FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Matt Dorf
202-547-3577 / 202-669-6553

January 26, 2001

Jewish Community’s Public Affairs Arm Condemns US Attorney for Tarring Jews as Potential Criminals

NEW YORK, Jan. 26 — Hannah Rosenthal, Executive Director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, issued the following statement today in response to reported comments by Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Landis in a letter sent to then President Clinton on January 16^th, four days before Clinton commuted the sentences of Benjamin Berger, Jacob Elbaum, David Goldstein and Kalmen Stern:

"The Jewish Council for Public Affairs is appalled that Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Landis would stoop to tarring an entire religious community, in an effort to stop a possible Presidential action. Although JCPA takes no position on the merits of former President Clinton’s decision to commute the sentences of four Jewish men convicted of stealing $10 million in U.S. government funds, we believe that Landis crossed the line when she argued in a letter to President Clinton that a pardon or commutation would ‘send a message to that worldwide community that its pursuit of its own religious customs justifies fraud against the government regardless of its magnitude.’

Landis’ suggestion that Hasidic Jews will break the law to pursue religious customs is offensive to the entire Jewish community.

While Deborah Landis may not have intended to tar the Jewish community as potential criminals, all of us, especially those who work in law enforcement and the legal community, must be vigilant in our efforts not to stereotype, smear, or misrepresent a whole group or even a minority part of it in order to achieve a means to an end."

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JCPA is the public affairs arm of the organized Jewish community that serves as the national coordinating and advisory body for the 13 national and 123 local agencies comprising the field of Jewish community relations.

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