Chabad Yeshiva in Mass. Needs $472K To Survive
A Chabad-affiliated yeshiva in Worcester, Mass., has launched a last-ditch effort to prevent its imminent closure.
The Yeshiva Academy is hoping to raise $472,000 in donations before Friday, when the building in which it is housed will be auctioned off by the Internal Revenue Service. By Wednesday afternoon, the academy had raised $35,564 in online donations.
“We have received calls from alumni and supporters from all over the world asking how they can help,” said Moshe Fogelman, the school director. “These are people who recognize the yeshiva’s contributions to their own lives and the lives of countless others over the past 70 years, and they want this tradition to continue.”
The academy owes at least $435,235 in federal taxes dating back to 2004, according to the IRS and the Worcester County Registry of Deeds. Fogelman said the Jewish institututions’ financial standing went from bad to worse following the 2008 market crash, when donations dried up.
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. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
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 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.

