James von Brunn Missed The Mark

On December 30, 2008, imprisoned “scam artist” Tuvia Stern held his son’s bar mitzvah inside the gym of a New York City prison.

From the New York Post:

City Correction Department officials permitted him to use his own caterer, who supplied kosher food, china, forks — and knives — for about 60 guests who partied and danced the hora for six hours in the jailhouse gym.

Stern’s family and friends were allowed to keep their cellphones — normally a huge security no-no.

The city threw in its own present — overtime pay for the correction officers staffing the soiree.

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is incensed – as much about the bar mitzvah as about the engagement party that Stern threw for his daughter this spring in the prison gym.

If the appropriate term of art here is chutzpah, then its gentile equivalent is “investigation” – which the mayor has launched in response to the jail parties. (Forget not that Bloomberg is himself Jewish and is, not coincidentally, a notoriously stern steward of the City’s money.)

Intersecting all the hot issues – racism, anti-Semitism, wasteful government spending, religion, state and religion, equal treatment – this tale of against-all-odds spry spiritualism reminds us that sometimes we should all just shut up and smile.

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