By Jonathon Braden
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
It might be his best deal yet.
Warren Buffett got a bottle of Scotch, a loaf of traditional Jewish bread, a bag of Cheetos and the rights to the food in three large drums and a box.
All for free.
For thousands of years, Jewish people have sold their leavened goods — anything containing grain that rises when baked — to non-Jewish friends before the eight-day observance of Passover begins. Any unsold leavened products are donated to charity.
Jewish law forbids eating or having leavened goods during Passover, which celebrates the Exodus of the ancient Israelites from Egypt after being freed from slavery.
Rabbi Jonathan Gross of the Beth Israel Synagogue in west Omaha had an idea. He would ask Omaha investor Buffett — an 81-year-old agnostic and the third-richest man in the world — to take part in the “Sale of Chametz.”
Gross typed up a letter.
He included a little background on how the sale would work: Buffett would buy the goods, Gross would buy them back later.
“Price is low before Passover. Price is high afterward,” Gross said. “It’s a great short-term investment. So who would really appreciate this better than Warren Buffett?”
Gross also included the name of his friend Rabbi Myer Kripke, for whom the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion & Society at Creighton University is named. Kripke has been friends with Buffett for 50 years, since they were neighbors in Dundee.
A few days later, Gross got an email from Debbie Bosanek, Buffett’s longtime secretary, saying Buffett liked the idea.
“The beauty of being an agnostic is that you are in no position to make any judgment about anything,” Buffett said in an interview. “You can join in on anything.”
Read the rest here.
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