Ph.D. Octopus

by David

I went to Bnei Jeshrun for Purim this year. Bnei Jeshurun, or BJ, is a non-denominational progressive oriented shul on the Upper West Side. In the Fall, for Simchat Torah, they have an amazing, massive horah that is not to be missed.

Their Purim performance, however, was disappointing. They told the Purim spiel spliced with musical scenes from movies that were tenuously connected to the story (“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” for Evita, or “Be Prepared” from Lion King, for example). Not for me. It was a long-winded version of the Jewish classic: “they tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat” (only on Purim you’re also supposed to drink like the Goyim, that is, until you can’t tell the difference between right and wrong). In any case, the whole Megillah is long enough as it is, we didn’t need the audiovisual additions, even if they were for the kids. I suppose some people liked the whole shindig, and that’s nice. To me, it was interesting, but it wasn’t Judaism. Just get the megillah reading over with, shout when they say Haman, and start partying.

So this week it’s Passover. Or as I like to call it, Pesach. (That’s with a hard “ch” goyim. Say it!).  I‘ve written about this before. I like this holiday, even though parts of it are unpleasant. I like rituals, rather than faith. And Passover has rituals up the wazoo.

When thinking about Passover this year, I suppose not much has changed for me. There are new Haggadot I haven’t read yet, some which I’m excited about–like my Rabbi Ron Aigen’s new Reconstructionist Haggadah, and others I’m less excited about — I sure as hell hope Jonathan Safran Foer doesn’t tell me to stop eating animals because my ancestors were once slaves in Egypt and God shoved frogs up pharaoh’s ass. Don’t get me wrong, I like egalitarian, progressive seders: orange on the seder plate and Miriam’s cup to represent women and all that jazz. But mostly I like the tradition.

So I’m going to keep Passover, again. My sister has some tips for staying regular. I’ll do my best. It’s not fun. I’ve said why I do it before, but rather than express that again, I’ll just link to this poem by Kenneth Koch, expressing in poetry what so often comes out flatly in prose. Please read it.

As for me, I’ll just say that Judaism, or Jewishness is an itch. But in a good way. Unlike the Bnei Jeshurun Purim spiel, but like their Simchat Torah horah, it’s a familiar itch. It’s one of those itches that when you scratch it, even if it’s annoying, like keeping Passover, it still makes you feel good in the end. On the other hand, on occasion it makes you feel worse, turning into a scab and bleeding over. Sometimes it just nags at you, feels weird, like when you agonize over tough questions on Israel or intermarriage. But always it makes you want to scratch more and more. It reminds you that you’re alive.

So happy Pesach to all my Jewish friends and family scratching the passover itch out there, in whatever way they chose. And happy Easter to the Christians. Someone should come out with some kosher for Passover Easter eggs. That would make a fortune.

by David

Morris-Jumel Mansion, built in 1765, the oldest house in Manhattan

I live in Columbia med school housing up in Washington Heights. It’s convenient for my wife, Julie, who goes to Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Our apartment is great. But I live in a med school bubble, and I’m not a medical student. Also, the neighbourhood is a bit of a bar and restaurant wasteland. I don’t speak Spanish, and it’s 85% Dominican, so it’s difficult to feel like a part of the community. And I’m not religious enough for the bochers further north around Yeshiva University.

Further south, however, I just discovered a marvelous piece of history. At Jumel Terrace, just east of 160th and St. Nicholas, sits the Morris-Jumel Mansion. Built in 1765, it’s the oldest house in Manhattan. George Washington lived there during the Revolutionary War, and hosted a dinner in 1790 including John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Aaron Burr lived there in the early 19th century. The mansion is now a museum; I got to see the dining room where that dinner took place, and Washington’s bedroom, servants’ quarters, the women’s rooms, the parlour, and more. In Washington’s bedroom, a small, amusing exhibit was set-up called “Washington’s Facebook.” A cartoon cardboard cutout of Washington sat with his laptop, on his Facebook page, his cell phone on the table. The implication is that similar to the recent Arab Spring, if Washington had had access to Facebook and Twitter, he would have used them to foment his own revolution.

Far more interesting to me than this colonial history, however, is the more recent history that surrounds the place. The bookstore, Word, or Jumel Terrace Books, open only by appointment, sits across from the Mansion at 426 W. 160th. It has a remarkable collection of African American and Africana literature. It also has a lot of left-wing, Marxist, and revolutionary books, noting that “books are weapons.” It even has revolutionary board games.

Class Struggle, the board game

Class Struggle, the board game, serves “to prepare for life in capitalist America.” Funny, I thought Monopoly did that. Class Struggle is “for kids from 8 to 80.” Fun for all ages! It also comes with “directions for possible classroom use.” And it’s educational too!

Then there’s this one:

The X Game, "a cooperative game ages 10 to adult"

The X Game, with a large quote from Malcolm X on the front, asks us to “Stop the System By Any Means Necessary.” It is a “cooperative game,” noting “it’s a race to achieve unity–the key to Black liberation” and “winning requires working together to beat the ‘System’ … no one can do it alone!” Sounds perfect for those non-competitive parents, but I don’t think Amy Chua would approve.

Alicia Keys

Paul Robeson

Even more interesting, however, are those African American elites who came to live in the still beautiful section of the neighbourhood, once called Harlem Heights or Sugar Hill. W.E.B. Du Bois, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Count Basie, Joe Louis, and Paul Robeson all made their homes in this neighbourhood. Robeson first lived at 16 Jumel Terrace, but then, like several of the others, moved into 555 Edgecombe Avenue (also known as Paul Robeson Boulevard). Today, Alicia Keys lives in Robeson’s apartment, continuing the tradition. Maybe the history helps her retain her New York State of Mind

by David

Kutsher's Pastrami

I walked in to Kutsher’s Tribeca with my dad at about 12:45 PM. A smattering of other customers were there, but the place was large, so it felt more sparsely populated than it actually was. The decor is fancy, upscale, but the atmosphere was just to my liking: brightly lit, with barely audible music in the background (I like to see my food and converse with the people I’m eating with). Later, the owner, Zach Kutsher, told me that it’s a completely different restaurant at night. “We turn the music up, turn the lights down, have a whole different menu.” Now I’m barely 30, but I have the soul of an 85-year-old Jewish man in Boca. So I’d like to try the night-time food, but might find the place a little noisy.

Before I continue, let me emphasize that I highly recommend Kutsher’s Tribeca. The food I ate was absolutely delicious, and the service was excellent. My dining experience this afternoon was, on the whole, lovely.

It didn’t start off that way. When the waiter told me they made their own sodas (or soft drinks, in Canada), I decided to order their vanilla black cherry. Anyone with any sense of tradition (or any sense at all, really) knows you order Black Cherry at a deli. In Canada, that means Cott’s, which tastes like a super-sweet delicious brand of cough medicine, in a good way (I’m not kidding). Virgil’s, Stewart’s or Doctor Brown’s in the good ‘ol US of A work too. But this drink didn’t taste like any of those products. It tasted like drinking vanilla. Pure vanilla, with barely a hint of cherry. Now normally I don’t like vanilla because I consider it too plain, too, you know, vanilla. But this was too potent. The beverage wasn’t even the right colour, a clearish reddish liquid rather than a syrupy eggplant reminiscent of unrefined oil.

I told the waiter (politely) how I felt, and he immediately offered me another drink, on the house. He recommended the ginger ale. I acquiesced. Unfortunately, that came to a similar result. It tasted like drinking ginger. It was moderately more tolerable than the black cherry, but if I was wandering for 40 years in the desert, thirsty, and I was offered either of these two drinks, I think I’d hold off for the next oasis.

The third drink I was offered, again on the house, was an apple soda. This was actually quite enjoyable; tasted like drinking apple sauce, but in a good way.

But enough about the drinks. I still cling to the Jackie Mason stereotype that Jews don’t care about drinks, alcoholic or otherwise. I came to eat, and I ate well. My father and I shared a pastrami sandwich, though I easily could have had my own. They weren’t as massive as Katz’s, but they were much more affordable, and at least as good. The meat wasn’t as moist as Katz’s, but it was more flavorful, more reminiscent of Montreal smoked meat, at Schwartz’s or Brooklyn’s Mile End Deli, than your typical New York pastrami. The french fries were also good, and the matzoh ball soup was spectacular. Though it did not possess that comforting yellow glow I’m used to from deli soups, it tasted great, and came in a very hearty portion. And for dessert the chocolate babka bread pudding was divine.

Most interesting, however, was the conversation with the waiter; manager; and owner, Zach Kutsher, grandson of the owner of the famous Kutsher’s hotel in the Catskills, a Borscht-belt landmark which had a well-known and beloved kosher dining room. They were very proud of the place’s heritage, and the waiter insisted that there were “lots of Jews” there, not just the customers, but the wait staff, cooks, managers, and proprietors. Yet nobody we talked to would commit to calling Kutsher’s Tribeca a deli. The various terms they used included “deli-chic” and “upscale nouveau Jewish cuisine” and, like it says on the website, a “modern Jewish American bistro.”

Kutsher's resort in the Catskills, back in the day, before it expanded

This got me thinking about my advisor Hasia Diner’s book, Hungering for America, about how Jewish, Italian, and Irish immigrants used food traditions (or in the Irish’ case, the lack of said traditions) to consolidate their cultures in the United States. Jewish immigrants from all over Europe (and to a lesser extent Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East), brought different foods and recipes that blended together to create an American Jewish cuisine (similarly, Italian food was created in America, not Italy, where food is much more regional). Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, though not always strictly obeyed, provided an over-arching, unifying framework.

At the same time, developing these new, Americanized food traditions helped the immigrants integrate and acculturate. Today, Jews are thoroughly comfortable in America, integrated and acculturated. Restaurants like Kutsher’s, which shun the word deli but attempt to preserve something of the Jewish tradition, are all about asserting Jewish particularism within a modern, American framework. Kutsher’s is explicitly non-kosher, like the restaurant Traif in Williamsburg or Top Chef‘s Ilan Hall dressing up a matzoh ball with bacon. But in rejecting kashrut, they are also explicitly Jewish, building a new American Jewish culinary tradition, in line with all the modern techniques of nouveau cousine, but with a nod to the old country. Like my friend Noah Bernamoff of Mile End Deli, these Jewish culinary adventurers get to explore strange new worlds of food while still holding on to their Jewish roots. They get to build something new, a hybrid cuisine, Jewish, American, and whatever else entices them.

Kutsher’s does this all very well. For those who’d like a quiet deli feel and a delicious pastrami sandwich, go at lunch. For a swankier soiree with a health dose of Hebraic goodness, go for dinner. And come hungry.

by David

Peter Beinart, he of boyish good looks and correct criticism of the Israeli government

Apparently some people are angry at Peter Beinart again. Remember Beinart, famous for his 2010 New York Review of Books piece “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.” I blogged about it here and here.

Well Beinart is now calling for a boycott of the settlements, for a clear distinction between “democratic Israel” and the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He is leveling criticism at the Israeli government and the Israel lobby again. And his critics are angry. Again. They cast Beinart as a shameless self-promoter. I’m in no place to judge, but I met Beinart once, and he seemed perfectly nice to me. He spoke at NYU in front of a large crowd, and then had a smaller discussion with some students of the Hebrew and Judaic Studies department, including myself. I liked him.

And you know what? I don’t care if he’s a shameless self-promoter. Because he’s mostly right, and if he’s galvanizing Jews on the left to support J-Street, and endorse a peaceful two-state solution, then that’s a good thing. This piece, by Noah Millman, “How Israel is like an Alcoholic Mother,” expresses this sentiment well, though it’s actually a bit unfair to Beinart, who has been a committed Jew and Zionist his whole life.

But at the end of the day, again, I’d have to say that Beinart is right on Israel, wrong on American Jewish youth. Frankly, I wish more were critical of it, because at least that would show that they cared. But they don’t. Most young American Jews aren’t angry at Israel. They don’t care about Israel. They don’t visit it. They don’t read about it. They don’t think about it. Apathy and assimilation are the real enemies to the Jewish future in the Diaspora, not anything Israel does. A.B. Yehoshua gets this; Beinart doesn’t. And that, in some ways, is a far bigger problem.

by David

The Harvard Crimson building at 14 Plympton Street

As an undergraduate at Harvard, I was proud to work for The Harvard Crimson, probably the best college daily on the planet. I witnessed some monumental changes, like the addition of colour, and have noticed similar advances since graduating, like the tremendous expansion of on-line, audiovisual, and social media content. Now, as a doctoral student in history, I find it amusing when my subjects mention The Crimson in their letters. This one letter, written by Alain LeRoy Locke ’1907 to his mother on June 2, 1906, really captures how though some things have changed (the building, and everything mentioned above) but some things have really stayed the same.

The Crimson editors have just had a beer night and ten to one there will be no college paper tomorrow. They are outside the window (their office is in the Union) all so drunk that they wouldn’t know a paper from a printing press. Perhaps they have had sense enough to get the copy read before they started drinking. - Alain LeRoy Locke, Harvard sophomore, June 2, 1906

by David

A Scholar Who Probably Had More Career Options than I do

I love the humanities. I love my discipline of history. I do intellectual history, meaning I use literary and philosophical sources as well. I love literature. I love philosophy. I love art and art history. I see value in studying the humanities for their own sake. I think teaching the humanities can impart important life and career skills, including critical thinking, clear writing, and logical argumentation. I think the content of a humanities education is useful too, and not just for cocktail parties, but for learning the lessons of history, examining moral questions, identifying the aesthetic value of cultural production, and appreciating peoples of different backgrounds.

Despite all this, I support (some) cuts to the humanities at the university level. Not because I want to. But because there is no real choice. Let me explain.

I’ve read a lot of articles about how shitty it is to be pursuing a doctorate in the humanities these days, but none on what that means for professors. Until now. This article in The Chronicle of Higher Education is a must-read for doctoral students and their professors. The gist: graduate programs are shrinking, and with that, professors have fewer doctoral students to train, thus damaging one major reason they became professors in the first place.

“The only place I can really use some of the research I have is at the graduate level, and now I don’t have someone to impart it to,” says Anthony Colantuono, an associate professor of art history at Maryland, whose department held a retreat this month to talk about how to maintain a vibrant graduate program while admitting only a couple of students a year…. ”You want to pass that on; otherwise it could be lost for good,” he says. With fewer graduate students enrolling, that loss is a real threat. “We are all terrified by this,” he says, “because as researchers we’re committed to graduate teaching.”….

The history department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison cut its new graduate admissions in half this past fall, to just 21 students. “Why train people if the outlook for professional historians is not nearly as good as it was five years ago?” asks Laird Boswell, director of graduate studies in the department….

[Frank] Donoghue, the English professor at Ohio State, has written a forthcoming article for the journal Pedagogy about the phenomenon. “The privilege of teaching a graduate seminar every year, or at least every two years, long ago came to become an expected perk of faculty teaching jobs at Ohio State,” he says. “It clearly can’t be anymore, but who gets seminars and who doesn’t has become an increasingly significant factor in faculty morale.”

This sucks. And yet, as the article notes, Penn State’s history department has come to grips with this reality and is adopting a new strategy in response. They’ve cut “entire subfields,” and are no longer accepting students pursuing 20th century US history, medieval history, or modern European history.

“This is the way of the future, and we’re way ahead of the curve here,” says Michael Kulikowski, chairman of the history department, which was featured at this year’s annual meeting of the American Historical Association as one of 10 departments doing innovative things. “People have been talking about the oversupply of unemployable Ph.D.’s in the humanities for several decades, and I think we’ve found a part of the solution. We are concentrating on areas where we can place students competitively.”

Furthermore, there are some graduate students who are ok with this, namely, the ones who still get in. I’ve been saying this for a long time, as a member of NYU’s proto-union, the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, or GSOC, and at history department grad student meetings. The biggest complaint is always always always lack of money, be it summer funding, or money for childcare, or research, or dental insurance. Well if we had half as many history students, there’d be more money to go around, and all those problems would be solved. And there’d be fewer people competing for the dwindling number of jobs.

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by David

I was about to write a post about conservative blogger Brooks Bayne’s antisemitic rant directed towards Sandra Fluke’s boyfriend Adam Mutterperl, when I read the news about the horrific shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, that left four dead, including three children. We don’t know for certain that this attacks was motivated by antisemitism, but it seems likely, and kind of makes the Brooks Bayne nutjob variety seem less threatening, even if a Bayne is an admitted gun enthusiast.

What to make of these incidents? Is the recent shooting a Dreyfus moment, a wakeup call to French Jews, and Diaspora Jews in general? Contrary to popular myth, the Dreyfus Affair in France, did not launch Theodor Herzl’s Zionist beliefs, though it certainly helped reaffirm them. For those who don’t know, in 1894, French Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason, convicted, and imprisoned in solitary confinement on an island in French Guiana. Eventually, new evidence came to late proving Dreyfus innocence. The “Affair” really began in 1898, when author Emile Zola wrote “J’accuse“ and blamed French antisemitism for the mistaken conviction. Riots rocked France, dividing the population between those who supported Dreyfus (the Dreyfusards, generally liberal and secular), and those who condemned him as guilty (the anti-Dreyfusards, generally conservative and often religious). Eventually, in 1899, Dreyfus was retried, convicted for a second time, but then pardoned by the French government, though he was only fully exonerated in 1906.

Theodor Herzl, a journalist, covered the story for a Viennese newspaper. He went on to lead the modern political Zionist movement. And so, we must ask, does this recent shooting in France offer any Zionist lessons? After all, A.B. Yehoshua, left-wing Zionist author and activist, has just told us again (and again) that Diaspora Jews live only a partial Jewish existence, unlike the full Jewish existence that he and other Israeli Jews live. Perhaps the most interesting (and most new and original) thing Yehoshua said this time around was “I have never heard the Jews analyze the Holocaust as a Jewish failure, which was not anticipated.”

Of course, the Holocaust was sort of anticipated, by Herzl in the 1890s, by Leo Pinsker in the 1880s, even Karl Marx’s friend Moses Hess in his 1862 book Rome and Jerusalem, where he wrote ”Even an act of conversion cannot relieve the Jew of the enormous pressure of German anti-Semitism. The Germans hate the religion of the Jews less than they hate their race – they hate the peculiar faith of the Jews, less than their peculiar noses.” (I like to chide my Marxist friends by saying that Hess was much more prescient than his friend Karl, though that prescience was tragic).

So I ask again, are these recent French shooting a similar warning sign? Or are they an aberration, the work of a lone lunatic? Neocon John Podhoretz has already jumped to red alert, declaring that “Jews are being hunted.” J-Pod brings up 9/11 in his article, which made me think of the 2002 essay in The New Republic by Leon Wieseltier (certainly his best work), “Hitler is Dead.” Jews in the Diaspora should not panic.

The irony, it seems, as Yehoshua well knows, is that for the most part, antisemitism does not threaten Jews in the Diaspora, at least certainly not in North America. I’ve written about this many times before on this very blog. The real threat is assimilation, intermarriage, low birthrates. We all know this well.

So I’m horrified by the shootings in France. But I’m not going to go alarmist yet. Let’s focus on this incident, on who is responsible, and on honouring the victims and providing sympathy for their families. It seems like Jews are not the only target of this attacker. Let’s learn more before making sweeping judgments.

And I’m much less worried about the ravings of one antisemitic moron in the United States who thinks that “Brandeis University is one of the nation’s leading petri dishes for anti-American and neo-Marxist thought.” Has Brooks Bayne ever been to Brandeis? I think it’s more of a hot-bed for capitalist consumerism, like most educational institutions, Jewish or not (and Brandeis is not Jewish in the way Yeshiva University is, for example).

Brandeis is a great school, and indeed, one of our tentacles at PhD Octopus, Julian, actually goes there. Hey Julian, would you say that Bayne has pegged Brandeis pretty well? Do the undergrads you’ve taught ooze anti-American Marxism? Or is Brandeis one of those places where you find actual conservatives studying and teaching the humanities, at the undergraduate and graduate level? I think it’s more of the latter. I don’t want to give Bayne too much attention, and my friends Sarah and Liora have already trashed his post very effectively.

So I’ll conclude by writing that antisemitism in the US remains a minor phenomenon, in the words of scholar Stephen Whitfield, a “dog” that “did not bark,” or perhaps more accurately, barked but did not bite. Yes, there is American antisemitism, on the right and left (and yes, it can be different than anti-Zionism). It is a phenomenon that needs to be denounced, punished (in the court of public opinion, if nowhere else), and understood. But the real problem for the Jewish Diaspora’s future is assimilation, and that has been true for the past several decades.

by David

In Toronto, Wall Street is called Bay Street. We do some things different in Canada: cheaper, better, affordable healthcare for all, better gun laws, younger drinking age (though who knows how much of that the catastrophic Stephen Harper will change?). But one thing that is apparently pretty similar between Canada in the United States, and probably everywhere in the world, is the culture of greed and douchebaggery that exists in the financial sector. In Canada, various regulations have made our banks more stable. But that doesn’t mean that the culture of investment banking and other financial wizardry isn’t rotten to the core.

A few days ago, we had Greg Smith, a South African Jew who just left Goldman Sachs after working there a dozen years in New York and London, telling us how corrupt that company had become in his time there (though in fact the sleaziness goes back much further). Today, we have Toronto’s Globe and Mail journalist Tim Kiladze telling us  why he left a six-figure salary working on Bay Street for the investing arm of the Royal Bank of Canada to become a journalist for the aforementioned Globe.

Kiladze’s piece is much better than Smith’s. You should really read it. In a much more interesting, and less-resume like fashion, Kiladze shows just how bad things have gotten on Bay Street.  I’ll provide some choice excerpts here to tantalize you: Read the rest of this entry »

by David

 Thinking a little more about our friend Greg Smith who just quit his job at Goldman Sachs, it occurred to me that Smith must have a very short memory. He claims that Goldman used to have a “culture” that “revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients.” But when exactly was this? He started at Goldman Sachs 12 years ago, in 2000. But thirteen years before that, in 1987, Tom Wolfe wrote Bonfire of the Vanities (25 years ago now!). Four years later, in 1991, Bret Easton Ellis came out with American Psycho. Both novels parody (or celebrate, depending on your point of view, the arrogance, materialism, and overall douchebaggery of Wall Street. The main character in Bonfire, a white Wall Street trader named Sherman McCoy, thinks of himself as a “Master of the Universe” (and not the He-man variety, which would have been awesome). In American Psycho, the protagonist, investment banker Patrick Bateman, is driven to a psychopathic murderous rampage (or is he?) because intense elitism and douchebaggery of the corporate culture. No humility there. Heck, Oliver Stone’s 1987 film Wall Street, which some capitalists curiously misinterpret as a celebration of the financial sector, is in fact a criticism of the Ayn Rand/Gordon Gekko “greed is good” mentality that was rampant during the 1980s, including, I’m sure, at places like Goldman Sachs.

So yes, the fierce douchbaggery of the financial sector is nothing new, nor is the reputation for pulling a fast one on clients and committing either outright fraud or legal manipulation of unsuspecting customers. Greg Smith should have known that, and could have known that from simply cracking a fun book or watching a fun movie like American Psycho (I doubt there’s an investment banker alive who hasn’t seen that movie). But if the pop culture history isn’t enough, Smith can read this op-ed by William D. Cohan, which documents how

Goldman Sachs has been in and out of trouble throughout its 143 years — chiefly because it chose to put its own interests before those of its clients. What appeared to be a revelation to Smith was actually available to anyone who looked for it, buried deep within Securities and Exchange Commission and court records. Smith could have saved himself grief if he had only used his Stanford education to examine Goldman’s DNA before crossing its threshold.

Cohan’s article, titled “Goldman Sachs’s Long History of Duping its Clients,” focuses on one incident in particular, the June 1970 bankruptcy of Penn Central Transportation Company, the nation’s largest railroad.” According to Cohan, Goldman Sachs has been screwing over clients since at least 1928. I read the article. Now I think I’m gonna buy Cohan’s book, Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World. Greg Smith and all the other former and current financiers should probably read it too.

Still, despite my criticism here, let me re-emphasize that I applaud what Greg Smith has done. Even if his op-ed read a bit like a resume, he still did a good thing. Quitting was the right move, and telling people how sleazy Goldman Sachs has become, even if it, like all the other banks and hedge funds out there, have actually been that sleazy all along, is an extremely important message to get out there. It’s especially important coming from the inside. If it inspires others to quit, or to avoid applying in the first place, it will be a greater accomplishment, and a greater mitzvah, than even winning a gold medal in ping pong at the Maccabiah Games.

by David

The internets is all abuzz about a fellow named Greg Smith, a former executive director of Goldman Sachs who publicly announced his resignation for the firm on the op-ed pages of the New York Times. Smith argues that while the firm used to be a place with a “culture” that “revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients,” it has become a place dedicated solely to making more and more money. “Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.” He writes of attending “meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them.”

While most readers, I think, have rightly praised Smith for his decision, others have been somewhat critical, pointing to the fact that he quit only after receiving his latest bonus, or that his op-ed reads like a cover letter for his next job application, particularly this paragraph:

My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.

The mention of the Maccabiah Games is especially amusing. Still, though I also applaud Smith, this Star Wars parody of the op-ed expresses my sentiments well.

Seriously, was Goldman Sachs ever really a place with that culture of honesty, ”revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients”? Does anyone think “humility” and associate that with Goldman, or any investment banking firm, or really any high-level finance job on Wall Street? I think the first word most of us think of is “douchebag.” I’m sure that even when Goldman and Sachs were 19th century German-Jewish immigrant peddlers schlepping their dry goods around America, their business motto was always about the bottom-line.

Smith should know this. He is a clearly a smart, accomplished individual. But he got a full ride to Stanford. Presumably that means no loans, no debts. Why did he go work for Goldman in the first place? Did he honestly believe that even 12 years ago, the job was about anything other than helping rich people get richer, and getting rich in the process? Or was he sucked into the elite school culture that said that I-banking and consulting are the only way to go? A culture that said that the job was prestigious, a place for the smart and talented to excel, never mind what they were actually doing.

Also, we should not single out Goldman Sachs. I’m sure Smith would have worked at a different bank if Goldman had rejected him, and that bank would have the exact same “culture,” or lack thereof.

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