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In an Era of Con Artists, the Torah Instructs Us to Hold Onto Our Integrity
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
The year was 1820, and London’s high society was abuzz with the arrival of a dashing new personality.
General Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish war hero with a chest full of medals and a gifted raconteur, had swept into the city and taken it by storm.
Clad in a sharp military uniform and flashing a charming grin, MacGregor regaled audiences with stories of his daring exploits alongside Simón Bolívar during the Venezuelan War of Independence. But what truly captivated the elites wasn’t his charisma or battlefield glory, it was his claim to be the ruler — “cazique” — of a tropical Central American paradise called Poyais.
Poyais, MacGregor declared, was a land of unparalleled riches. Its soil was so fertile that the finest crops grew with barely any effort, its rivers sparkled with gold, and its friendly native tribes were eager to welcome British settlers. It was an investor’s dream and a settler’s utopia. And MacGregor, the benevolent ruler, was more than willing to share his paradise — for a price, of course.
London’s elites fell over themselves to get in on the opportunity. They bought Poyaisian land grants, invested in its government bonds, and dreamed of lounging on their sprawling estates in this New World Garden of Eden. Ships were chartered, and hundreds of eager pioneers boarded them, ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.
The problem? Poyais didn’t exist. It was nothing more than a figment of MacGregor’s fertile imagination. The settlers who arrived at the site where Poyais was supposedly located found only a mosquito-infested untamed jungle on the Honduran coast. There was no infrastructure, no resources, and no welcoming natives. Many succumbed to disease and starvation, and the few survivors returned to Britain with harrowing tales of betrayal and disaster.
And MacGregor? He simply shrugged, pocketed the fortune he’d amassed, and moved on to his next scheme. Astonishingly, despite orchestrating one of the most audacious frauds in history, he never faced justice. Instead, he retired to Venezuela, where his earlier association with Bolívar earned him accolades as a war hero. He lived out his days in comfort, unpunished and unrepentant.
It’s hard to imagine anyone matching MacGregor’s sheer chutzpah, but remarkably, he was far from the only 19th-century con artist to leave a trail of devastation in their wake. Fast forward to the late 1870s, and another fraudster — a woman this time — was weaving her web of deceit.
Sarah Howe was the very picture of respectability: impeccably dressed, articulate, and gifted with a knack for making lonely, vulnerable women feel seen and valued. She seemed the perfect person to lead the Ladies’ Deposit Company, a savings bank in Boston catering exclusively to unmarried women.
Howe’s pitch was as appealing as it was bold. Not only did she promise financial security, but she also guaranteed a monthly return of 8% — an eye-popping figure, particularly in an era of economic uncertainty. The deposits poured in. Hundreds of women from across the country entrusted their life savings to Howe, believing they were supporting a visionary cause that promised to give women equal footing in a male-dominated society.
But behind the veneer of benevolence lurked a classic Ponzi scheme. Howe wasn’t investing a penny; she was simply shuffling funds from new deposits to pay earlier investors while skimming off a hefty share to fund her own extravagant lifestyle.
When the scheme inevitably collapsed in 1880, the fallout was catastrophic. Many of Howe’s clients were left destitute. The betrayal stung even more because Howe had presented herself as a champion of women’s empowerment.
And Howe herself? Like MacGregor, she managed to slip through the cracks. After a brief stint in jail, she faded into obscurity, leaving behind a cautionary tale about misplaced trust.
But Howe was far from the most brazen con artist of the late 19th century. If there were an Olympic medal for sheer audacity, James Reavis would have taken the gold. Known as the “Baron of Arizona,” the meticulously groomed and impressively mustached Reavis orchestrated a con so elaborate it could have been plucked straight from a Hollywood script. In the 1880s, he claimed ownership of over 18,000 square miles of land across Arizona and New Mexico — a territory larger than some European countries.
Reavis backed his astounding claim with an intricate web of carefully forged documents, detailed maps, fantastic family legends, and fabricated genealogies, all purporting to trace his land rights to a Spanish land grant awarded to his wife’s family in the 18th century.
For years, Reavis collected rents and fees from settlers, railroads, and even the US government, ultimately pocketing over five million dollars. Few dared to challenge him, convinced that this phony aristocrat held legal dominion over their homes and businesses.
But as with all great frauds, the truth eventually came to light. A team of sharp-eyed government investigators uncovered the forgeries that formed the foundation of Reavis’s empire, and his house of cards collapsed. In 1896, he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to Federal prison — a fitting end for one of history’s most audacious schemers.
Of course, the 19th century wasn’t unique in terms of fraudsters, con artists, and greedy chancers who claimed virtue while ripping people off. After all, wherever there’s money, or even the promise of it, there’s always someone ready to steal it.
The Torah recognizes this timeless truth, and one of its earliest and sharpest examples is Ephron the Hittite in Parshat Chayei Sarah, whose greed and duplicity make him the devilish forebear of MacGregor, Howe, and Reavis.
At first glance, Ephron appears to be the very picture of generosity and goodwill. Abraham is mourning the loss of his wife, Sarah. He approaches Ephron to purchase the Cave of Machpelah as a place to bury her.
Ephron, playing to a hastily gathered audience of hangers-on, theatrically offers to give Machpelah to Abraham for free. “What is 400 shekels of silver between me and you?” he says magnanimously, as though the money were a mere trifle.
But Ephron’s true colors are soon revealed. His offer to gift the burial site is nothing more than a charade. Behind the grand gestures and flattering words lies a shrewd and duplicitous businessman intent on exploiting Abraham’s grief.
Ephron not only charges Abraham the total inflated price of 400 shekels, but insists that the payment be made in the highest quality silver. Ephron epitomizes the timeless brand of voracious greed cloaked in the guise of generosity.
But what makes this story so powerful is Abraham’s response. He could have called Ephron out for his hypocrisy, haggled the price, or used his considerable status to demand better treatment. Instead, Abraham insisted on paying the full price without argument, ensuring the transaction was utterly transparent and entirely irreversible. In doing so, he maintained his integrity, even in the face of Ephron’s dishonesty.
The story of Abraham and Ephron teaches a timeless lesson: in a world teeming with chicanery, the most important thing is to hold fast to your principles. Abraham’s insistence on honesty and transparency ensured his purchase would stand the test of time.
Thousands of years later, the Cave of Machpelah remains a holy site of the Jewish people, a symbol of Abraham’s righteousness, in stark and enduring contrast to the fleeting gains of fraudsters like MacGregor, Howe, and Reavis. Like Ephron’s, their names are remembered as cautionary tales, while Abraham’s legacy inspires a commitment to values that truly last.
The author is a rabbi based in Beverly Hills, California.
The post In an Era of Con Artists, the Torah Instructs Us to Hold Onto Our Integrity first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram
Pro-Hamas Columbia University students march in front of pro-Israel demonstrators on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Photo: Roy De La Cruz via Reuters Connect
Meta Platforms, Inc. has banned the infamous Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) anti-Zionist student group from its platforms, a decision that the company says is irrevocable.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD is responsible for spreading pro-Hamas propaganda, assaulting Jewish students, and disrupting academic study at Columbia with unauthorized demonstrations and property destruction. Its behavior, among other factors, drove the Trump administration’s cancellation in March of $400 million in federal contracts and grants awarded to Columbia.
CUAD first reported that Meta shuttered its Instagram account on Monday, denouncing the measure as being part of “a long and concerted effort from corporations and imperial powers to erase the Palestinian people.” Meta later justified the decision to Jewish Insider, explaining that CUAD had forced the company’s hand by ceaselessly transgressing the platform’s terms of use of agreement. Meta forbids groups which advocate violence to operate on Instagram, and CUAD has used its account to call for toppling the Israeli and US governments. Additionally, its Instagram account has been essential for promoting unlawful demonstrations CUAD continues to hold at Columbia University and for sharing resources that have helped its collaborators avoid punishment.
Meta told Jewish Insider that the group won’t be allowed back.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD’s activities have been described as a threat to the civil rights and security of Jewish Columbia University students.
Last April, CUAD members commandeered a section of campus and, after declaring it a “liberated zone,” lit flares and chanted pro-Hamas and anti-American slogans. When the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrived to disperse the unlawful gathering, hundreds of CUAD members and their affiliates reportedly amassed around them to prevent the restoration of order. During ensuing clashes with law enforcement, one student screamed “Yes, we’re all Hamas, pig!” while others shouted, “Long live Hamas!” and filmed themselves praising the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the US-designated terrorist group.
In September, during the university’s convocation ceremony, the group distributed a pamphlet which called on students to join the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s movement to destroy Israel. Several sections of the document were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
In February, CUAD committed infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts.
Following two occupations of administrative buildings at Barnard College, Laura Rosenbury, the school’s president, denounced the group as a paranoid hate-organization.
“They [CUAD] operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and ‘Zionist billionaires,’ and calls for violence and disruption at any cost,” Rosenbury wrote in an op-ed published by The Chronicle of Higher Education. “They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve.”
Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaking at a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 11, 2025. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is set to headline a conference that is also hosting a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization, according to documents obtained by The Algemeiner.
The Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) in New Jersey will hold its annual conference, titled “Grounded in Action: Exploring the Power of the Palestinian Diaspora,” from Thursday through Sunday. Wisam Rafeedie, a self-admitted member of the PFLP, will address the conference virtually on the 4th day of the event.
According to PACC’s website, the conference “is a call to recommit ourselves to amplifying and supporting the Palestinian voices and advocates who have long been at the forefront of our struggle.” PACC also calls on members of the Palestinian diaspora “to leverage our unique positions and power” to “push for meaningful action.””
Tlaib is scheduled to headline the event’s “Youth Day,” in which she will host a reading and signing for her new children’s book, Mama in Congress, alongside her son Adam Tlaib. According to Harper Collins, the book’s publisher, Mama in Congress will chronicle Tlaib’s journey from Detroit to the halls of the federal government. The book will also detail Tlaib’s supposed efforts in working toward “justice for all” in Congress.
The conference will include several workshops educating attendees on “resistance,” “solidarity,” and “collective struggle.” The event will also feature a session stressing the importance of “centering Palestinian prisoners.”
This is not the first time that Tlaib has come under scrutiny for attending a pro-Palestinian conference tied to terrorists. Last May, Tlaib came under fire for speaking at the “The People’s Conference for Palestine,” which also hosted Rafeedie among other individuals connected to terrorist groups. During that event, Rafeedie praised Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza and murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, as a “resistance” against Israel. He defended and downplayed Hamas’s atrocities, saying that “Zionists lie like they breathe.”
“This is not a struggle between Hamas and Israel. Hamas is part of the resistance of the Palestinian people. The core issue is between the Palestinian people and the project of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing,” Rafeedie said.
Rafeedie also called for the complete destruction of Israel and the replacement of the Jewish state with a “democratic” Palestine.
“There is no longer a place for the two-state solution for any Palestinian. The only solution is one democratic Palestinian state on all Palestinian land, which will end the Zionist project in Palestine,” Rafeedie continued.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has positioned herself as a fierce and outspoken critic of Israel. Since entering office, Tlaib has repeatedly accused the Jewish state of implementing an “apartheid” regime in the West Bank and turning Gaza into an “open-air prison.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Tlaib has sharpened her condemnations of the Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, she hesitated to release an official statement acknowledging the mass slaughter, abductions, and rapes perpetrated by Hamas. Less than two weeks after the invasion, Tlaib introduced a “ceasefire” resolution between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. In November 2023, the House of Representatives voted to censure Tlaib over her anti-Israel rhetoric.
The progressive firebrand has also condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing a full-scale “genocide” against the civilians of the enclave. She has also peddled the unsubstantiated claim that Israel has purposefully inflicted mass starvation against Palestinian civilians and urged the Biden administration when it was in power to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Simmering with anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, she refused to endorse former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential bid.
Tlaib’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Driver Charged for Brooklyn Car Crash Killing Jewish Family Has History of Claiming CIA Follows Her
An overturned auto in a car crash flipped on its roof landing on a mother and her three children, killing two children on March 29, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
A Brooklyn woman who was charged for a car crash on Saturday that killed a Jewish woman and her two young daughters has alleged in the past on social media that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is following her, a claim she also made to first responders after the fatal accident.
Miriam Yarimi, 32, is facing multiple charges, including three counts of second-degree manslaughter, three counts of criminal negligent homicide, and four counts of second-degree assault. Yarimi — a Brooklyn resident and wigmaker who is also a Jewish mother herself – was transported to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn in stable condition. She was then moved to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital, according to reports.
The car crash killed Natasha Saada, 32, and her daughters – 8-year-old Diana and 6-year-old Deborah. Saada’s son Philip, 4, was injured in the crash and hospitalized at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park in critical condition. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested Yarimi, a single mother who has a young daughter, and she is awaiting arraignment in connection to the crash that took place Saturday afternoon at an intersection on Ocean Parkway off Quentin Road in Midwood. Police said she was driving with a suspended license at the time of the crash.
“This was a horrific tragedy caused by someone who shouldn’t have been on the road,” said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “A mother and two young children killed, another child fighting for his life, a family and a neighborhood devastated in an instant. The NYPD sends its condolences to the family of the victims.”
Yarimi, who shares custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, reportedly told first responders with the Jewish-led volunteer ambulance service Hatzalah that she was “possessed” and that she believes the CIA was pursing her.
She has made similar claims about the CIA many times on Instagram, a former customer of hers told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. The source, who wishes to remain anonymous, purchased a wig from Yarimi several years ago and has been following her on social media for a number of years. Yarimi has 16,000 followers on Instagram and screenshots of her since-deleted posts, obtained by The Algemeiner, confirm she previously believed that the CIA is tracking her.
“It’s very convenient to plead insanity. But it’s not new. She is actually insane. This is [an] old topic,” the former client told The Algemeiner. “She thinks that she’s been followed by CIA for a long, long time already. She truly believes that CIA is spying on her … But only people who follow her [on social media] and know her for a long time would know this. She’s sick.”
In one since-deleted Instagram post, Yarimi wrote in part about the CIA: “They have control of EVERYONE here in this world BESIDES ME … when I went to Miami, it all clicked … once they knew that I knew, they followed me around the hotel, dressed up as young parents with a doona [stroller] and disco outfits like I was stupid and didn’t know who they were … if anything they stuck out like glue.”
“It was the government, blackjack, and the CIA who manipulated everyone and took control of everyone’s mind but because I was the catalyst and the sacrificial lamb so they did their best to break me,” she wrote in a separate post that has also been deleted. “They experimented (abused) me and that’s when they cloned my daughter and I so when I die, they could reinsert me into the crowd and make me into another person.”
Yarimi previously had a highlight on her Instagram page where she talked about demons and the CIA, but it has since been deleted, her former customer told The Algemeiner. Yarimi also wrote on her Instagram Story once that she believes Hollywood is trying to clone people to look like her.
“Why do you think most of the girls in Hollywood have similar features to me like Rita Ora & Jane the Virgin etc,” Yarimi once wrote on Instagram, as seen in a screenshot shared with The Algemeiner. “Wake up, this is not just happening in Hollywood. This is happening right here in the Jewish community in Brooklyn.”
Not long after she uploaded the Instagram posts, Yarimi was admitted to a psychiatric ward and when she returned to social media, she spoke about the experience, the source told The Algemeiner.
“After the above posts she was locked up for two weeks in a psych ward. She’s very public. She went live when paramedics broke into her house and took her. She came back online two weeks later and spoke about her psych ward experience,” Yarimi’s follower said. “And it was saved in her [Instagram] highlights as well … It was horrible.”
The Algemeiner has seen a copy of Yarimi’s Instagram video that shows police drag her out of bed after she refused their orders to get up by herself. In the clip, three police officers are seen in her bedroom and a fourth is standing by the doorway.
Another longtime Instagram follower of Yamini’s described her as “delusional” when speaking to The Algemeiner, and confirmed that Yamini has spoken online repeatedly in the past about how she believes the CIA is tracking her.
In December 2024, Yarimi won a $2 million settlement from the city of New York after she filed a lawsuit claiming that former NYPD Officer George Mastrokostas repeatedly raped her for several years after falsely arresting her.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Deputy Chief Richie Taylor attended the funeral for Saada and her daughters on Sunday in Brooklyn before their bodies were flown to Israel for burial. Saada is survived by her husband, Sidney Saada, her sons Philip and Jacob, her parents and three siblings. Adams called the crash “a tragic accident of a Shakespearean proportion.”
“A mother going for a simple stroll on a sunny day was struck and killed. As we pray for their families and this entire community, the city mourns this loss,” he added.
Police said Yarimi was driving a blue Audi A3 sedan when she rear-ended a 2023 silver Toyota Camry with TLC plates that was carrying four passengers – a mother and three children. NYPD Commissioner Tisch said the force of the crash caused the Toyota Camry to be pushed aside, while the Audi moved forward, crashing into Saada and her children as they were crossing the street before the car overturned. Saada and her two daughters were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Toyota Camry, a 62-year-old man, was hospitalized in stable condition. The four passengers inside his car sustained minor injuries and were also hospitalized, according to Tisch.
Yarimi’s car had 99 parking and camera violations between August 2023 and March 2025, including 21 speed camera tickets and five red light tickets, Eyewitness News ABC 7 reported, citing a website that tracks vehicle violations using city data. She had nearly $10,500 in fines and a car with the same license plate as Yarimi’s still has $1,345 in unpaid fines, the news outlet also revealed.
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