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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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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
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