Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem
The Story of Moskowitz and Hawaiian Gardens
Letters to Attorney General Bill Lockyer
The Coalition for
Justice
challenges Moskowitz
operations
in Hawaiian Gardens and
Jerusalem
Click
here for a printable version of this page
(Adobe Acrobat format - opens in new browser window)
In Hawaiian Gardens, a small city in Los Angeles County, Irving Moskowitz has a bingo parlor, a poker casino ó and maximum political control!
The Hawaiian Gardens Bingo Club In 1988, Irving Moskowitz, a retired MD and local hospital owner, bought the bingo parlor on Carson Street, the cityís main thoroughfare. The City Council gave his family-controlled Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation a monopoly on charitable bingo, which persists to this day, even though Moskowitz never lived up to his promise to donate most of the proceeds locally.
Over the years, the bingo club has netted dozens of millions of dollars and Moskowitz has funneled the bulk of the money to extremist Israeli causes (see the information on Jerusalem below). In 1999 his total giving to the city was $35,000! He also gave an unknown amount to a local food bank he controls. Most of Moskowitzís local bingo donations came between 1995 and 1997, while he campaigned to establish his casino.
The bingo operation takes advantage of a state law requiring that bingo be a charity run by volunteers. The Moskowitz Foundation staffs the bingo with immigrant "volunteers" who work only for tips ñ no wages or benefits.
The Hawaiian Gardens Casino In 1993, Moskowitz pushed through a sweetheart deal with the Hawaiian Gardens Community Redevelopment Agency to develop what, at the time, everyone thought would be a large retail complex. But by 1995, Moskowitz was backing a ballot measure on a casinoówith over $500,000, almost $200 a vote.
A year (and some additional hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars later) Moskowitz had recalled City councilmembers opposed to the casino and gained a city license. Now he is campaigning for the necessary state gambling license, sponsoring a "birthday" fundraiser for Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
Hawaiian Gardens is taking a financial beating from the casino (which is right across from a school). The 1993 deal stuck the redevelopment agency with paying many relocation and improvement costs commonly born by developers. As a result, the agency is so broke its auditors warn it may go belly up. The City Council bailed out the agency with more than $3 million. Then, with the casino still unfinished, the city borrowed $3.5 million from Dr. Moskowitz to finance additional agency spending on the casino. The city itself is broke, running on a skeleton staff; it faces repaying the $3.5 million from casino revenues which once promised prosperity.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer can end this tragedy by:
- Denying Moskowitz a casino license!
- Revoking the "charitable" bingo charter!
- Helping Hawaiian Gardens residents
regain control of their city!
In Jerusalem, Moskowitz is
spending millions of dollars
to trash progress toward peace
He is showering bingo proceeds from Hawaiian Gardens, plus additional personal funds, on organizations and projects devoted to blocking Israeli-Palestinian peace, especially compromises on Jerusalem favored by the Israeli mainstream.
Moskowitz has given Ateret Cohanim, a militant settler group, $4.7 million in bingo funds through the non-profit American Friends of Ateret Cohanim. The group, which openly advocates exclusive Jewish control of Jerusalem, runs a seminary in a Muslim neighborhood and secretly buys, then occupies, homes in traditionally Palestinian neighborhoods. Moskowitz funneled an additional $3 million in bingo funds into provocative Jerusalem real estate purchases through the American Friends of Everest, a US-based foundation controlled by his family.
"Moskowitz's rise to prominence stems not so much from the size of the funds he puts at the disposal of land-purchasing groupsÖbut from his unerring choice of super-sensitive sitesÖ" wrote a Jewish Telegraphic Agency analyst.
Moskowitz bought land slated for a Jewish development in the village of Abu Dis, which is near Jerusalem and regarded as the key to compromise on the Palestinian demand for a Jerusalem capital.
At the time of the May 1999 election of pro-peace Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Moskowitz broke ground for a controversial Jewish settlement in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. This was widely viewed as a symbolic coup díÈtat. Days after Barakís victory, Moskowitz began construction, provoking a police confrontation with peace activists.
The disturbance recalled the 1996 opening of a provocative Moskowitz-funded tunnel to the Temple Mount, which sparked riots that resulted in over 70 deaths.
Coalition for Justice
in
Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem
www.stopmoskowitz.org
9553 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90035
P.O. Box 1471, Hawaiian Gardens CA 90716
Phone (310) 910-9153
Fax (310) 286-7109
Pager (310) 797-0457
Click Here to Learn What You Can Do To Help
Click
here for a printable version of this page
(Adobe Acrobat format - opens in new browser window)
