Former Hadassah Exec Says She Had an Affair With Madoff
A former chief financial officer at Hadassah is claiming that she had an affair with Bernard Madoff.
Sheryl Weinstein reportedly makes the claim in her book “Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me,” which is set to be published Aug. 25 by St. Martin’s Press.
Weinstein, an accountant, has said previously that she lost her family’s savings by investing with Madoff and claimed to have first met the confessed swindler when working at Hadassah. The Jewish women’s organization has said that it invested $40 million with Madoff from 1988 to 1997.
By the time federal authorities exposed the Ponzi scheme last year, Hadassah believed the value of the portfolio had grown to $90 million, not including $130 million that it had pulled out over the years.
Both Weinstein and Hadassah have said that the first $7 million the organization invested with Madoff in 1988 came from a donor who insisted the money be handled that way. Hadassah invested another $33 million with Madoff by 1996, the year before Weinstein left the organization.
Hadassah continued to maintain a portfolio with Madoff after Weinstein’s departure, but never put additional money into the account, according to the organization.
Weinstein served on the Hadassah committee that decided to invest with Madoff, but a spokesperson for the organization said she was one of many members on the committee.
According to the spokesperson, the organization did not know of the alleged affair during Weinstein’s tenure at the organization, and her departure was unrelated to Madoff.
Hadassah is “moving on” from Madoff, the spokesperson said, noting that the organization recently received a $1 million gift and is close to securing two more.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
