Dissatisfied after being overtaken by Illinois as the nation's go-to example of political malfeasance, state and local officials in New Jersey decided to work together and show that the Garden State really is the place to be for civic-minded individuals who recognize that taking an oath of office doesn't mean taking a vow of poverty. All that hard work paid off today,when the FBI charged 44 people, including the mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus, a state Assemblyman, a former Assembly Speaker, and a couple of rabbis-Yes! Rabbis!-with a variety of crimes including bribery, money laundering, extortion, and conspiracy.

"The arrests," reports the Star-Ledger, "are the result of a two-year FBI and IRS probe that began with an investigation of money transfers by members of the [Syrian Jewish community] enclaves in New York and New Jersey." What did they want, the bribe-givers? Well, mostly what everyone in New Jersey corruption cases wants: Fast-tracking of real estate development deals with no questions asked. Just another in a long series of bid-rigging investigations. Same old, really. But wait! There's more!

Weysan Dun, special agent in charge of the F.B.I.'s Newark office, said the rabbis arrested – including the grand rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in the United States, Saul Kassin – were part a vast money-laundering conspiracy with tentacles in Israel and Switzerland. Another person, Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, of Brooklyn, was accused of being a kidney salesman who enticed vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then sold the body parts for $160,000.