Family caught in Madoff swindle forced to sell Jewish heirlooms
Elisa Schindler says she is relieved her father, the late Rabbi Alexander Schindler, didn't live to see the destruction caused by Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff.
Rabbi Schindler, who died in 2000, was a prominent clergyman who was a leader of Reform Judaism in the U.S. His eldest of five children, Elisa, says he invested his life savings with Madoff in 1996 but never met him.
With everything wiped out, Schindler's widow, Rhea, now must sell their family home in Connecticut. The family also is selling two sacred pieces of Judaica given to the rabbi as a retirement gift. Pieces, say Schindler, that would have been passed down to her sister who is a rabbi in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The pieces include a silver "Torah Crown," likely made in the United States in the 20th century, and a "Torah Pointer" that dates back to as early as 1780, according to Jonathan Greenstein, an auctioneer specializing in antique Judaica.
Greenstein says the "Torah Pointer" or "Yad" comes from the Netherlands and very few such items survived the Holocaust, adding "It's extremely rare, extremely, extremely rare."
Read entire article at CNN
Rabbi Schindler, who died in 2000, was a prominent clergyman who was a leader of Reform Judaism in the U.S. His eldest of five children, Elisa, says he invested his life savings with Madoff in 1996 but never met him.
With everything wiped out, Schindler's widow, Rhea, now must sell their family home in Connecticut. The family also is selling two sacred pieces of Judaica given to the rabbi as a retirement gift. Pieces, say Schindler, that would have been passed down to her sister who is a rabbi in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The pieces include a silver "Torah Crown," likely made in the United States in the 20th century, and a "Torah Pointer" that dates back to as early as 1780, according to Jonathan Greenstein, an auctioneer specializing in antique Judaica.
Greenstein says the "Torah Pointer" or "Yad" comes from the Netherlands and very few such items survived the Holocaust, adding "It's extremely rare, extremely, extremely rare."