When a well known figure is accused or convicted of breaking the law, or is caught up in some outrageous public practice, I would hear “Thank God he isn’t Jewish!” If the person involved did turn out to be a Jew, we would all seem to absorb a certain collective shame or embarrassment, as if we were all responsible in some way. Most recently I have felt this in our community as it reacts to Jack Abramoff’s predicament.

Mr. Abramoff is a “super lobbyist” who pled guilty to bribery, payoffs and other extremely unethical and illegal activities, many of them involving members of the United States Congress. He also proudly wears the identity of an Orthodox Jew. On the day of his guilty plea, he showed up in court wearing the broad brimmed black hat and black coat such as those worn by Ultra-Orthodox Jews. As it turns out, he looked more like a Mafia hood than a frum Jew, but who can really account for personal taste in fashion?

Many people I communicate with are appalled that a man who is guilty of such terrible crimes should be one of us. I could almost sense a universal lowering of the heads of Jews in shame over Mr. Abramoff’s reputation.

Plenty of people around the world are willing to demonize Jews; we do not have to help them. We are not guilty of the crimes Mr. Abramoff committed; he alone is guilty of his crimes. The fact that he happens to be a frum Jew (a claim of which I have personal doubts) reflects not one whit on the Jewish people as a whole.

We must not allow ourselves to feed into the concept that as Jews we are responsible for an individual’s actions. We are responsible for our own actions; period. We can feel that as a Jew, Mr. Abramoff is not living up to the laws and traditions of the Jewish people, but that is of his own choice. There are crooks in every religion, nationality, political ideology etc. If every identifiable group were to judge themselves by the actions of its worst members, the entire world would be walking around with its head between its legs.

We can all pray that Mr. Abramoff realizes the errors of his ways. Certainly Jewish culture teaches a more respectable way of life and we can hope that Mr. Abramoff’s trials will lead him to embrace them. However, we cannot and should not beat up on ourselves because of his crookedness. All we can really do is be responsible for ourselves. We can decide to live our lives by Jewish precepts and embrace our heritage. We can decide not to be lured by greed into a life of crime. But we should not assist the anti-Semites in the world, by identifying with the worst among us.

Our enemies abound. Let us not become an enemy unto ourselves.