Home News & Analysis Need a Kidney? NJ Rabbis can give you a Good Deal

Need a Kidney? NJ Rabbis can give you a Good Deal

By: CaraTan Date: 6 July 2009

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Deal, New Jersey, USA, 26 July 2009. Organ trafficking, money laundering and corruption are just some of the crimes to allegedly have been committed by a ring which included three NJ mayors, five rabbis, two state assemblymen, and a city council president.

Everybody's watching: Being a rabbi these days in NJ is like being in a goldfish bowl
Credit: Hiltch

The rabbis were really just out to help people that needed kidneys, and if the economics of it allowed, make a few dollars on the side.

The rabbis were paying up to $10,000 in much-needed money to the sellers, and receiving about $160,000 from the buyers, mostly well-to-do Israelis.

And anyone who knows anything at all about the organ trading business always buys live organs. It's true: Studies have shown that receiving a kidney from a living person increases the receipient's chances of surviving by up to ten percent.

And these guys know. One of the kidney dealers, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, of Brooklyn, said he had been trafficking kidneys for a decade.

The rabbis involved are Saul Kassin, 87, chief rabbi of Sharee Zion, a Brooklyn synagogue; Eliahu Ben Haim, 58, of Congregation Ohel Yaacob in Deal, New Jersey; Mordchai Fish, 56, of Congregation Sheves Achim in Brooklyn; Edmond Nahum, 56, of Deal Synagogue in Deal; and Lavel Schwartz, 57, Fish's brother.

Apparently Deal was a good place for deals, and that's where the FBI and IRS looked first. They raided a Deal synagogue, set amid large Mediterranean-style mansions.

Part of the ordeal involved "pre-existing money laundering network" that moved "at least tens of millions of dollars through charitable, non-profit entities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey," as stated by acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra.

"The rabbi asserts his innocence," said Saul Kassin's attorney Robert Stahl after U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk imposed a $200,000 bail bond. "It's a shame that he's caught up in some misunderstanding. Despite his difficult circumstances, he remains confident that the system of justice will prevail."

Some didn't quite appreciate the altruism involved. Governor Jon Corzine said, "The scale of corruption we're seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated."

"The fact that we arrested a number of rabbis this morning does not make this a religiously motivated investigation," said FBI special agent Weysan Dun. "It is not a politically motivated investigation. It is about crime, corruption, arrogance and a shocking betrayal of public trust."

The elected mayors and other officials, including Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, 32, were charged with an FBI complaint alleging they took bribes.

Cammarano, Hoboken's youngest mayor ever, had only been in office three weeks at the time of his arrest.

An undercover witness, Solomon Dwek, exposed the suspects. In 2006, Dwek was charged with planning to defraud $50 million from PNC Bank. He is a rabbi's son and was the Vice President of the Deal Yeshiva School in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

New Jersey is notorious for its corruption, and has seen the conviction of more than 100 public officials in the past frew years.

Dr Hosni Afleck, EconomyWatch.com