I have met Elie Wiesel and have great admiration for his work It has special resonance with me because I am the child of Holocaust Survivors.
I may be pilloried for this, but Elie Wiesel seems to have lost his way. At a Portfolio magazine forum at the 21 club yesterday, Elie Wiesel said, “We thought Madoff was god.” Elie, there is only one god and she is in the heavens. I can not believe that I, a secular Jew, have to remind the religious Wiesel where god is.
As a money manager for 28 years, I can say this unequivocally, “Money managers are never god.” I hate to admit this about my profession, but typically money managers are the farthermost thing from God.
Elie Wiesel’s comments echo my own to the Palm Beach Post about the Jewish Madoff investors. “Jews believed in Madoff more than God.” Sadly, the people of the book have become the people of the putter.
