Features
How Elliot Rodin was inspired to create a website offering advice on when to take your Canada Pension
By BERNIE BELLAN In 2019 Elliot Rodin happened to read an article about an authoritative U.S. report that provided a detailed analysis showing that 94% of Americans pick the wrong time to begin taking Social Security benefits. Reading about that report led to a shift in Rodin’s life.
Two years after closing down the business (Central Grain) that had been in his family’s hands for over 60 years, Rodin says that he then had time to think about the implications of that US report – and how it could translate into the Canadian scene.
Now, some 15 months after reading about that U.S. report, Rodin has launched a website titled HelpYouRetire.ca.
Long an active member of the Jewish community, Rodin says his most recent involvement in the community was helping to build Oholei Torah Day School at the Jewish Learning Centre in Winnipeg. He says he’s also been on the board of the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, the Board of Jewish Education, the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, and had been a canvasser for the CJA for years, beginning under Ralph Hamovich. He was also a co-chairman of the Operation Exodus campaign.
Still, it’s a long way from running a cattle feed business and volunteering for different Jewish organizations to creating a website intended to help individuals plan their retirement dates.
Using very sophisticated analytical tools, HelpYouRetire.ca allows users to enter information about their age, the age at which they would like to retire, how much they would expect to receive in either CPP/QPP or OAS at a certain age, and how much more they could expect to receive if they were to postpone taking either CPP or OAS by just one year. This financial gain is also shown both as a percentage of future pension proceeds and as a percentage of the annual pension. For a small fee, all of this information can be shown in the “advanced analytics” for all years up to age 69. The information (which can be downloaded) is displayed in bar charts and a numeric chart together with the projected annual pensions.
This information is of great value for anyone thinking about their retirement planning. It can also be very helpful to those who have recently started taking either CPP/QPP or OAS pensions. A little publicized provision of these plans is that within six months of starting to receive one of these pensions, you can reverse your decision by paying back the monies received. In that event, you can take the related pension at a later date. The “advanced analytics” on HelpYouRetire.ca can give you information to assist in making that decision.
But, before we launch into a further exploration of how Elliot Rodin came to be involved in an endeavour that was far removed from selling cattle feed – which was the primary activity of Central Grain, we thought it might be interesting for readers to know something about Rodin’s life. During a long phone conversation we had Rodin told quite an interesting story how he ended up being involved with Central Grain for 60 years – when, had it not been for a fire there in 1966, he probably would have ended up doing something completely different.
While his recent foray into the world of retirement planning might be considered a radical departure for someone who spent so much time in the feed business, when you read about his educational background and his first entry into the business world, you’ll begin to understand how he developed the fine analytical skills that eventually lent themselves to creating HelpYouRetire.ca
Born in 1943, Rodin is the oldest of three children. His earliest years were spent living in his grandparents’ house on Bannerman Avenue, he says, along with his parents and, for a short while, his younger sister, Janis.
“My father (Maurice) was a fruit store proprietor,” Rodin says. “He would be up early in the morning to pick up the fruit. And because we were living at my grandparents’ house, he wasn’t paying any rent, so he was able to save some money. My mother (Lillian) was a university graduate who motivated all her children to work hard and succeed.”
In 1946, an opportunity arose for Rodin’s father to become, with $10,000, a one-third partner in Central Grain, in partnership with the Kanees and the Malchys. “The Malchy who was involved in the partnership died in 1951,” Rodin explains. “My dad and the Kanees bought out his interest and became half partners.
“In 1956, with the assistance of my grandfather, my dad bought out the Kanees and became the sole owner of Central Grain,” Rodin continues. “Soon after that time we moved to the south end – to 431 Queenston.” However, family connections were maintained as Sunday was the day when the whole family would go to the north end to visit relatives.
As a teenager Elliot says that his involvement in the Toppers chapter of BBYO was very important to him. He and his friends learned to organize themselves for a wide range of social, athletic, cultural and fund raising activities.
But, early on he had a taste of the world of business – both in his father’s company and in his own small scale business.
“When I was 16-17 I would go into the office and help with the bookkeeping – and other odd jobs around the place in the summertime,” he explains.
At the same time though, “I had my own business,” he adds. “I had a grass cutting business.” (At that point Rodin tells a story about how one of his customers didn’t want to pay him. Rodin says that he and his friend, Michael Nozick, proceeded to serve a small claims summons against that individual. Apparently, that was Michael Nozick’s first foray into the legal world. By the way, the customer ended up paying Rodin what he was owed.)
In the early 1960s Elliot began a period in his life that saw him acquire a solid education in finance, starting with his obtaining a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Manitoba in 1963.
Rodin continues his story: “I decided I wanted to go away for my MBA degree. I visited three different schools. I took a bus trip – about 43 hours, to Philadelphia, to the Wharton School of Finance, then to Boston, to the Harvard Business School, and then to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the University of Michigan.
“I had also put my application into Stanford. I wasn’t accepted at Stanford, but I was accepted at Wharton and Michigan, while Harvard said basically ‘We won’t accept you this year because you’re a little young, but we’ll promise you a place in next year’s class.’
“So I decided to wait a year. I worked in the family business for a year, then I went to the Harvard Business School because that was what I thought was the top place to go. I spent two years there and while I was there I also spent one summer with the Skelly Oil Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“I was working on special projects for the treasurer (of Skelly Oil). One of them was a computerized analysis of how to make oil drilling decisions, but it never got off the ground – even though the analysis was very sophisticated, because the exploration people would not accept it because they saw it as infringement on their turf.
“Still, I learned a lot from that particular project. It was my first serious analytical job that had some relationship to the work I was doing at Harvard (and, as Rodin explains later, proved to be of great value in his recent decision to create a website that emphasizes analytical tools.)
“As it turned out, the treasurer at Skelly wanted to hire me when I graduated, but at that time I couldn’t consider working in the States because I would have been drafted. The fact that I was a Canadian wouldn’t have made any difference.
“If I had been a student I wouldn’t get drafted. I also didn’t take any other opportunities that I had in the States. I limited myself to working in Canada.
“I ended up working for six months in Edmonton for a company called the Principal Group. While I worked there I had a lot of diverse responsibilities. I chose all their stocks for a new mutual fund they set up, and designed the text and written material for their first Annual Report. I also did all sorts of analysis for their mortgage operations.
“Then I got the news that the Central Grain plant had been hit by lightning and three-quarters of it had burned down.
“Central Grain was an animal feed processing plant. During the years that my dad was building it up we were basically selling pellet feed for export to the United Kingdom, to Japan, Taiwan. We would load railway cars with pellets, ship them to Thunder Bay, for destinations in the United Kingdom, or ship it to Vancouver for export.
“When this (the fire) happened in 1966, I had to come back to Winnipeg to help my dad settle all the insurance. There were a lot of issues and we rebuilt the plant, but all the key parts of the plant were burned down.
“I decided to settle down in Winnipeg. I took a job with Investors Group, which was similar to what I had in Edmonton. For the first year I was doing special projects, including a report on tax policy. We recommended how life insurance companies should be taxed. (This was before Investors bought Great West Life.) Most of our recommendations were adopted. We were competing with life insurance companies at that time and life insurance companies weren’t paying their fair share of taxes.
“After that year I did some product analyses. Then I started working for the securities department as an analyst. Over a period of time I became a portfolio manager. I ran the Investors international mutual fund. Then I ran the Investors pension accounts. We managed the Hudson’s Bay pension account.
“I was at Investors for 12 years (from 1968-80) and became a vice-president. I left to pursue some independent activities”, but joined Central Grain when it became clear that his dad needed Elliot’s help.
When he joined Central Grain full time in 1980, Rodin began focusing on broadening the markets for the company’s feed pellets. Markets in Western Canada and the United States were cultivated, but he says that he always made sure that the needs of his regular customers were attended to.
“I never took advantage of the fact that there might be a drought in Southern California, for instance, and short my customers in Saskatchewan because I depended on my regular customers for the long haul,” Rodin says.
“I would work long hours if necessary. If a truck came in late and had to be loaded, I would load the truck myself.
Although Central Grain had become a very successful business, Rodin says that the “maximum number of employees we had at one time was no more than 15. We had one truck, but for the most part we hired other trucking companies. We had a machine shop, but the stuff we couldn’t do – we hired other machine shops to do.
“We bought basically the ‘clean-outs’ from grain – all the leftover product. It was all categorized and separated out and properly blended to make different qualities of feed pellets. There was no plant in North America that shipped product as far as we did. We used to ship up to 2,000 miles. Most feed companies ship up to 200 miles.
“The business ran until about three and a half years ago. We were gradually losing customers for reasons that I can’t quite figure out. I needed additional volumes because the company had substantial overhead – for repairs and maintenance.
“So we started to do fuel pellets. We became the second largest manufacturer of fuel pellets in Manitoba – as a substitute for coal, using the same screenings – but the lower quality screenings. The top quality screenings were turned into top quality feed for cattle and bison.
“I was reasonably successful at doing this, but at the end of the day the plant was an old plant. Remember, it was rebuilt in 1966. What was new in 1966 was not new 50 years later. The costs of maintaining the plant to the standards we had to maintain were going up and up.
“Finally, I made the decision that I’m going to have to close it down. I thought: ‘If I can’t make a living at this, then nobody can.’ I decided I’d have to tear the whole place down – and that’s what I did.
“I realized I was getting older and if I didn’t do it I didn’t want to have my children to have the burden of doing it. So, everything that I had built up over 50 years was torn down. I sold whatever equipment that I could, but the rest all went for scrap.
To return to the initial reason for doing this article, Rodin explains his motivation in wanting to create HelpYouRetire.ca. As we already noted, the catalyst was reading about that U.S. report about social security and “that 90% of people in the United States take their pensions at the wrong time.”
He adds though, that “an additional underlying factor in my motivation is that I missed the daily rewards (not the aggravation) that I got from my job running Central Grain. I loved selling and enjoyed my interactions with customers. At the end of the day when I had loaded four big trucks I came home with a feeling of accomplishment. So, I was primed for another challenge where I could get these feelings back. With this website, I am now focusing on marketing where I have to sell myself and the site.”
I asked Rodin whether there was anything in particular in his background that lent itself to the kind of analytical exercise upon which he was to embark.
He answers that “a course that I took at Harvard Business School and the work that I did at Skelly Oil were very relevant to this process.”
I said though “that it sounds like you would need the same background as an actuary” in order to undertake the project into which Rodin has entered.
Rodin agreed, saying “you’re hitting upon a very key point when you say that, but there are a lot actuaries around. Nobody thought of doing what I’m doing.
“I guess part of the answer is most actuaries are fully employed. There aren’t a lot sitting around thinking about what they can do to help Canadians.
“You have to remember that I spent 13 years as a securities analyst and a portfolio manager, so my mind works in a certain way. Nothing that I did at Central Grain though related to this project.”
I asked what were the first steps that Rodin took in developing his website.
He says: “The first steps were that I needed to see whether I could develop the necessary mathematical models to do what I had in mind. Once I had the mathematical models I began working on the structure of a website that would put these mathematical models into practice.
“I was told by various people that setting up a website is not all that difficult.” (Boy, were they ever wrong when it came to this website!)
After an initial contact with someone who was working on their PhD and thought they might be able to produce the kind of website Rodin was looking to create didn’t pan out, a company in Ottawa that had built a similar kind of website agreed to take on the project.
“The idea was that it was going to take a few months” to create the website, Rodin explains.
“But from the time we started up toward the end of February (just before the pandemic hit Canada in full force) it took until the end of August” to finalize the site.
“Every aspect along the way had to be just right – from the mathematics to the functionality. It had to be there so that even people who don’t know much about computers or websites would be able to use this website. Finally, we reached the point where I’m extremely happy with the site.”
So, having read this far, you might ask yourself: “Why should I go to HelpYouRetire.ca?”
It’s quite an easy site to navigate. As has already been explained, simply enter some basic information and the site will provide you with some quick results about how postponing your decision to begin taking either CPP/QPP or OAS by one year will benefit you – or might have benefitted you if you’re already taking your pension.
Then, as Rodin explained, if you’re wanting to know more about how much more your pension would be affected if you decide to wait even longer to begin taking your pension, for a fee you can obtain access to even more comprehensive analytical tools that will show that. The results might surprise you – and it may end up being one of the most important decisions you might ever make with regard to retirement planning.
Features
Part 5 of my story of the delusional con man: The plan to buy jets in Israel and convert them to planes that could fight forest fires
By BERNIE BELLAN This is the fifth part of a story about a delusional Winnipegger who believes he is someone of great wealth and has spent the better part of 30 years contacting people all over the world telling them that he wants to invest in their businesses or projects.
The other three parts have been posted here at: Part 1: “The delusional Winnipeg con man who actually believed his own elaborate con and led one victim in Africa to consider committing suicide”; Part 2: “Meeting the con man for the first time in 2021; Part 3: “An explosive email arrives in my inbox on January 16.”; and Part 4: Someone in LA figures out who everyone else was that was conned
Just as Rick had blown hot and cold in responding to my questions – which I found so difficult to understand since he was the one who had initiated contact with me, a lot of the others with whom I was to come to speak over the ensuing days were also extremely ambivalent about speaking with me. Some of them expressed distrust of journalists, others said that what Devlin had done to them had so harmed them psychologically that they didn’t want to speak about it.
I thought it was all so strange. Here we had a group of individuals who had all been victimized by one man. Granted, I could understand their being somewhat embarrassed to talk about what had happened to them, but didn’t they want to retaliate at Devlin by having their stories told? I wondered. Further, in one particular instance, as I’ve noted, I went so far as to put one individual who had lost a great deal of money as a result of Devlin’s manipulation in touch with a very prominent Winnipeg lawyer who agreed to have his firm consider filing a lawsuit against Devlin.
The first person with whom I spoke over the phone was Dan Winthrop. Dan had a background in an aviation-related industry that gave him some common background with Devlin who, as I previously noted, also had business experience in the aviation industry. It was that commonality that had apparently led Devlin to reach out to Dan many years ago – with a proposal that became so detailed and complex that it led to Dan’s devoting many years of his life in pursuit of making that proposal come to fruition. Dan’s story was my first exposure to a plan which Devlin developed which was so intricate that Devlin himself must have devoted many hours to, at the very least, studying it – as well as leading Dan to think that it was going to be brought to fruition.
In the process, as I was to discover subsequently, Devlin involved many others in the plan, including a lawyer who wrote contracts for various parties. Of perhaps more importance, as I was to come to learn, that same lawyer also prepared non disclosure agreements in every instance where Devlin entered into plans with individuals. Devlin did not want anyone with whom he was in contact to discuss their dealings with anyone else. In hindsight, that should have been an indication that Devlin had some awareness that what he was doing was all invented nonsense, but it is also possible that he was also putting into practice his previous business experience, which might have taught him that obtaining non disclosure agreements before discussing detailed business plans was a very necessary and important step to take in every instance.
Following is part of my conversation with Dan Winthrop. I should note that, although Dan went off the record when it came to discussing a specific project that Fred Devlin had told him he would help promote – and I won’t mention that specific project in my writing about my conversation with Winthrop, it was when I had a subsequent conversation with an Israeli now living in the US that I was able to learn more about that project, which involved converting jets purchased from Israel Aerosapce Industries into water bombers of some sort.
Me: “Dan, you said that you first encountered Fred Devlin about 16 years ago, is that right?”
Dan: “Yes, I think it was either 2008, 2010, you know, I can’t remember.”
Me: “And how did you come to meet him? What was the background? Did he contact you? “
Dan: “Okay, my friend (we’ll call him Reg) was at a cafe at Confusion Corner, of course you know where that is. And he was sitting at a table next to Fred, and my friend was a social butterfly, and Fred, his modus operandi, as he’s trying to pick his next victim, he talks to anybody who’s around him.
“So he starts talking to Reg and giving him his story, that he has some aviation holdings, and that he’s a business man, and Reg was a really, really nice guy – he was First Nations, a wonderful person. And so Reg phoned me up after that, and said, oh yeah, I met this guy, Fred Devlin, and you know, I’d like you to meet him. So there was a period of time between when Reg met him, and then when I met Fred.
Me: “So, you met – did you come to Winnipeg to meet him?”
Dan: “Yes, I go to Winnipeg on a semi-regular basis because one of my kids lives there, and then one day, I met Fred.” (At that point though, Dan went off the record, saying he didn’t want to say what it was that he did for a living, saying “that’s going to open up a breadcrumb trail that I don’t want to happen.”)
Me: “All right, so you meet him, and then what happens?”
Dan: “So, we’re sitting there and Fred has this story, and he shows me his pictures… you know, some early pictures of him running around in limousines, and he also told me about his background doing his master’s degree at the University of Manitoba, and that he first started out doing some renovations or buying property on Corydon Avenue, and that’s where he made his first million or whatever, and he also uses options – real estate options.
“That’s his big thing. He really likes to have options on that stuff, and he was dressed rather street level, very casual, and told me that due to his his prominence in the business world and all the rest of that stuff, that he just decided that he was less of a target if he dressed in street clothes. So, anyway, he has his briefcase.
“He shows all of his stuff, and then we get in Reg’s car – some sort of red Japanese car, and we drove him (Devlin) back to his quote “penthouse,” which was on the Assiniboine or Red River – I always get those rivers mixed up and we dropped him off there, and, off he went, but he said that that day, he had purchased 201 Portage, the TD building, and he was just coming from that. So, he gives a (copy of) a story that I think it’s the one story that’s out there on Manitoba Business or something.” (That would be the story which was reproduced earlier in this story.) “And he says something about knowing Izzy Asper.”
Dan went on to explain how important the Izzy Asper connection was to Devlin’s “back story,” saying “he never would have made what he made, and he wouldn’t have his stories unless somehow he got involved with, Izzy Asper. And, I’ve got to go very slow as I think through all this stuff, okay?
“He said that he owns Harvard. Harvard is the company that owns 201 Portage Avenue, and I think the Hill family is behind that.
“And I remember, and this is part of the thing that’s weird about Fred is that he said about 201 Portage, he’s leasing out a lot of space to the Royal Bank. And then a couple months later, I see the Royal Bank sign on top of the TD building there.
“And so Fred steals other businesses’ ideas on what they’re doing, and he incorporates them into his back story. So when you’re looking around, and you’re listening to Fred mentioning Shindico and Sam Katz and you know, he’s actually stealing the identity of these people and weaving it into his own blanket of fantasy.
“And what else did we discuss that day? It was many, many years ago, but he talked about his ties to Israel and, you know, his financial relationships with Israel. And he’s a big supporter of Israel, even in his fantasy world.
“Um, that’s, that’s one of the core structures of how he operates – his dedication to the state of Israel, which comes up in all of his legal stuff and everything else. So, that’s how I met him. And then, you know – nothing happened.
“We just sort of kept in contact for maybe 12 years… just sort of talking on the phone. Occasionally, I would go out for coffee with him. One time, he talks about West Hawk Lake. He says he owns the marina there.”
At that point Dan went off the record again when he talked about his own career.
But Dan said he did have a project idea that involved doing something with a company in Israel. He broached that idea to Fred. At that point in the conversation Fred really began to ramble. The following excerpt is highly edited:
Fred came in and said, you know what? I really like what you’re doing. In 2021 I put down all my thoughts and I did a good analysis.
It’s actually very, very good stuff. I’m surprised even to read it today. And then Fred said, “Oh, I like that idea. I’m going to finance that.” And previous to this, you know, I heard lots of stuff about Fred and Xanadu capital and whoever that dude is in Luxembourg.
“So Fred can’t think of an idea. What he does is he’s parasitic. So he goes on other people’s ideas and then he contributes his financial fallacies to say ‘I can help this project move along”’and stuff like that.
“He preys on innocent people that he meets.
“That’s number one. He finds out what their hopes and dreams are and then tries to connect that way to finance them. So if you were going to build, you know, a gigantic physical publishing house, like they got in Steinbach, you know, Fred would say, ‘well, I can finance that for you.’
“And the other thing Fred does is that in order to infect like COVID other people, he goes for your connections. So that is his modus operandi. He can use your connections, talk to them, and then infect them also with his financial stuff.”
At that point the conversation took a totally different twist as Dan began to tell a story about going to a country that had been torn apart by civil war. As the story went on, he described meeting a “colonel” in that country who had just discovered “158 warehouses” full of weapons. Apparently the “colonel” was terrified by what he had discovered and he was afraid for his life over what he had uncovered.
I had no idea what the point of the story was and how it related to Fred – until Dan explained that Devlin had told him he had a very strong connection to Israel and that if Dan “ever saw anything that could affect the state of Israel, the security, to let him know. So I phoned him up and left a message. I said, I need two airplanes out of Malta now.
“The bottom line was that this could have been used against the States or Israel…
“So you’re never going to believe any of it, but I did see that. I did see that happen, but Fred never supplied me with the planes to get this colonel out so they could flip and deal with this stuff…
“But my thing was that, you know, Fred said he’s connected.
“I said, ‘give me some planes,’ which he didn’t. As a matter of fact, he said ‘don’t phone me ever again, because you terrified my wife…right? Because I left her a message. So that was my story.”
It was on another trip to Winnipeg that Dan said he had an opportunity to watch Devlin in action – doing his networking.
Dan described the scene: “Fred’s wandering around talking to all the executives with his briefcase.
“I’m talking to my buddies and he’s picked out all these people. And so he’s living, you know, the life of whatever his fantasy is in front of real people, telling them his story. So I’m watching this, you know, and he’s having these long conversations with people from head offices, stuff like that.
“And it looked to me that, you know, he’s doing his thing, making his connections. So, you know, he really thoroughly lives this kind of life and it’s you know, suspect I thought maybe he’s a little bit eccentric, like Howard Hughes.”
The conversation went on for some time, but not much else of interest emerged, As I’ve noted several times, Devlin’s background in aviation stood him in good stead when it came to trying to persuade various individuals that he was seriously interested in working with Israel Aerospace Industries. Dan Winthrop, especially, invested a great deal of time in a project that would have seen Israel Aerospace Industries convert jets for use as water bombers, spraying chemical retardants on forest fires.
I talk to an Israeli living in the US who was willing to help facilitate the plan to convert Israeli jets into jets that could fight forest fires
But, when it came to actually negotiating with someone who had ties to Israel Aerospace Industries it was someone I’ll call Avi who was ready to play a key role in the project.
When I spoke with Avi I promised him I wouldn’t disclose where he lived, what he did for a living, or who it was that he was going to connect to Devlin. Avi was deeply embarrassed at how much he believed Devlin story – and the extent to which he was prepared to help Devlin’s supposed plan through to fruition.
What he did disclose though, was that he had “a personal friend who works for the Israeli aviation and space industry.” He went so far as to say that “she’s in charge of the non-combat aviation side of it, and she’s in charge of North America.” (Bob Anderson referenced receiving an email from this woman, whom I’ve called Dalit Galon.)
Avi said “So, she contacted me and said she has a client who sent, I believe that his name is Dan, who sent his associates to Israel to meet with her and to purchase airplanes.”
I asked: “That would be Dan Winthrop – right?”
Avi: “Correct…And Dan flew and met with her, and he was under the impression that he’s dealing with a serious guy who wants to do good to the world as a foundation, and he is going to use those planes to fight fires – all over the world.”
I was a little confused as to the timeline when all this occurred because when I had spoken with Dan Winthrop, he had mentioned broaching an idea to Devlin in 2021 that Devlin said he really liked and wanted to put up money to see that idea go forward. But, when I spoke to Dan he said he didn’t want to get into specifics about that idea, beyond saying that Devlin steals other people’s ideas.
Now, however, after listening to Avi, I was beginning to understand just what Dan’s idea had been, so I said to Avi: “Let’s just go back. When is all this happening? What year are we talking about?”
Avi answered: “Everything is the last two years.” That would mean that it took some time for Dan to find someone in the Israeli aerospace industry who would give serious consideration to his proposal.
As Avi reiterated, “So she called me and says, this guy came, he’s representing a serious guy who has the means and wants to do good for the world, and wants to purchase those planes to fight those fires. That’s it.”
The woman Avi was talking to then asked her whether he could give Avi’s number to Devlin, noting that “he (Devlin) said he loves Israel like you, and would it be okay if I give him your number?” (I should note at this point that Avi is very well connected, both to Israeli businesspeople – and to people in the government, including some very high placed politicians.)
Devlin did call Avi, as Avi explained: “He would be calling me. I didn’t call him. He would call me twice a week, three times a week and just ask me personal questions, talk to me. And then he mentioned, if there’s anything that I can do to help Israel or to help something with Israel, let me know.”
At that point Avi said the conversations with Devlin shifted to discussing a documentary movie someone wanted to make about Jews helping Israel. He said he told Devlin about that idea for a movie and Devlin said he wanted to be involved in that, too.
Eventually, we returned to discussing Devlin’s plan to convert Israeli jets so that they could be used for firefighting. Avi told Devlin that he would help to set up some meetings for him with important Israeli officials, but at that point he asked me to stop recording.
Although he asked me to stop recording Avi didn’t say that he wanted to go off the record. What he said next really floored me. He said that he had actually gone so far as to set up a meeting between Devlin and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. To Avi’s great relief, however, Devlin bowed out of flying to Israel to meet the prime minister, so the meeting was cancelled long before it was supposed to take place. He added that he would have been terribly embarrassed had Netanyahu actually shown up for a meeting, only to find that Devlin hadn’t come.
Avi admitted that it was only quite recently that he realized Fred Devlin was totally delusional, but unlike some of the others whose stories I’ve related thus far, he didn’t spend nearly as much time talking to Devlin as others had. Or course, he realizes now that whatever time he did spend was totally wasted but, as you’re about to read, someone else was directly involved in aiding and abetting Devlin’s delusion by using his skills as a lawyer to help further the notion that Devlin was a quite legitimate businessman.
Coming next: The former lawyer who now deeply regrets the work he did for the con man
Features
Israeli Government Report Ranks World’s 10 Most Influential Antisemites
Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism published this week its official ranking of the 10 most influential antisemitic figures in the world in 2025, and the No. 1 spot was given to social media influencer Dan Bilzerian, who is running for US Congress in Florida.
The Armenian-American entrepreneur and US military veteran is a prominent critic of Israel and Judaism who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. He has said he wants to “kill Israelis” and thinks Judaism is “terrible.” He recently claimed antisemitism is a “made-up term” and there is a “big Jewish supremacy problem” in the United States. He formally filed paperwork earlier this month to run as a Republican and unseat incumbent Jewish Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s 6th Congressional District.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is the world’s second most influential antisemite, according to Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which highlighted her use of terms such as “genocide,” “siege,” and “mass starvation” in reference to Israel’s military actions in the Gaza Strip.
Third place was given to Egyptian comedian and former television host Bassem Youssef, followed by far-right American political commentator Candace Owens in fourth place and Palestinian-British journalist and editor Abdel Bari Atwan in fifth.
The list includes American imam Omar Suleiman, Denmark-based doctor Anastasia Maria Loupis – who has shared online conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel – far-right commentator and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, and conspiracist Ian Carroll.
Rounding out the top 10 is far-right podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who regularly promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish influence.
Israel said the 10 most “prominent influencers in the global antisemitic and anti-Zionist arena in 2025” were selected based on “both the severity of their actions/statements and the scope of their influence” related to their activities last year. “Each of them has expressed antisemitic views or promoted false information related to Jews, Israel, or both,” the ministry explained. The list does not include individuals with formal political or government positions.
Each individual was ranked based on their influence on social media, but also other factors such as their repeated appearances on news channels, “perceived influence on public opinion, and prominence in certain communities.” The ministry also took into consideration each person’s “level of impact and risk,” which includes how often they upload antisemitic and anti-Israeli posts on social media. The report was released ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, known in Hebrew as Yom HaShoah.
In a separate section of the report dedicated to antisemitic and anti-Israel influencers in the US, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs singled out YouTuber and children’s educator Ms. Rachel, who has “increasingly used her social media accounts to amplify pro-Palestinian messages and criticize Israel.”
“Her posts have been interpreted by pro-Israel organizations as one-sided and hostile to Israel, and organizations such as StopAntisemitism have accused her of spreading anti-Israel or pro-Hamas propaganda and called for an examination of her activities,” the ministry stated.
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4000 Quarters for my Uncle Lew – a new story by David Topper
Introduction: David Topper has been featured on this website many times. His stories about Albert Einstein have drawn huge audiences, but David’s interests range far beyond writing about science. Most recently, we have featured stories about “Jews in strange places.”
If you want to find all of David Topper’s stories that have appeared on this site, just enter his name in our search engine (the magnifying glass). Here’s David’s latest story – but be warned: As David told me, it’s a “story”:
I adored my Uncle Lew. He was one of many uncles in the large extended family on my mother’s side. Of course, this means that there were many aunts too. But there were not many cousins – at least, none my age. And I was an only child; so I guess you could call me an “only cousin” too. At least when I was very young – say, from ages 6 through 12 or so – until many cousins were eventually born. In all, it seems that I was alone, in those early years.
But I’m digressing already, and I just want to tell you about my grandmother’s brother, my Uncle Lew. You see, he lived in the same city when I was very young, and he came to visit a lot – especially on Sundays, when there was a large gathering of the extended family at my grandmother’s home, with lots of food. He came with his wife, Aunt Lil. But it was Lew who was especially nice to me. He always came with jokes; jokes that the adults laughed at – and I did too, but often not really knowing what was funny.
Most importantly, for me, sometime during the visit, Uncle Lew would sneak up behind me and put his hand in the right side-pocket of my trousers. I knew what was happening, and so I’d just walk away to a quiet part of the house, reach inside my pocket, and pull out a shiny quarter. Rubbing it in my hands, thinking about what I might buy, and putting it back in my pocket – I was happy, and set for the week to come. You must realize that this was sometime in the late 1940s and into the 1950s – and a quarter was worth a lot to a kid. These were the days when a penny could buy a nice treat at the candy store nearby where I lived. And, well you do the math: a quarter was worth 25 pennies. Yes, I adored Uncle Lew, although I’m not sure I would have used that word at the time.
Speaking of money. I remember that the family, especially the men, talked a lot about money. I’m not sure that many of them had a lot of it, since most were of the working class. Maybe that’s why they talked about it. Although I suspect that rich people spend a lot of time talking about money too. Yet, what do I know?
I mention this because, at some point – I don’t remember the date or my age – but Uncle Lew and Aunt Lil moved to another city. Thus: no more shiny quarters in my pocket at the Sunday dinners. Instead, I listened to the talk, mainly among the men, about Uncle Lew. And as best I could surmise: Uncle Lew owed people money that he didn’t have, and so he had to skedaddle to save his skin. It made me think about my quarters, and if I had put them in the bank, maybe I could have helped Uncle Lew pay back his debts. But now it was too late. Uncle Lew was gone and I spent all the quarters on myself – my selfish self, I thought sadly.
But Uncle Lew was not completely out of my life. A few years later he came to town for a short visit. He came for a weekend; and had Sunday dinner with the family. I guess he thought it was safe enough. And nothing happened. So, he did it again, a few months later. And so it went. Thus, Uncle Lew was not out of my life completely. And yes, a quarter was deposited in my pocket on the Sunday dinners. As well, by now, I had a bank account; and I occasionally put Uncle Lew’s quarters in the bank – just in case he might need a loan someday, I thought.
Oh, I forgot to mention: he now came alone. From the talk of the adults, I figured out that he and Aunt Lil were divorced – something my mother later explained to me, because in those days it was not a common occurrence. And people were often embarrassed to talk about it.
Now fast forward several years to the late 1950s, when I was in High School. One day Uncle Lew appeared out of nowhere, carrying all that he owned in a few suitcases. I don’t know why, but he stayed with us. Being an only child, I had a room of my own and so the family got a cot from the basement and they put it in my room. I was okay with this, since I always liked Uncle Lew and was glad to know that he was safe with us.
Our first night together – I in my bed and he a few feet away in the cot – was memorable. Because, in the middle of the night, I woke up and saw a spark of light moving around the room near Uncle Lew’s cot. I guess I forgot to tell you that Uncle Lew was a smoker. Of course, smoking was common in those days, so it was no big thing that he smoked. In fact, if you watch any movie from that period, every time people walk into a room and sit down to talk, someone takes out a pack of cigarettes and they all light up. But I digress, again. Anyway, as you may have surmised, the spark of light moving around in the dead of night was Uncle Lew having a smoke. He was so addicted to cigarettes that he couldn’t get through a night’s sleep without one. And so it went: night after night.
Also, at the time he moved in with me, I was working on building a model airplane out of balsa wood. I usually worked on this in the evenings, after I did all my homework. The parts were strewn across a table in my room, and Uncle Lew often watched me assemble the plane – saying he hoped to see the plane actually fly someday. He said he enjoyed watching me put the thing together (since he seemed to have nothing else to do), and I enjoyed the conversations. I glued pieces of balsa wood together and he smoked cigarettes, depositing the ashes in a tray on my table.
In a short time, I came to understand why Uncle Lew was here. When I was at school during the day, my relatives were taking turns driving Uncle Lew to the hospital for treatments. In those days, people didn’t talk about some things directly. Especially cancer, which was a word that was often spoken in a hushed voice. So that was it; he had lung cancer.
At the same time, Uncle Lew was seeing a dentist for the pain he was having with a tooth in the right side of his mouth. He showed it to me one day, while I was working on my airplane. He was sure that the dentist knew what he was doing, and Uncle Lew was looking forward to getting it removed and replaced with a new tooth. We didn’t talk about the cancer, but looking back on this I can only surmise that Uncle Lew was in denial – or he was overly optimistic about the cancer treatments.
In a short time, the tooth was removed and replaced by the false one. Uncle Lew was elated, and told me that it was the best $1000 he ever spent. Yes, $1000 for the tooth. I don’t know where he got the money. And I’m afraid to ask, for obvious reasons. But I now also question the ethics of that dentist, allowing a patient undergoing cancer treatments to spend so much money. But maybe the dentist didn’t know. Then again, where were my relatives in all this? I am only thinking of this now. As for all things in life while growing up: what is, is reality for that time, and you just go with the flow. Only later, looking back, do you see the quirks and foibles of the past.
Indeed, did I think of helping Uncle Lew with his dental bill? I had a bank account. And some of that money was from deposits of Uncle Lew’s quarters. I don’t know. What I do remember is that not long after the new tooth was planted in his mouth, relieving him of that pain, the cancer got worse – and he spent the rest of his days in the hospital. And that’s where he died.
At the funeral I wanted to mourn. To grieve at the loss of this beloved uncle, who lived with me in the last stage of his life.
But I kept thinking about that tooth – that damned $1000 tooth. While saying the prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, I wanted to concentrate on the meaning of the prayer – even though I couldn’t read Hebrew. But that costly tooth kept flashing in front of me – like the spark of Uncle Lew’s cigarette in the middle of the night.
Even when the body was lowered into the grave, and I took my turn throwing several shovels of dirt over Uncle Lew’s plain wooden coffin – in my mind, I was doing the math: how many quarters are there in $1000?
In a way, on that day, and in my mind, I really buried a tooth – and it just so happened that a body came along with it.
My one consolation in all this is that about a few weeks after the funeral, I finished building my airplane; and I took it out to an empty ball-field near where I lived. Just me and my airplane.
The propeller was attached to a rubber band, and so I wound it up and gave it a push. It took off, rising up, almost as high as the trees beyond the outfield. Then it banked a bit toward the left; and, after heading back towards me, it moved in a circle – almost overhead. It continued circling – rather as if it were caught in a tornado – moving down and down.
When it crashed into a heap of shards of balsa wood right next to me standing on the pitcher’s mound … I laughed, a deep laugh – a laugh that turned into crying. A deep cry – a cry I sorely needed.
Sitting in that empty field next to my shattered airplane – looking up and beyond the trees – I screamed to the sky. “There are 4000 quarters in $1000.”
I walked home, and went to my room. Sitting at my empty table, I said to myself out loud. “I guess I should build another airplane. What do you think Uncle Lew? Let’s go to the store and use some of those quarters to buy another model airplane. Maybe this one won’t be jinxed. What do you think?”
But before leaving the house – and for the first time since Uncle Lew died – I was able to fold up that cot and put it back in the basement.