Jeff Ingber
Author of Resurrecting the Street: Overcoming the Greatest Operational Crisis in History
About the Author
Works by Jeff Ingber
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Short biography
- Jeff Ingber is a Managing Director in the Independent Risk function of Citi. Prior to joining Citi in October 2006, he was Managing Director of the Regulatory and Compliance function and BSA/AML Officer for The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. Jeff worked at DTCC and its predecessors for 18 years, during which he served in various positions, including as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation. Jeff is a former officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and also was a judicial clerk with the Superior Court of New Jersey. Jeff received an undergraduate degree in economics from Queens College, and a law degree from the New York University School of Law. Jeff has a Series 14 qualification. He is a former director of the Capital Markets Credit Analysts Society.
Members
Reviews
Incredible. This is one of those books that just needs a one word review. Incredible.
However....i just can't leave it there. This is also a book where the reader feels honored to have been welcomed with open arms into the personal lives of Bela's large family. Uniquely written with family letters included, during the historic horrid era of WW2, Jeff Ingber ( Bela's son ) has done honor to his relatives with this book.
Yes, there are many WW2 / holocaust memoirs, and there SHOULD be, BELA'S LETTERS takes the cake.
( family tree and photos are an added bonus )
" Survivors struggled to balance the remembrance of love against the hole that love's absence created."… (more)
However....i just can't leave it there. This is also a book where the reader feels honored to have been welcomed with open arms into the personal lives of Bela's large family. Uniquely written with family letters included, during the historic horrid era of WW2, Jeff Ingber ( Bela's son ) has done honor to his relatives with this book.
Yes, there are many WW2 / holocaust memoirs, and there SHOULD be, BELA'S LETTERS takes the cake.
( family tree and photos are an added bonus )
" Survivors struggled to balance the remembrance of love against the hole that love's absence created."… (more)
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.As a layperson, I found this book interesting, but difficult to fully grasp. I felt like the book was trying to be written for the average consumer, but ended up going over the heads of many. A potentially great book that was just okay.
First let me tell you why I decided to review this book. When I first got the email asking if I wanted to review this book I thought “No. I’m not an investor, I get my tax return and put it in my savings. I don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond. Is there a difference between a stock and a bond?” Interestingly, these are the reasons I decided to read the book. I thought this could be the ultimate test, if someone who thinks it was a great accomplishment to find the ‘lost’ penny in her checking account could understand it, that would be worth writing about.
Now that I have finished reading this book, I still don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond, or if there even is one, but the purpose of this book is not to teach that, its to show us how a horrific act of terrorism by some evil people almost brought about the collapse of the United States financial system.
Through interviews with people that were there he relates the physical events of 9/11, the reactions of people in the towers, how the entire staff of Cantor Fitzgerald (their offices were on floors 101, 103, 104, and 105 of the North Tower, just below the Windows on the World restaurant) died, more than any other organization that day. The thoughts of the people evacuating the building passing the firemen were walking up, who had no idea what they were walking into and didn’t make it back out. How the hospitals cleared their emergency rooms and waited for injured people that never came.
The main focus of this book is the effect that the sudden lose of manpower, telecommunications and records from just that mornings business effected the U.S. Financial markets. Included in these are the U.S. Government securities market, the American Stock Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the New York Mercantile Exchange. At the time no one even knew how much damage had been done.
Mr. Ingber takes us step by step through the events of the day, why so much information was lost and the efforts that needed to be made to recover it, or in some cases recreate it. A lot of the reconciling had to be done by hand, by exhausted people who had recently suffered a great trauma. Yet they did it. Brokerages that were rivals (remember this is a business that could be described as cut-throat) helped each other. “You would have done the same thing for us. It’s the right thing to do.” He then takes us through the reopening of the markets and problems involved in that. He talks about the recovery and the changes made to prevent another crisis like this and how these events affected some of the people involved on a personal level. An interesting fact is that “of the 1,134 companies displaced by the Trade Center attacks, only a little more than 25 percent returned to lower Manhattan.” Many of these were in the financial sector.
While there was a lot I didn’t understand, Chapter 5 How the Modern Govie Market Developed, was a waste of time for me to read it. Not that anyone should skip it because I didn’t understand it, it may help others understand the full extent of the crisis. I don’t think it made much of difference in my case. I felt this is a very well written book, the narrative flows and you really get a feel for the events. Even though there are many expressions that may not be familiar to all readers, Mr. Ingber does his best to explain these, in some cases he has provided illustrations.
I would recommend this book to people interested in reading about 9/11, this history of Wall Street and the City of New York.… (more)
Now that I have finished reading this book, I still don’t know the difference between a stock and a bond, or if there even is one, but the purpose of this book is not to teach that, its to show us how a horrific act of terrorism by some evil people almost brought about the collapse of the United States financial system.
Through interviews with people that were there he relates the physical events of 9/11, the reactions of people in the towers, how the entire staff of Cantor Fitzgerald (their offices were on floors 101, 103, 104, and 105 of the North Tower, just below the Windows on the World restaurant) died, more than any other organization that day. The thoughts of the people evacuating the building passing the firemen were walking up, who had no idea what they were walking into and didn’t make it back out. How the hospitals cleared their emergency rooms and waited for injured people that never came.
“Our people ran out of the Trade Center without a pencil. No trade records. No tickets. The business that we did in the North Tower we backed up in the South Tower, and vice versa. We didn’t know where to go the next morning. Or even if there was a firm left.” — Ron Purpora, senior executive of Garban Securities LLC
The main focus of this book is the effect that the sudden lose of manpower, telecommunications and records from just that mornings business effected the U.S. Financial markets. Included in these are the U.S. Government securities market, the American Stock Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the New York Mercantile Exchange. At the time no one even knew how much damage had been done.
Mr. Ingber takes us step by step through the events of the day, why so much information was lost and the efforts that needed to be made to recover it, or in some cases recreate it. A lot of the reconciling had to be done by hand, by exhausted people who had recently suffered a great trauma. Yet they did it. Brokerages that were rivals (remember this is a business that could be described as cut-throat) helped each other. “You would have done the same thing for us. It’s the right thing to do.” He then takes us through the reopening of the markets and problems involved in that. He talks about the recovery and the changes made to prevent another crisis like this and how these events affected some of the people involved on a personal level. An interesting fact is that “of the 1,134 companies displaced by the Trade Center attacks, only a little more than 25 percent returned to lower Manhattan.” Many of these were in the financial sector.
While there was a lot I didn’t understand, Chapter 5 How the Modern Govie Market Developed, was a waste of time for me to read it. Not that anyone should skip it because I didn’t understand it, it may help others understand the full extent of the crisis. I don’t think it made much of difference in my case. I felt this is a very well written book, the narrative flows and you really get a feel for the events. Even though there are many expressions that may not be familiar to all readers, Mr. Ingber does his best to explain these, in some cases he has provided illustrations.
I would recommend this book to people interested in reading about 9/11, this history of Wall Street and the City of New York.… (more)
Awards
Statistics
- Works
- 4
- Members
- 37
- Popularity
- #390,572
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 15
- ISBNs
- 4
Béla’s Letters, by Jeff Ingber, is a hauntingly beautiful tour through history, leading us through the lives of one family via the precious artifact of letters, one of the historian’s best friends. They are stitched together with narrative from Béla’s point of view, the author's conjecture for it was written after Béla’s passing. This was a very personal book for the author, for it is his gift honouring family. He is the son of Béla Ingber.
Spanning eight decades, we follow Béla through seemingly carefree times as an youth, through the terrible killing time that was the Holocaust, through the aftermath and an arrival to America, where his fledgling family can finally put down roots again. Decades drift by, separating him from those terrible times. Children turn adult, granting grandchildren in turn. Siblings and close friends succumb to the inevitable march of time.
There is nostalgia for a childhood long gone, for the past of one’s youngest years almost always seems a better time than the present, ne? There is profound sadness and unmitigated fear at the horror of one of humanity's darkest moments, when an entire people felt the twinned weights of hatred and abandonment descend upon them. A time of slaughter, claiming millions of lives. There is hope in the aftermath, and worry as well, as shattered lives and broken families begin the long, slow mending process. Scattered throughout the book are pictures of Béla and other family and friends.
That's so hard for me to comprehend, the sheer numbers involved. I was reminded of my visits to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, of the pictures magnified to cover entire walls, making truth hard to deny, of the near suffocating weight of fear and sadness still clinging to recovered artifacts, filling the rooms that held them- piles of shoes, piles of clothes, a railcar, most horrific of all, a clear pillar filled with expended zyklon-B cannisters.
Books like Béla's Letters, like The Diary of Anne Frank, Schindler's List, Irena’s Children, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, they call to us to never forget. They honour the past with remembrance. They are our collective Othala, the bitter part of our inheritance, the inheritance of us all,, for the children of those who suffered, those who fought, those who stood by, those who actively took part. None of us must ever forget.
I have seen reviews of this book other places that criticise the length, saying it should be cut down. At 500 plus pages, it is a long novel. However, I strongly disagree that it is too long, for a book following decades of a person’s life, and they were hardly decades that were boring. To understand a person, and this was as much biography as anything else, you must understand where they came from, and the major moments that defined their life. I was never once concerned with 'how long it was’. No, I found it to be a deeply engrossing read that flowed quick and easy.
🎻🎻🎻🎻🎻 Highly recommended. Perfect for those who enjoy historical fiction, especially regarding World War II. I am loathe to say '’if you like books about the Holocaust’, because frankly I would think something quite wrong with you if you liked them. However, to say 'if books about the Holocaust fascinate you’ makes more sense. If that's the case, this book is sure to call to you.… (more)