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December 18, 2008 | 1:49 pm

At least $600 million lost for Jewish charities

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo

Photo: GetReligion

I’m not sure how, but the Jerusalem Post ran the numbers on what Bernard Madoff is going to cost Jewish charities. It’s a monster: at least $600 million. And that was before Hadassah reported yesterday that they lost $90 million.

From the JPost:

At least $600 million in Jewish charitable funds have been wiped out by the collapse of Bernard Madoff’s Wall Street investment firm, a partial review by The Jerusalem Post revealed Monday.

Yet much is still hidden about what may amount to the most spectacular financial disaster to hit Jewish life since the Great Depression, with unconfirmed losses totaling up to $1.5 billion.

Furthermore, the Post’s figures do not include billions of dollars lost to individual and family investors, many of whom were the primary donors to Jewish schools, synagogues and communal charities.

Gary Tobin, head of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, had told me the Madoff mess would cost Jewish institutions hundreds of millions of dollars. But it’s hard to actually comprehend what that might mean and look like. I think we’ll start to get an idea as the fallout spreads over the next few weeks. The next domino I expect to see fall will be individuals who lost millions with Madoff and can no longer give to their favorite charity, let alone their least favorite.

On a loosely related note, The Jewish Journal has been getting a lot of attention for our extensive coverage of this story and the shockwaves it has sent through the Jewish community. Variety highlighted our new blog, Swindler’s List, saying it was probably the best place to stay current on Madoff. And Mollie at GetReligion, a friend of The God Blog, wrote in a post about Madoff:

“But if you find the religious angle to be an integral part of the story — and it is — you simply have to read the Jewish Journal. The staff there are all over the biggest Jewish story of the year.”

Much appreciated. You can also stay up on Madoff news by following me on Twitter.

9 Comments — Leave your comment

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As I preidicted, the rush to Jew hating was much too premature. Has anyone else noticed that the more money Madoff stole from Jewish charitable foundations, the more it disproves the point the Jew haters try to drive home about Jews being selfish and materialistic ? After all, over a billion dollars in charity says alot about Jews as a group. Don’t expect any mea culpas or apologies from the Jew haters.

Comment by Martini "Kike" Leaf on 12/18/08 at 5:24 pm

Good point. If T. Rowe Price went under the shockwaves would have rocked the yacht and cruise industries etc. One bit of trivia I picked up is that the entrance criteria for the Palm Beach Country Club is not the size of ones’s wallet but the size of one’s donations.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 12/21/08 at 1:14 am

Some of what I’ve read by financial analysts is that investors knew that there was something amiss, but wanted to get in on it. They either thought he was insider trading and that they could profit from it, or that he was screwing people, but it would be others and not them.

Trying to pin it all on the father with the claim that the sons or the rest of the organization were unaware defies belief. It is an attempt at misdirection meant to provide cover as other assets get moved around.

Also, it appears that many of the “charitable” organizations are geared to providing Israel with good PR (as with the trips to Israel org). It seems to me that Jewish interests are no different than any other religious organizations whereby they take credit for the good, and disassociate themselves from the bad.

Comment by LanceThruster on 12/22/08 at 3:37 pm

A little more about the nature of the “charities” here: [url=“http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/12/the-madoff-victims-they-richly-deserved-it/”]The Madoff Victims: Schadenfreude, Not Anti-Semitism
by Daniel McGowan / December 22nd, 2008[/url]

[excerpt]As the list of Madoff’s “victims” grows, their common characteristic is not philanthropy, but rather political Zionism. Virtually all have worked to build a Jewish state with little regard, and often downright hatred, for the non-Jewish population living there.[end]

Comment by LanceThruster on 12/22/08 at 5:02 pm

If what you say is true, I would have an increased opinion of Madoff’s associations if not his actions. However the stories I have read all involved such things as academic summer camps, progressive reform of the juvenile justice system etc. as with http://www.jehtfoundation.org/news/

I think your time at http://www.dissidentvoice.com would be better spent behind the garage with a Hustler magazine.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 12/22/08 at 5:34 pm

Why not both, Ben? Larry Flynt has been known to be a truth-teller as well.

So you are OK with Zionist propagandizing, but that they would be defrauded is the only problem?

Comment by LanceThruster on 12/22/08 at 6:57 pm

And though you dismiss http://www.dissidentvoice.com outright, the author is Daniel McGowan, Professor Emeritus at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, not some high muckety-muck at Stormfront. He can be reached at: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or you could try to rebut his assertions at the Dissident Voice comment section for his article. I doubt you would be banned for expressing a contrary view though I have been informed I may suffer that fate here as I have apparently not been deferential enough.

Comment by LanceThruster on 12/22/08 at 7:05 pm

Daniel McGowan the Holocaust denier?  No thanks.  Daniel McGowan the domestic terrorist?  No thanks.

Comment by The Web Guy on 12/22/08 at 7:15 pm

You have been hanging out with Jew haters for so long you haven’t noticed that you no longer qualify as a true leftist.

here  is an account on Dissident Voice of the defense of the repulsive Ernst Zundel by your McGowan. Theoretically all concerned should be ashamed, but it is out in the open now. Rebut that, Butthead.

Those of us with some relationship with the truth consider good PR for Israel to be a good thing. The fact that you call it propagandizing diminishes you and your viewpoint, not the honest case for Israel. Likewise with building a Jewish state. Hatred is not a primal component of positive Jewish Zionism or a good thing but it is sometimes a byproduct of the hated being hateful. That’s where your condemnation should go.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 12/23/08 at 12:01 am

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