(May 7, 2010)

It is very crass and it probably will come back to be critical of me, but there is an expression that is sometimes very useful, 'Money is the universal lubricant.' It makes it easier to go on with one's life.
- Alvin K. Hellerstein

This bastard judicial system is so corrupt.
- 9/11 widow Ellen Mariani

He can't understand our loss. He sees the solution in a very cold and pragmatic way - in dollars and cents. He thinks everybody should take the money and go away.
- Mike Low, father of Sara, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, the Orthodox Jew who oversees all 9-11 related cases, is seldom discussed in the news.

While his name does appear occasionally in the press, for example when he sentenced a "terrorism financier" to prison in April, the secretive judge who handles all 9-11 tort litigation is virtually unknown to most Americans.

This is intentional, of course, because any discussion of the Bronx-born judge would reveal his Zionist roots and close relationship to the state of Israel, where his son Joseph Z.