Tanenbaum; Expose, Punish Jews Who Are Guilty of Involvement in Nursing Homes Medicaid Swindles

Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, commenting on reports that records of a number of Hebrew day schools have been subpoenaed on suspicion of involvement in nursing home Medicaid swindles, said that guilty Jews should “be exposed and punished regardless of who they are and what may be their titles or positions.”

He said the AJCommittee “together with every responsible Jewish group” condemns “practices of a few individuals in the Jewish community who have reportedly engaged in illegal and immoral financial transactions with nursing homes for private gains.”

According to Jewish sources, the day school records have been subpoenaed by Charles J. Hynes, the special prosecutor for nursing homes whose efforts have led to indictments of Rabbi Bernard Bergman and Eugene Hollander, two leading Orthodox Jews, on state and federal charges of misuse of Medicaid funds in their nursing home operations. Hollander has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentence.

The sources said the new development went beyond the earlier disclosures concerning Bergman and Hollander, who reportedly had made contributions to religious organizations and to leading rabbis under the guise of nursing home costs which were subsequently reimbursed with Medicaid funds.

A VIOLATION OF JUDAISM

Tanenbaum said that “the fact that ? religious Jews or rabbis have allegedly been involved and that such exploitation takes place at the expense of poor and elderly people–many of whom are Jews–only compounds the scandal Such reprehensible behavior violates every moral and ethical canon of Judaism and of the Jewish people.”

“If the reports are true.” he continued, “the Jewish community surely wants this scandalous business investigated thoroughly and completely We urge that the guilty be exposed and punished regardless of who they are and what may be their titles or positions.”