Life

Who Lost What With Madoff, Courtesy of Nick Kristof’s College Housemate

By Gabrielle Birkner January 30, 2009

Foundations with monikers such as Eisenberg, Felder, Gottleib, Gottesman, Greenman and Kaufman are among those that may have lost big as a result of Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme.

That’s according to columnist Nicholas D. Kristof’s post Thursday on the New York Times Web site. He writes: “A few private foundations have owned up to the money they’ve lost with Mr. Madoff, but most haven’t.”

To “help out” those groups that haven’t yet admitted to their Madoff-related exposure, Kristof proceeds to link to a list of “nearly all the private foundations that invested money directly with Mr. Madoff, at least at the time of their most recent tax filings.” The list contains 147 charities, many of them with distinctly Jewish names.

The source of this list, Kristof writes, is Daniel E. Smith, a “data-obsessed former housemate of mine at university” — one can only imagine the intricacy of their chores wheel — “(then the research assistant for a young economist named Larry Summers). … Dan is now president of Benefit Technology, Inc., a Miami-based computer software company.”

According to JTA’s estimate, Jewish organizations on the list had more than $2.3 billion invested with Madoff.

These losses are likely to ripple through the philanthropic world — and, specifically, the Jewish philanthropic world — for years to come.

Kristof noted:

“Many non-profit organizations invested with Mr. Madoff and will suffer a double-whammy, losing not only their own savings but also the support of foundations that previously donated regularly but are now broke. And they will also lose some of their individual donors who were invested with Mr. Madoff as well.”

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