Word: diamond
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...trading also involves flocks of individual entrepreneurs, who often make their main living by cutting stones for manufacturers. A typical diamond cutter last week sat in his office, high above 47th Street, and dealt with an elderly broker standing before him. The cutter examined a packet of raw stones with his loupe. He shook his head, wrapped the packet up and handed it back to the broker. The old man wearily placed it in his old leather pouch, held together with tape and rubber bands, and produced another packet. The two haggled for a moment in Yiddish and then...
...broker with a diamond to sell produces a small paper packet from a leather pouch. The method of folding the paper, white on the outside and pale blue on the inside, has been in use for generations, here and in Europe. For 25?, the diamonds are weighed on one of the room's electronic scales, and the result written on the packet. The seller has told the broker what price he wants, and the broker wanders the room soliciting bids. When he gets a good offer, he "seals" the packet, which pledges that he will talk to no more...
Casual dealings like these would seem to make the area ripe for robberies. It is hard to say how much is stolen per year-$1.1 million worth of diamonds was reported taken during the first 2½ months of 1979-because the dealers shy away from police. Says Lieut. Edward O'Connor, commander of the Manhattan robbery squad and a former detective in the diamond district: "It's a very clandestine business. Very few people will cooperate or tell you anything...
Justice is something the community prefers to handle itself. Disputes are arbitrated by a panel of the Diamond Dealers Club composed of three or more men whose logic has been sharpened by intense study of the Talmud, the volumes of Jewish law. The decisions of these scholars, who act like the Jewish religious courts that existed in Europe hundreds of years ago, are law to those in the diamond trade...
...what they refer to as the street's "new element." There has been an influx of younger, Middle Eastern Jews into the trade. Says one oldtime cutter: "They are aggressive, irresponsible, not steeped in tradition." Broker Pinchos Jaroslawicz, 25, made the mistake of trusting one of these new diamond workers, a young Israeli named Shlomo Tal. Jaroslawicz took along his pouch of diamonds one day in September 1977, when he went to call on Tal. The young Israeli and an accomplice were found guilty of murdering and robbing the broker and stuffing his body, wrapped in plastic, into...