Billion-Dollar Foundation To Shutter Amid Madoff Woes
A billion-dollar foundation that gave to a wide array of Jewish causes is the latest charitable organization to announce that it is closing in the wake of Bernard Madoff’s financial collapse.
The 19-year-old, Palm Beach, Fla.-based Picower Foundation, which distributed more than $23 million in 2007 — including gifts to about two dozen Jewish organizations — announced Friday that it will shutter, the New York Times and other news organizations are reporting.
According to its 2007 tax return, the foundation gave $225,000 to the Limmud NY conference of Jewish learning; $185,000 to the Jewish Outreach Institute, which provides support services to interfaith families; $109,278 to the Foundation for Jewish Camping, and $100,000 to a program that aids children and families living in Sderot, Israel. Picower also made five-figure gifts to such organizations as the Jewish Coalition for Service, AVODAH, Hillel, Jewish Family & Life, the Jewish Television Network, and the JCC in Manhattan.
Medical research institutions, after-school programs, and human rights organizations also benefited from foundation grants. Picower assets are valued at nearly $1 billion.
Notably, one gift detailed on the 2007 tax return went to the Queens College Foundation — and Madoff’s wife Ruth is listed as a contact person for that donation.
Bernard Madoff, who stands accused of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, is currently under house arrest; his wife is under court order to hire round-the-clock security for him to prevent his “harm or flight”.
In Other Madoff News
• After the organization announced it lost $90 million in Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme, Hadassah’s National President Nancy Falchuk makes an online appeal for support.
•JTA is reporting that the American Society for Technion – Israel Institute of Technology lost $72 million to Madoff.
•The Madoff scandal has unleashed a flood of antisemitic comments on the Internet, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
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. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
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.
