Time: Kosher Investments

Time Magazine writes about religion and investing: Which Religion Picks the Best Stocks?. The excerpt regarding investments and Judaism reads:

Morningstar's Kathman has never heard of a religious investment fund aimed at Jews. Religious Jews are not, however, exempted from observing biblically-derived market etiquette. Aaron Levine, head of the economics department at New York's Yeshiva University, says that significant direct investment in a tobacco company "would be considered an encouragement of wrongdoing on a grand scale." Yet, he believes, investing in a mutual fund with a small stake in tobacco might be acceptable. The same, however, does not apply to a weapons company: "Regarding direct danger to life, there are no small percentages," he says. Levine also notes that Jews are encouraged to involve themselves in enterprises that (in rabbinic language) "produce the good settlement of the earth."

Judaism then is clear. Significant direct investing in cigarettes is definitely wrong!