condemned Calvin Klein for using children as sexual commodities. Other critics likened the ads to child pornography. This was an old theme for Klein. Earlier suggestive commercials with and adolescent Brooke Shields had garnered condemnation from a variety of groups. (Klein's key partner in his initial years was fellow Jewish entrepreneur Barry Schwartz. Another Jewish friend, described as Klein's "mentor," was Nicholas de Gunzburg, the "fur and fabric editor" of Vogue magazine).

JEWS AND FASHION INDUSTRY

As in other areas of society, Jews figure prominently in fashion world. The Guess company was founded by the Jewish Marciano brothers, who share control of the firm with the Nakash family, who are also Jewish. The company has also followed the typical advertising strategy to sell jeans. "Media Watch," noted the Los Angeles Times in 1990, "a feminist group in Santa Cruz, has called for a boycott of Guess, charging that its ads demean women, integrating sex with violence."... Elsewhere, Ralph Lauren founded Polo brands, Estelle Sommers founded the Capezio dancewear brand, Ann Klein (Hannah Golofski) has become a widely recognized "designer" brand, as has Donna Karan and her DKNY label. Isaac Mizrahi and Tommy Hilfiger are other famous Jewish fashion brands, as is that of the Iranian-Jewish mogul of perfume and self-promotion, Bijan (Pakzad), also known as the "designer of what's probably the world's most expensive menswear. Rudi Gernreich and John Weitz are other Jews who have been prominent fashion designers. Designer Arnold Scassi's last name is Isaacs (his original surname) spelled backwards. Kenneth Cole (Kenneth Cohen) developed popular lines of shoes, belts, and leather jackets. Judith Lieber manufacturers luxury handbags. Liz Claiborne founded her company with her Jewish husband Arthur Ortenberg and Leonard Boxer. She retired in 1989 whereupon Jerome Chazen became chairman of the firm. Other prominent executives in the company are Harvey Falk and Jay Margolis.

In 1988, Nicholas Coleridge listed the American "power buyers" (those who buy for stores) of the fashion world. Most of the people listed are Jewish, and a huge percentage of the stores are Jewish-owned: "Daria Retain, fashion director of Neiman Marcus; Ellin Saltzman, director of fashion and product development at Saks Fifth Avenue; James Fowler and Mary Talbot, vice-president and design buyer of Jacobsons Stores, Michigan; Kaye von Bergen, designer buyer of Bendel's; Lois Ziegler and Sue Bicksler, fashion directors of J.C. Penney; Bernie Ozer, vice-president of the Associated Merchandising Corporation; Barbara Weiser of Charivari; Barbara Warner, formerly of Barneys, who virtually single-handedly turned the store into an upbeat designer terminus; Lynne Manulis, president of Marthas; Joan Weinstein, president of Ultimo; James Sullivan, fashion director of Jordan Marsh; Missy Lomonaco, fashion director of Bonwit Teller; Betty Hahn, designer buyer of Garfinkels, Washington; Jean Navin, vice-president and fashion director of Lord & Taylor; Kal Ruttenstein, vice-president and fashion director of Bloomingdales; Terry Melville, fashion director of Macy's; and Sal Ruggerio of Marshall Field, Chicago."

Elsewhere, Israeli-born Elia Tahari is among the most respected names in department and specialty stores. In California Severin Wunderman's company, the Severin Group ($500 million a year in sales), remains the sole manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of Gucci timepieces and Fila sports watches. These products' retail cost run between $225 and $14,000 apiece. "The word 'demanding' is repeatedly used to describe Severin. In addition to shouting and breaking things, he has tossed more than one cellular phone out the window of his chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce." (Howlett) The head of the French luxury jewelry firm, Cartier, is also Jewish: Alain Dominique Perrin. In 1996, during a visit to Israel, he announced plans to donate an unspecified percentage of the revenue from the sale of $10 million worth of jewelry to the World International Zionist Organization. Sidney Toledano is today's president and CEO of Christian Dior. The Chanel company, which makes the most expensive perfume in the world, was founded by non-Jew Co Co Chanel, but built to power by the Jewish Wertheimer brothers. In 1924 Chanel sold 90 percent of the rights to Chanel No.5 to Pierre Wertheimer, who, with his brother Paul, owned Bourjois, the largest cosmetics company in France... They bought out Chanel - couture house, perfume and all - in 1954. (Feeling that she was being cheated by the Wertheimers, Chanel had sued them in 1934.)

Elsewhere in France, in 1995 Jean-Pierre Meyer became Deputy Chairman of the L'Oreal cosmetics giant, suceeding Andre Bettencourt (whose father founded the firm). Meyer, who is Jewish, is married to Bettencourt's daughter. Diane von Furstenberg (Diane Simone Michelle Halfin) founded a fragrance and fashion empire. Stanley Kohlenberg, head of Revlon's domestic Group III, was recognized as one of the premiere marketing men in the fragrance industry. Samuel Rubin founded the Faberge perfume company. Max Factor built a cosmetics empire, including waterproof mascara and long-lasting lipstick. Helena Rubenstein sold beauty and royalty. The names of Jewish entrepreneurs Helena Rubenstein and Estee Lauder (Josephine Esther Menzer) became virtual synonyms for cosmetics in the twentieth century. Adrien Arpel opened 500 skin care salons across America, a legend in the cosmetics industry. Vidal Sassoon built an business empire based on hair care. (Sassoon, funder of a research unit on anti-Semitism at an Israeli university, was the recipient of the first American Jewish Congress "Beauty Hall of Fame" award). (Source: Gaines & Churcher, Obsession, 1994; Herny Griroux, New Art Examiner, February, 1996; Dorfman, USA Today, August 13, 1990; Nicholas Coleridge, The Fashion Conspiracy, 1988; Marshall Hood, Columbia Dispatch, May 11, 1993, Susan Howlett, March 26, 1995;  G. Cashman, Jerusalem Post, November 7, 1997; Paula Hyman, Jewish Women in America, 1997)

AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL SPORTS BUSINESS

All these heads of the 4 major American sports professional organizations are Jewish, as of  2002:

Commssioner of Major League Baseball: Bud Selig
Commissioner of the National Football League: Paul Tagliabue
Commissioner of the National Basketball Association: David Stern
Commissioner of the National Hockey League: Gary Bettman

*Exact figures are not available, but Jewish ownership of American professional sports teams are estimated somwhere between 50-60 percent of all MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL teams.

DREW ROSENHAUS - Jewish sports agent
"No agent in the NFL, has ever had as many players on one team (17) as Drew Rosenhaus has with the Miami Dolphins, and so in this new era of free agency, no agent has wielded so much potential influence over a single team." (Sun Sentinel - Ft. Lauderdale, July 30, 1995)

In 1997, Rosenhaus published autobiography titled, A Shark Never Sleeps: Wheeling and Dealing with the NFL's Most Ruthless Agent:

"I was born to be an agent, I was nurtured to dominate in this business from the day my parents brought me home from the hospital... My first car was a Porsche 944, then I had a Delorean. I had cars like that in high school because my dad would sacrifice the world so that I could be THE MAN. Cars were the thing at that age. They identified you. So my dad, whatever it took, found a way to make me the man... 'Agent' is considered a four-letter word, or referred to as the 'A word,' is synonymous with being a sleazeball lawyer. I became the face for this picture. I became the poster boy for greed in sports today. I wanted to be famous; I became infamous." Sports Illustrated featured him on its cover (July 15, 1996), calling him "The Most Hated Man in Pro Football."

A business periodical for African-American community complained: "Pick up a player, any player, among the ten highest paid black athletes in the NBA, the NFL, or the MLB, and 29 out of 30 have an agent who is anything but black." (Black Enterprise, July, 1992) These agents are overwhelmingly Jewish; those noted by Black Enterprise include Marvin Demhoff, Steve Zucker, Barry Axelrod, and Leigh Steinberg (who had the largest stable of NFL athletes, about 70, by 1995).

LAS VEGAS
Las Vegas has long been a hotbed of underworld influence and a worldwide attraction for gambling and prostitution. The Italian Mafia has also, from the conception of Las Vegas as a leisure Mecca, held great sway in the city, but its most famous underworld personages have always been Jewish mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. The great scope of Jewish contribution to the creation, and dubious ethics, of Las Vegas may be measured by the words of the University of Nevada professor Alan Balboni. Here he discusses the development of the desert city as a gambling resort area:

"Most of the Las Vegas hotel builders were Jewish Americans. Jay Sarno and Nate Jacobson were associated with Caesar's Palace (Sarno later created Circus Circus); Moe Dalitz, Morris Kleinman, and Sam Tucker with the Desert Inn (and, along with Jake Factor, with the Stardust after Italian-American Tony Cornero's death); Sidney Wyman, Al Gottesman, and Jake Gottleib with the early years of the Dunes; Gus Greenbaum, Moe Sedway, and Charlie Resnick with managing the Flamingo after Bugsy Siegel's death; Ben Goffstein, Willie Alderman, and David Berman with the booking and running of the Riviera; Milton Prell with the establishment of the Sahara and then with the transformation of the Tally-Ho into the Aladdin; Hyman Abrams, Carl Cohen, and Jack Entratter with the ownership and operation of the Sands; and Ben Jaffe, Phil Kastel, and Jell Houssels (of Anglo-Saxon background) with the construction and operation of the Tropicana... A few Italian-Americans hold minor ownership shares in casinos." (Alan Balboni, Beyond the Mafia, 1996)

Hollywood's "Sin City" entertainment playground, Las Vegas, especially renowned for gambling, prostitution and other vices, must also be added to the list of great questionable Jewish influences upon popular culture. (In Hollywood, Al and Lew Wertheimer founded an illegal gambling den in Hollywood called the Clover Club. The Jewish Hollywood crowd later set up such a resort near Tijuana, Mexico, called Agua Caliente.) Las Vegas, as an institution, has been profoundly influential in its efforts to sanitize, normalize, and popularize some of the most troubling expressions of human nature as acceptable recreation in western society. As professor Alan Balboni observes, "The Jews and Italians who made up 'the Boys' (the Mafia) were able to develop the burgeoning gaming industry to the point where it eventually became a significant influence on the American scene." Jewish entrepreneurship was not alone in this, but it was central.

Others of more recent note include; Bernie Rothkopf (MGM Hotel Casino), Jerome Mack (Dunes and Riviera), Hank Greenspon (Las Vegas Sun newspaper and a local TV station), Arthur Goldberg (Park Place Entertainment - Caesar's Palace, Bally's, Stardust, etc.), Sheldon Adelson (Sands, Venetian), Steve Wynn (Mirage, Golden Nugget) (The same ownerships apply to Atlantic City, NJ)

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"To sum up the phenomenon of Jewish affluence, what is happening in the United States today is what has been happening throughout much of Western history. The Jews, finding themselves unrestricted and uncurbed in a land rich in resources and labor, are rapidly acquiring a wholly disproportionate share of its wealth. It is almost certainly the same history process that took place in Visigothic, Islamic and Catholic Spain, in medieval England, France and Germany - and more recently in 20th-century Germany. Yet no one cares - or dares - to notice it. Any critical discussion of Jewish wealth - or for that matter any critical discussion of any aspect of Jewish power - immediately exposes the author or speaker to charges of anti-Semitism.

Since anti-Semitism is the great heresy of modern times, a person so accused is immediately subjected to such doses of social ostracism and economic attrition that a normal private life or successful public career becomes impossible. It is consequently small wonder that almost the entire Western intellectual establishment has shied away from such a thankless and unprofitable task. In the present-day West one can only be truly objective about Jews when one is a Jew... Instead of submitting anti-Semitism to the free play of ideas, instead of making it a topic for open debate, Jews and their liberal supporters have managed to organize an inquisition in which all acts, writings and even thoughts critical of Jewry are treated as a threat to the moral order of mankind." - Wilmot Robertson, The Dispossessed Majority, 1982

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THE WEALTH DIVIDE, Multinational Monitor, May 2003, Vol. 24, No. 5

"Wealth inequality increased dramatically in the United States in the late 1990s. The top 5% is now capturing an increasingly greater portion of the pie while the bottom 95% is clearly losing ground, resulting in the rapidly vanishing middle class. This trend is the product of legislative policies carefully crafted and lobbied for by corporations and the ultra-wealthy over the past 25 years. America's economic trends have a global footprint, and today, the top 400 income earners in the U.S. make as much in a year as the entire population of the 20 poorest countries in Africa. A series of reports released in 2003 by the UN warn that further increases in the imbalance in wealth throughout the world will have catastrophic effects if left unchecked, such as the collapse of the entire global economy."