The Washington Post article on “The Eternal Mystique of Goldman Sachs” to some extent puts the lie to my previous blog’s assertion that Goldman is mainly a Jewish institution. Nevertheless, judging just by the names in the article, it is pretty Jewish. The two main people in the Trump administration with ties to Goldman are Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, both of whom would appear to be Jewish. The current CEO is Lloyd Blankfein. The name of the firm itself, Goldman and Sachs, both look Jewish. Another early partner mentioned in the article is Sidney Weinberg, who also sounds Jewish. He became an unofficial adviser to Franklin Roosevelt, who Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, was I think the only Jew in FDR’s cabinet, and thus frequently called on by the Jewish community to lobby Roosevelt about Holocaust and the plight of Jews in Europe.
A number of the Goldman Sachs Gentiles mentioned in the article are no longer with the firm, either because they did not want to remain there, or they were pushed out. Again, just guessing from the names, these Gentiles include William Dudley, Heidi Cruz, Malcolm Turnbull, and Erin Burnett. One former CEO of Goldman, who was also Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, is not Jewish.
The article points out a concern that many Gentiles have about Jewish financial wizards: they are not always honest, although some are certainly more honest that they Gentile competitors. It cites a joke by Eddie Cantor (also Jewish) who said Goldman lost all the money he was saving for his old age, thus making him feel old. And, of course, Goldman was deeply involved in the housing mortgage scandal of 2008, and nobody there went to jail. Of course, neither did any of their other Jewish or Gentile colleagues. But to an outsider, it looks like a sleazy business.
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