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When rabbis and politicians were included among the FBI's 44 arrests July 23, Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun said that, "This case is not about politics. It is certainly not about religion." Good luck convincing anti-Semites of that premise, experts say.

Just a few weeks after Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for his massive Ponzi scheme, the Jewish community has a multitude of new lightning rods on its hands in the form of five rabbis from the Syrian communities of Deal and Brooklyn, an organ trafficker, and others connected with last week's corruption busts.

While the accused individuals are innocent until proven guilty, the immediate fallout of the arrests was the chilul Hashem, or public shaming of God's name and Jewish teachings, resulting from the sight of Jews wearing yarmulkes being hauled off to jail, said Dr. Alex Grobman, president of the Institute for Contemporary Jewish Life.

Grobman recalled that instead of talking politics, his cab drivers during a visit to Washington, D.C., last month brought up Madoff when they saw his yarmulke. He anticipates similar cab rides in the near future.

"The stereotype of the Jew is coming to real life in front of your eye," Grobman said.

Right as newspapers broke the story online, comments on their Web sites came flooding in that were sarcastic or profane, many of which were removed due to graphic nature, regarding Jewish involvement in the crimes.

Comments on the Asbury Park Press Web site targeted the heavily Orthodox Jewish community of Lakewood, stating "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease investigate Lakewood....I'm 100% sure you'll find a ton of corruption there" and "The rabbis run the town only for their personal gain."

On the Newark Star-Ledger's site, one commenter wrote "Look at these fake [expletive] rabbis, they are gonna burn in hell for trying to sell that kidney...SCUMBAGS (sic)." One post alleged that the paper didn't post photos of rabbis with its initial story for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism; one joked "Well, they will have no problem making minyon (sic) while they're being held"; and another lamented that "My tax money will be providing those Hassidic [expletives] a kosher prison, where they can hold private bar Mitzvah (sic) parties for their kids like they have in Brooklyn."

"If you read the blogs you will see that anti-Semites are coming out of the woodwork," said Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg of Congregation Beth-El in Edison, who teaches speech and communication at Yeshiva University and has written extensively on the Holocaust.

Rosenberg said that the international nature of the corruption, ranging from Israel to Switzerland to New York and New Jersey, gives ammunition to anti-Semites who believe in conspiracy theories such as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a literary forgery that alleges a plot among Jewish leaders to achieve world domination.

The fact that rabbis were accused of corruption gives this case one shock factor that wasn't present in the Madoff saga, said Etzion Neuer, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League's New Jersey Region.

"The visual images in this case are particularly compelling," Neuer said. "When religious figures are accused of criminal behavior, one can expect greater media attention and a greater outcry."

The organ-trafficking component of the crimes is also compelling fodder for anti-Semites, Rosenberg said, because it is the type of gruesome activity people wouldn't normally expect from religious Jews.

Rosenberg added Syrian real estate developer Solomon Dwek's willingness to reduce his own punishment by setting up his fellow Jews in the FBI investigation will conjure up images of capos during the Holocaust, Jews who tried to ensure their survival in concentration camps by taking Nazi orders to terrorize their fellow prisoners.

"When you are looking for ammunition to hate someone, that just adds to it," Rosenberg said.

Neuer, however, said that anti-Semites are often more simplistic in their hatred.

"When you break it down, the anti-Semitism is not very sophisticated," he said. "Anti-Semites usually don't let the facts get in the way of their feelings."

New Jersey led the country with 238 anti-Semitic incidents in 2008, according to the ADL's annual audit, and Monmouth County, home of Deal's Syrian community, led New Jersey with 43 of those incidents.

The ADL will remain in close contact with law enforcement officials in Monmouth County and other regions in the wake of the corruption arrests, but "most of the concern about anti-Semitism [from the scandal] seems to be more about ill will and not about physical harm," Neuer said.

The Jewish Federation of Monmouth County will respond to anything they perceive as biased coverage scandal by writing letters to the editor, executive director Howard Gases said.