* Note: Positions of power and ownership are always in flux. Companies are bought and sold these days with extraordinary frequency and career rungs change quickly. The facts noted in the next chapters for those of current power should be regarded as an overall pattern and not an absolute freeze point for any individual and his/her controlling interests. Such facts are also merely a general sampling, and may be regarded -- in overview -- as the proverbial "tip of an iceberg." 

       In the following chapters, too, many people are identified as being of Jewish heritage as part of this investigation of Jewish power in America. Often Jewish journals and scholars identify them. Sometimes too, when the subject is portrayed in a good, or at least neutral, light, they are identified as such in the popular mass media. When Jews make the news for being in trouble with the law, they are more often freely identified as Jews in the British press than in the United States. In America, they are more likely noted neutrally, as "white," "Russian," "Iranian," or other ethnicities under which Jewish identities may be subsumed.

     Sometimes the Jewish heritage of the powerful or newsworthy is difficult to ascertain, but their ethnicity can often be decided via articles about relatives, relationships to Israel, synagogues, religious holidays, cultural indicators, or Jewish-configured political organizations and other tangential leads. Many surnames (Cohen, Katz, Kaplan, Levy, Levine, Levin, etc.) are instantly recognizable to the informed as Jewish and, even if a small minority of individuals with such names are only "half-Jewish" or, rarely, converts to some other religion, the familial link to the Jewish community (especially in homage to the Holocaust and often modern Israel) may fairly be presumed to be no small thing. For purposes here, that allegiance, and all it entails, is the crucial determinant in determining who is Jewish. The ambiguous "community of fate" is, after all, one of the major self-defined measures of Jewish identity. This is particularly true of those who hold power of some sort in popular culture: most of these people are in significant degree part of a Jewish network, especially an economic and political one.

       In these senses, this work follows the lead of the Jewish community (and the Jewish ethnic media) itself. (Many individuals, however, who may well be Jewish, had to be left out of this assemblage because public information was too weak and names were too ambiguous to presume that they had a Jewish background). This entire methodology (ironically ascribed by Jews as a manifestation of anti-Semitism if it represents anything less than an intention to flatter Jewry) is popular in the Jewish world itself, often noted as "nose-counting" or "bean-counting": usually a celebratory emphasis of who exactly is Jewish and/or its attendant search for allegiances.  As Jewish scholar Nathan Glazer has noted about this phenomena, and its tinge of paranoia:

       "A leading figure in the Jewish community affairs relates that a

        Jew eagerly asks, in any situation, 'How many are Jews?' And

        when he gets an answer, he asks suspiciously, 'How do you

        know?'" [NEUSNER, J., 1972, p. 3]

     Efforts here to determine specifically who is Jewish are, in some ways, more extensive than most Jewish organizations' demographic studies themselves. In a 1999 investigation of the Jews of the Miami area by the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, for example, the way to ascertain who was Jewish was simple. Ten percent of common Jewish names were merely tallied, and compared to other years, from phone books. From this base, estimates were made. This method of determining Jewish population numbers "has been used by Jewish demographers across the country for 40 years." [BELKIN, D., 5-6-99, p. B1] An American Jewish Committee examination of voter patterns in the Philadelphia was in large part "based on surnames gathered from voter-registration records." [FELDMAN, S., 3-2-2000, p. 1] Jewish author George Gilbert, like many, notes in his introduction to his volume about "Jewish photographers," that "for the purposes of this study, individuals are deemed Jewish even if they do not meet the halakhic structure responsible for traditional Jewish religious criteria: being born of a Jewish mother." [GILBERT, G., 1996, p. ix] Stanley Rothman's and S. Robert Lichter's definition of Jewry to qualify for inclusion in a book about Jewish political radicalism goes like this: "We classified students as Jewish if the ethnic background of both parents was Jewish, or if only one parent was of Jewish background but had raised the child as a Jew or without religious training." [ROTHMAN/LICHTER, 1982, p. 213] In 1973 Harry Golden noted United Jewish Appeal methodologies to find the Jewish nouveau riche to pester for philanthropic donations: "[UJA] researchers go over every prospectus issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, attentively study advertised stock offerings in every city, and plow through hundreds of year-end reports to the stockholders issued by major industries, always on the lookout for that Jewish name that they have never read before." Another UJA division scans obituaries, looking for affluent Jews by surname, intent upon contacting survivors. [GOLDEN, H., 1973, p. 119]  No apologies are thereby made for such popular Jewish research methodologies that are in large part followed here.

        "Having money is a good thing, having power over money is

even better."

                    -- Old Yiddish folk saying [KUMOVE, S., 1985, p. 16]

"Money goes to money."

Old Yiddish folk saying, [KUMOVE, S., 1985, p. 179]

"The rich breed more rich."

Old Yiddish folk saying, [KUMOVE, S., 1985, p. 251]

"The rich man's way is without fair play."

-- Old Yiddish folk saying, [KUMOVE, S., 1985, p. 251]

"Villains fare well in this world, saints in the next world."

-- Old Yiddish folk saying, [KUMOVE, S., 1985, p. 84]     

                       "Behind every fortune lies a crime." -- Balzac 

     "Jewish money," noted Gerald Krefetz, "-- its purported influence and power-- is one of the oldest canards of anti-Semitism. Therefore, the topic is usually dealt with in the softest of voices by Jews for fear of raising the specter of anti-Semitism; and by non-Jews for fear of being tarred by the brush, of being called anti-Semites for even ventilating the subject. The omission is startling since money -- its use and abuse, its acquisition and disposition -- was and is a central element in the Jewish experience." [KREFETZ, p. 3]

     As an Eastern European Jewish fable notes about the subject of anti-Jewish hostility, traditional tension between Jewish haves and Gentile have-nots, and the wisdom of keeping relative Jewish affluence hidden:

     "Once the good-hearted rabbi of Chelm was interrupted in his devotions
      by the sudden appearance of one of his townspeople, Yankele, bleeding
      and howling in pain. The shabbes-goy [non-Jewish Saturday servant for
      Jews] had gratuitously punched Yankele in the mouth. The rabbi asked
      solicitously if he could inspect the damage. But when Yankele opened
      his mouth, the rabbi was horriifed. How does a Jew come to have such
      a healthy set of teeth? Are these the very teeth that Yankele had exposed
      to the shabbes-goy? Well, then, no wonder he had been brutalized.
      For a Jew to show such strong tetth is in itself a provocation. The
      rabbi counseled Yankele never to show his teeth to any Gentile again.

      In susequent weeks, although Yankele keeps his mouth dutifully shut, the
      shabbes-goy beats him up repeatedly. Each time the rabbi, after due
      analysis of the situation, discovers a provocation: once Yankele had carried
      a loaf of bread home from the marketplace, obviously attracting the shabbes-goy's       envy; a second time he had strayed too far out of town, obviously transgressing       what the shabbes-goy considered to be the Jew's legitimate bounds. Finally,
      after still another beating, the rabbi realizes the gravity of the situation and
      calls a public meeting of the local Jewish elders to resolve the matter. The
      meeting unanimously concludes that Yankele is too dangerous to keep in town.
      At the rabbi's suggestion he if forced to leave, and the shabbes-goy's wages
      are modestly raised to placate him and 'move him to pity.'" [SHORRIS, E.,
      1982, p. 98-99; written by WISSE, RUTH]

     "Jewish success in America," says Henry Feingold, "appears to rest partly on the pre-existing Jewish culture (which gives it behavioral cues, a unique entrepreneurial vision, plus connections and capital); and American culture (which gives it a success ethos, economic opportunity, and open society)." [FEINGOLD, p. 41]  "Jews," noted Israeli scholar Boas Evron in 1995, "are among the most powerful, best integrated and wealthy groups in the United States, Britain, and France." [EVRON, p. 48]  "Jews," adds Joseph Heckelman, "are disproportionately visible in every area of human endeavor. In other words, Jews are disproportionately successful." [HECKELMAN, J., p. 68] "Success is a basic fact of Jewish American life," observed Roger Kahn in 1968, "... Success surrounds and infuses their lives. Success in business; success in educating children; success in entering the most hotly-sought endeavors. Jews are business owners, business managers, professionals, writers and artists. Few are laborers. Virtually none is a farmhand." [KAHN, R., p. 4] "We didn't progress because we were Jewish," a Jewish factory owner in Brooklyn told researcher Jonathan Rider in 1985, "but because we are a driving, pushing people." [REIDER, J., 1985, p. 45]

      Karl Marx's mid-19th century comment that America had already become "Judaized" (i.e., commercialized and rendered excessively materialistic) through Jewish influence upon America's own stringent brand of Protestantism, was echoed in 1911 by the Jewish anthropologist, Maurice Fishberg:

     "Fifty years ago the criminology of the Jews was a good indication of

      what modern society is coming to under commercial and financial

      activity. In this respect, as was the case with many other peculiarities,

      such as the excessive number of psychopathics and neuropathics, the

      Jews have only been the advance agents. Many publicists of Europe

      have, in fact, often designated conditions in the United States as

      'Jewish.'" [FISHBERG, p. 549]

     "The power of commercialism in the United States was hardly to be denied," says Albert Lindemann, "The English themselves were often taken aback by the commercial scramble in the United States in the nineteenth century, by the 'Jewish souls of the Yankee.'" [LINDEMANN, p. 206]  "It has been the Jews," says Edward Shapiro, "who taught Americans how to dance (Arthur Murray), what to wear (Ralph Lauren), how to behave (Dear Abby and Ann Landers), and where to complain (David Horowitz). [SHAPIRO, Anti-Sem, p. 1]  Jews even gave the world the idealized images of the Barbie doll and Superman. "If you live in New York or any other major city," said comedian Lenny Bruce, "you are Jewish." [RUBIN, p. 89]

    As Chaim Bermant notes:

     "There is probably less anti-semitism and certainly less overt anti-semitism in
      the world today than at any other time since the rise of Christianity. Auschwitz is,
      of course, one reason; another is the decline in religious fanaticism and, indeed, in
      religious belief in general, and while rampant secularism may be a threat to Judaism
      it has made life easier for the Jew. A third reason, which is connected to the second,
      is that the western world has become more Jewish. The commerical drive which
      was said to characterize the Jew and which was regarded with such disdain by the
      European (if not the American) bourgeoisie, has become, if not respectable, then at
      least more widespread and acceptable ..." [BERMANT, C., 1977, p. 37]

     "If the religious traditions of the shtetl had accustomed Jews to think of luxuries as a type of instrument for dignifying the holy days," says Andrew Heinze, "the secular American environment refocused this awareness." [HEINZE, p. 5] ... By exploiting the Jewish concept of honoring a holiday, merchants and consumers turned the religious occasion into a pretext for shopping ... [HEINZE, p. 66] ... As a pretext for shopping, Jewish holidays merged subtly with the fashion cycle." [HEINZE, p. 67]  "The turn of the century New York Yiddish press," writes Paula Hyman and Deborah Moore, "abounded with references to the enthusiasm of Jewish women, even the newly arrived, for the latest style of dress and interior decoration. Furthermore, there were certain clear contrasts between Jews and other groups in respect to the consumption of goods ... [Jewish] attraction to new kinds of products and pleasures also contributed to the rapid development of a resort culture among Jews, which set them apart not only from other immigrants, but from virtually all Americans of similar modest means." [HYMAN, p. 24]   Among the best known of these resorts in the Catskill Mountains was Grossinger's.

     "In the 1860s and 1870s," notes William Leach, "luxury was seen by many Americans as morally corrupting ... By the 1920s, luxury seems to have lost for many people much of its negative meaning." [LEACH, p. 295] "The modern definition of luxury," decided an influential Columbia University economist, Edwin R. Seligman, in 1927, "is neutral so far as ethical connotation is concerned." [LEACH, p. 295]  "Nourished by American conditions and values," says Andrew Heinze, "Jewish merchants were able to make a profound impact in the era before World War I. In the areas of street marketing and film marketing, they would completely change the prevalent mode of operations, thereby demonstrating that Jewish adaptation in America entailed the creation as well as the reception of new forms of consumption." [HEINZE, p. 181-182]  "The contemporary historian John Higham," notes Edward Shapiro, "has concluded that the Jewish emphasis on the materialistic and competitive values of business is also 'deeply ingrained in American life.'" [SHAPIRO, p. 11]

     Even modern advertising and the selling of "brand names" can be traced to Jewish origins, particularly rooted in the Jewish Rothschild banking monolith in Germany in the 1800s. The House of Rothschild, notes Sam Lehman-Wilzig, "developed ... institutionalized advertising. Advertising today is taken for granted as a central cog in the capitalist system, especially in regard to fueling demand. This was not always the case; for as [German economist Werner] Sombart points out, a pretty display in a window was considered unethical business practice a mere three hundred years ago. Noteworthy is that this institution was elevated by HR [the House of Rothschild] to new heights, advertising not any specific product but a corporate name." [LEHMAN-WILZIG, p. 256]

     In a more recent expression of the "brand name" archetype, Christopher Byron traces the Israeli Nakash brothers (of Jordache jeans) road to success in America in the 1980s:

     "Steeped in the Middle Eastern arts of obliqueness and guile, the

     brothers seemed manipulative by nature. And as the youngest of the

     three, Avi's guile certainly showed through when he came up with a

     gimmick that would make them all rich. Catching on quickly to the

     American way of doing things, he suggested that they forget about

     the product and invest in the image instead. In other words, spend

     the money on an ad campaign ... And what more mesmerized the

     masses than sex, wealth, and social power ... If a four-dollar swatch

     of denim could be turned into a symbol of success, there was just

     no telling how much people would be willing to pay for it ... [The

     first TV commercial they personally created] the three networks

     all rejected  ... as lewd, but New York area independents agreed to

     carry it, and within weeks Jordache was the rage of every high

     school in the Greater New York area." [BYRON, p. 34-35]

     Another example of the artificial construct of economic value is the entire world of diamonds, largely controlled internationally by Jews. The idea of an "engagement ring" (and specifically a diamond one, as an expression of eternal love) is a recent phenomena, created by advertising agencies to sell more diamonds. David Koskoff notes that:

        "Harry Oppenheimer [the head of the South African-based De Beers

        diamond syndicate] is usually credited with augmenting demand [for

        diamonds] through advertising, which De Beers undertook in 1939 ...

        Most diamantaries [those in the diamond trade] appreciate that the value

        of their product is illusory and dependent on the props maintained by

        De Beers." [KOSKOFF, The Diamonds, p. 272

     In 1993 the Israeli author Amos Oz paraphrased a Jewish critic's referral to the special Jewish entrepreneurial vision:

            "We Israelis hear now and then that the very state of Israel might

             have been a mistake ... George Steiner goes even further by adding

             that a national state per se is vain, childish, anachronistic, and a

             dangerous concept. We should aspire to 'Judaifying' the entire world

             by turning it into the arena of one hundred different civilizations,

             rather than a single nation state." [OZ, p. 117]

     "Western civilization," says Albert Lindemann, "is undeniably a 'jewified' civilization, however offensive the word may be to our ears because of the ugly use made of it by anti-Semites ... Anti-Semites believed that Jews were everywhere, and in a sense they were almost everywhere that counted in modern society." [LINDEMANN, Esau's, p. 20]

        WASP economic and social dominance in America was well along in the process of being dismantled when Jewish commentator Peter Schrag wrote in 1971 that

       "In the last twenty-five years, dissecting the establishment has become a

        highly popular academic endeavor. C. Wright Mills (among others)

        took it on in The Power Elite, E. Digby Baltzell in The Protestant 

        Establishment, G. William Domhoff in The Higher Circles and Who

        Rules America? One might suspect that the very existence of these

        studies indicates that the subject bears more resemblance to a carcass

        than to a living body." [SCHRAG, p. 161]

                ******************************************

       The first immigration group of Jews to America came in the colonial era; they were largely Sephardic and established themselves as a merchant elite. "They were "among the founders of such Establishment institutions as the New York Stock Exchange, Columbia University, New York University, the American Medical Association, and the Boston Atheneum." [ZWEIGANHAFT, p. 9]  Hayman Levy was the largest fur trader in colonial America; even Daniel Boone was hired by a Jew, "Jacob Cohen, and other Jewish merchants to survey the land, mark out roads and locate land claims in Kentucky." [DAVIS, D., 129] A second immigrant group arrived in the middle of the 19th century; some of these "made their way into investment banking, where they were joined by an equally successful group of Jews stemming from the banking houses established by the Jews in Germany." [FEINGOLD, p. 39]

    By the 1870s, "proportionally speaking, in no other immigrant group have so many ever risen so rapidly from rags to riches." [ZWEIGENHAFT, p. 11] "The first generation of [Jewish] millionaires included the manufacturer Philip Heidelbach, the bankers Josephs Seligman, Lewis Seasongood, and Solomon Loeb, the railroad magnates Emanuel and Mayer Lehman, and a good many more. The generall body of American Jews participated in the same upward thrust; a survey of 10,000 Jewish families in 1890 showed that 7,000 of them had servants." [HIGHAM, J., 1957, p. 8] "Many Jews," noted Richard Zweigenhaft and G. William Domhoff, "were influential in founding the very clubs that helped set the upper class apart from the rest of society ... Like the Sephardim who preceded them, the wealthiest German Jews were accepted in the most prestigious social clubs, and many interacted with and were entertained socially by 'the best' of gentile society." [ZWEIGENHAFT, p. 10] In 1889 62% of American Jews in the occupational world were either bankers, brokers, wholesalers, retailers, collectors, or agents. 17% more were professionals. [LIPSET/RAAB, p. 82]

     The third wave of Jewish immigrants, the largest, came from Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century and mostly settled in New York City; occupationally,