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Saturday, 13 July 2013

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KNOXVILLE—Jerry Kerley, 60, of Kodak, Tennessee, was sentenced on June 6, 2013, by the Honorable Thomas W. Phillips, U.S. District Court Judge, to serve four years in prison for his May 2012 federal convictions for wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering, all arising from a mortgage fraud scheme.
The indictment charged Kerley and Jeffrey Whaley with conspiring to defraud Citizens Bank, located in New Tazewell, Tennessee, and SunTrust Mortgage Inc., located in Richmond, Virginia, through a mortgage fraud scheme. The indictment alleged that the conspiracy involved a “straw borrower” mortgage fraud scheme in which straw borrowers were induced to obtain mortgage loans in their names based on promises that they would not have to make a down payment or mortgage payments for the property, would receive cash at closing, and would share in the profit following a resale of the property. The indictment further alleged that it was part of the conspiracy that materially false representations were made to Citizens Bank and SunTrust Mortgage, which, among other things, included false representations related to the straw borrowers’ source of funds for down payments and amounts recorded as “cash from borrower” on HUD-1 Settlement Statements and loan applications for the purpose of inducing Citizens Bank and SunTrust Mortgage to disburse the mortgage loan proceeds it had wired to and entrusted with Kerley’s title company Guaranty Land Title.
The indictment specifically alleged eight real estate transactions in which Kerley and Whaley concealed from Citizens Bank and SunTrust Mortgage that the borrower did not provide at closing the money identified as the cash from borrower on the HUD-1 Settlement Statement. According to the indictment, in those eight transactions, Citizens Bank and SunTrust Mortgage, in total, wired more than $6 million in loan proceeds to Guaranty Land Title Company for disbursement. The indictment alleged that Kerley, a Tennessee licensed attorney, was the owner of Guaranty Land Title Company where the fraudulent loans were closed. The indictment also alleged that Whaley conducted business through a company known as GBO Enterprises which received substantial sums of money from the loan proceeds. The indictment also alleged that Kerley and Whaley committed money laundering offenses through financial transactions that involved proceeds from the mortgage fraud scheme. Whaley is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court on July 1, 2013.
This investigation was conducted jointly by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Secret Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Trey Hamilton and Zac Bolitho represented the United States.
Over the past several decades, the Jewish South has been transformed, as generations of Jewish merchants have given way to Jewish professionals and executives. Knoxville, with its long history as a small Jewish community in East Tennessee and its recent emergence as a part of the Jewish sunbelt boom, perfectly encapsulates these demographic changes. In this way, the story of Jewish Knoxville is the story of the Jewish South writ large.
The history of Jews in East Tennessee would have begun a century earlier than it did if Sir Alexander Cuming had his way. A Scottish adventurer, Cuming hatched an impractical scheme to colonize 300,000 European Jewish families in East Tennessee. Far from a humanitarian or proto-Zionist, Cuming hoped to enrich himself from this money-making venture. He brought his idea to London Jews, who failed to express much enthusiasm for the plan. King George II didn’t like it either, and nothing became of Cuming’s scheme. The history of Jewish life in the area around Knoxville thus unfolded according to the general pattern of Jewish settlement in the southern interior.
Founded in 1796, Knoxville was the capital of the newly admitted western state of Tennessee for its first twenty years. Located in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains, Knoxville never developed large-scale slavery or plantation agriculture. For this reason, the area was strongly Unionist during the Civil War, and offered little resistance when the Union occupied Knoxville.
The Civil War was a catalyst in the development of Knoxville’s Jewish community. On the eve of the war, there were seven Jewish families living among Knoxville’s 3,000 residents. One of these was A. Schwab, a merchant who emigrated from France sometime before 1844 and settled in Tennessee by the early 1850s. In 1861, his 18-year-old son, Joseph, died while fighting for the Confederacy in Virginia. Schwab wanted to bury his son in Knoxville, but there was no Jewish cemetery in town. Solomon Lyon and Joseph Mayer, two Jewish merchants who owned a store together, donated a small parcel of land for Schwab’s burial and for use as a Jewish cemetery. In 1864, Knoxville Jews established a Hebrew Benevolent Society to oversee the cemetery and care for local Jews in need. This group soon began to hold worship services and eventually grew into Knoxville’s first Jewish congregation.
After the Civil War, a growing number of Jews settled in Knoxville. Louis Gratz, a German immigrant who lived in the North and volunteered for the Union Army, was stationed in East Tennessee at the end of the war. While in Knoxville, he fell in love with the daughter of a prominent local family, married her, and remained in town. Gratz was a lawyer and also owned a grocery store. He twice served as city attorney and was elected mayor of North Knoxville four times starting in the 1890s. Gratz’s wife was not Jewish and he had little contact with the burgeoning Jewish community in Knoxville. Gratz’s life reflected the freedom and opportunities available to Jews; this included to freedom to leave the Jewish community.
Adolph OchsGratz was just one of several Jews who found their way to Knoxville after the war. In the late 1860s, Bavarian immigrant Julius Ochs and family moved from Cincinnati to Knoxville, where they had lived briefly in the 1850s. Julius tried various business ventures which usually resulted in failure. His son Adolph started working as a paperboy for the Knoxville Chronicle, and worked his way up to being a journeyman typesetter by the time he was seventeen. In 1877, when he was only nineteen, Adolph moved to Chattanooga, and borrowed $250 to buy a controlling share of the Chattanooga Times, which became very successful under his stewardship. Ochs later married Effie Wise, the daughter of the famous rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise. In 1896, he purchased the New York Times and built it into one of the most successful and respected newspapers in the world.
Eastern European Jews began to arrive in Knoxville in the late 19th century. Some came as peddlers sent by the wholesaling giant, the Baltimore Bargain House, which guided newly arrived immigrants to peddling routes in the country’s hinterlands. By 1880, so many Jewish peddlers were traveling through Knoxville that the newly formed Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Auxiliary raised money to help house and feed them. Some of these peddlers decided to settle in Knoxville; a number opened small stores downtown around Vine Street.
Max ArnsteinAnother turning point in the Knoxville’s Jewish history took place in 1888, when Max Arnstein decided to stop in Knoxville, rather than continuing on to Birmingham, his planned destination. Arnstein had earlier owned a store in Anderson, South Carolina, and had heard of the tremendous economic opportunity that existed in Birmingham. On his way to Alabama, he stopped in Knoxville for the night. He liked the town and noticed several stores for rent. Casting his lot in East Tennessee, Arnstein opened a dry goods store called M.B. Arnstein & Company, which eventually grew into a hugely successful department store specializing in high end goods. In 1905, he built a seven-story building in downtown Knoxville to house his store and business. Arnstein became an important civic leader and philanthropist whose family supported both Knoxville and its small Jewish community.In the early 20th century, this Knoxville Jewish community was made up of a handful of often large families that were intermarried with each other. The Robinsons were one such family. Six brothers came from Russia before World War I, settling in Knoxville because they had an uncle already living there. One brother, S.H., opened a feed store, while the rest went into the junk business. Another brother, Frank Robinson, died in a horse and wagon accident while peddling in East Tennessee. They brought another brother, A.J., from Rhode Island to be the shochet (kosher slaughterer) for the growing Orthodox population. A.J. opened a small kosher butcher shop in downtown Knoxville. Max Robinson returned to Russia after World War I and brought their mother back to Knoxville.
With their growing population, Knoxvile Jews began to build religious institutions. In 1869, the Hebrew Benevolent Association held worship services once a month on Sundays in members’ homes and businesses. Julius Ochs was a leader of Knoxville’s Jewish congregation, often serving as lay reader. For a while, the group met at Jacob Spiro’s Cider and Vinegar Works Company, with worshippers sitting on vinegar barrels. This small group was Reform, using an organ and choir during services, and joined the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1875. In 1877, they changed their name to Beth El (House of God) and established a religious school that met in private homes. Despite its new name, the congregation did not have a house of its own, and continued to meet in rented and borrowed rooms. On the high holidays, Beth El would meet in large halls like the Masonic Temple, the Lyceum Building, and sometimes the First Presbyterian Church. Beth El was very small. It had only fifteen members in 1880, and couldn’t afford a full-time rabbi or synagogue. In 1888, they brought in their first student rabbi from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati; HUC students continued to serve Beth El over the next 34 years.
Heska Amuna's first templeNot all Knoxville Jews were happy with the Reform worship style of Beth El. In 1890, a group of these dissenters joined with newly arriving immigrants from Eastern Europe to establish a traditional synagogue, Heska Amuna (Strongholders of the Faith). While Heska Amuna started with only ten founding members, it soon grew larger than the older congregation, Beth El. They hired their first rabbi, A. Michaelof, soon after organizing. By 1894, they had acquired a house on the corner of Vine and Temperance Streets for use as a synagogue. The following year they hired Isaac Winick as their rabbi, who lived in the synagogue’s upstairs area with his family. Winick was also a mohel (ritual circumciser), and traveled throughout the region plying this trade. In 1921, the congregation bought a new building on West Fifth Avenue.
Beth El's first templeIn most other southern communities with two synagogues, the older, Reform congregation was usually larger and more established. This was not the case in Knoxville. By 1900, Heska Amuna had a synagogue and a full-time rabbi, while the 36-year old congregation Beth El had neither. In 1907, Heska Amuna had 75 members while Beth El only had 20. Finally, in 1914, after fifty years as a congregation, Beth El bought a former church for $5000 as its first synagogue. Max Arnstein was the largest donor in this fundraising campaign, which attracted several donations from local gentiles. Beth El’s new synagogue had sanctuary seating for 200 and six classrooms. In 1922, Beth El hired its first rabbi, Jerome Mark, who came to Knoxville from the congregation in Helena, Arkansas. Their new synagogue and rabbi helped to fuel a growth in Beth El’s membership. By 1945, it had 98 members.Rabbi Isaac Winick
While Heska Amuna was the stronger, more active congregation, it also experienced more internal dissension. In 1907, a group led by Rabbi Isaac Winick (left) broke away from Heska Amuna and formed a new congregation, Anshei Sholom (Men of Peace). The dispute seems to have been over the religious school. The thirty members of Anshei Sholom met for three years in a rented room on Vine Street, before rejoining Heska Amuna in 1910.
The congregation split again in 1929, this time over the issue of maintaining kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws. The congregation had been paying a local kosher butcher, A.J. Robinson, a monthly salary for his services, but decided to stop this practice. While still an Orthodox congregation, Heska Amuna had been adopting reforms, including mixed-gender seating. A group of sixty people upset about the firing of Robinson split from Heska Amuna and founded a new congregation called Beth Israel, which met, appropriately enough, above a kosher restaurant. Many of these dissidents belonged to the large Robinson, Green, or Slovis families. A.J. Robinson led services for the first few years before the congregation hired the young Orthodox rabbi Israel Levine, who instituted Hebrew classes for girls. Rabbi Levine stayed for five years, and was replaced by Morris Herzlich in 1937. The following year, Beth Israel disbanded and most of its members rejoined Heska Amuna.
Despite the turmoil within Heska Amuna, its relationship with Beth El was cordial. In the early 1900s, a Junior Jewish Social Club brought together the youth of both congregations. The tradition developed in which temple kids would walk down to Heska Amuna after Rosh Hashana services to visit their friends. This tradition continues through today. Ben Winick, who belonged to Heska Amuna, sought to preserve these social connections into adulthood, founding the Progressive Club, a Jewish social and literary society for both Reform and Orthodox Jews. Started in 1923, the Progressive Club helped lead to the creation of a Jewish community center six years later. In 1930, the two synagogues founded a joint Sunday school. Led by William Shaw, a professor at the University of Tennessee and an ardent Zionist, the school focused on Jewish history and culture. Students from Heska Amuna also attended a weekday Hebrew School. The joint Sunday school lasted for over twenty years, until Rabbi Solomon Foster of Beth El pulled out of the arrangement and reestablished the Reform congregation’s own Sunday school.

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