So far, it seems that Milwaukee’s and Madison’s organized Jewish communities are safe from the kind of damage that the national Jewish nonprofit world is suffering as a result of the securities fraud of Bernard Madoff.
“None of the assets of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and its endowment development program, the Jewish Community Foundation, were invested in any Madoff fund,” confirmed federation president Bruce A. Arbit and executive vice president Richard H. Meyer in a letter to the MJF board of directors.
The note, released on Tuesday, Dec. 16, continued: “We want to assure the community in the strongest terms that this alleged fraud will not in any way, affect MJF assets or funds placed in the foundation by other organizations in our community.”
Neither was the Helen Bader Foundation affected by the scandal, said HBF communications director Robert Tobon.
Steven H. Morrison, executive director of the Madison Jewish Community Council and Jewish Social Services of Madison, sent an e-mail message on Sunday to the Madison community, saying that neither the MJCC nor the JSS have direct or indirect exposure to the alleged fraud.
“MJCC and JSS invest their endowment funds professionally with the Chicago Jewish Federation Pooled Endowment Portfolio. The chief investment officer of the portfolio informed us on December 16 that they had absolutely no investments with Madoff Investment Securities,” he wrote.
Madoff, the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, was arrested Dec. 11 after admitting to his board that a hedge fund he ran was essentially a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
The alleged fraud is reverberating in the world of Jewish nonprofit organizations. At least two charitable foundations have been forced to close because they had invested their funds with Madoff.
The Robert I. Lappin Foundation in Salem, Mass., announced Dec. 12 that it would shut down after losing $8 million — all of its money. The Chais Family Foundation, which gives out some $12.5 million each year to Jewish causes in Israel, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, announced its closing Dec. 14.
At least one nonprofit is calling for help in the wake of Madoff’s collapse. The Gift of Life Foundation, a Jewish bone marrow registry that relied heavily on Madoff as a benefactor, announced on its Web site Sunday that it needs to raise $1.8 million to make up for recent losses.
Officials at Yeshiva University, where Madoff served as treasurer of the board of trustees and board chairman of the university’s Sy Syms School of Business until he resigned on Dec. 11, said the school has lost $110 million.
Jacob Berkman of JTA contributed to this story.
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