How has wealth affected the Jewish community?
There’s been exponential growth of Jewish wealth, partly because there’s been exponential growth of wealth. The top marginal tax rate under Eisenhower and Kennedy was 90%. [Today,] America’s got the lowest taxes in the industrial world. It all changed in the mid 1970s. People blame Reagan, but it really started under Carter. Along with deregulation came the lowering of the taxes. You removed the rules for getting rich, and you let people keep more of that money. And the sky was the limit. The Jewish organizations, for a bunch of reasons, grew and grew and grew during those years. There was always a myth that the richer Jews were more assimilated. Nowadays, the poorer Jews are more assimilated because they can’t afford [Jewish life]. The Jewish community grew by the graces of the donations of the wealthy. And then it built up this infrastructure that was dependent on the donations of the wealthy. It became harder and harder to act independently of the interests of the wealthy. In 1994,
