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December 12, 2008 | 10:29 am

Madoff’s injurious ties to Yeshiva University and the Jewish community


The victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s massive Wall Street swindle – perhaps as much as $50 billion, will include many Jewish non-profits that have been large beneficiaries of Madoff’s contributions.

The epicenter of pain may well be Yeshiva University, where Madoff sat on the Board of Trustees and was chairman of the Sy Syms School of Business. (YU says he has resigned all postiions with the college.)

I contacted YU this morning to discuss the matter and received back this terse statement from Hedy Shulman, director of media relations:

“We are shocked at this revelation. Our lawyers and accounts [sic] are investigating all aspects of his relationship to the university. We reserve our comments until we complete our investigation.”


Madoff has also been a large supporter of Gift of Life, which matches bone marrow donors and has saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives.  Madoff and his wife Ruth, were honored for their support not long ago at a Gala dinner at the Grand Hyatt in New York attended by more than 700 guests.  Master of Ceremonies was Tony Award winning actor, Ron Rifkin.

If government allegations against Madoff are accurate, he may well turn out to be the biggest fraud in the history of Wall Street, which has had its share of big schemers.  Those looking to blame America’s economic crisis on the Jews – and yes there are some – will now have a poster boy for their crusade.

At the moment, there are so many important, unanswered questions.  Among them:  Did Madoff, who is also a major Democratic fundraiser, use ill-gotten gains to fuel his charitable giving?  Hard to image that he did not.

Will any of his victims be able to recover donated funds?  Sadly, it seems unlikely that most of those who trusted Madoff with their retirement savings and family estates will ever be made whole.  The hard question is should YU and other charities ‘refund’ Madoff’s donations?

How many of Madoff’s clients are Jewish is unclear, perhaps never to be known.  No doubt, however, many of his clients were also members of the tribe.

An early read of the financial press also suggests that some non-profits, including YU, may have invested part of their endowments directly or indirectly with Madoff’s firm.

The Jewish world has only just begun to sense the enormity of Madoff’s mischief.  The worst is still to come.

p.s.  Yeshiva University has already made a mess of its handling of this public relations crisis.  I will be writing about it in The Memo next week. Take a look at this blogger who has documented YU’s effort to sandblast Madoff off its websites. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Posted by Dean Rotbart in 5 Comments — Leave your comment

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Madoff is protecting is family who are potentially criminals too.  Our “tribe” has been betrade and one of our tribal chiefs is a fraud.  Time for the tribe to bring out the stones.

Comment by Skucount on 12/12/08 at 11:48 am

Who is surprised?  Jews are and have always disproportionately been white-collar criminals.

Comment by Ari on 12/12/08 at 2:44 pm

Well the Jewish Journal of L.A. wants us to believe Madoff never had a religion, was raised by wolves, and his Jewish connection is pure coincidence.  Sorry, not buyin’ it.  Oh when he gave all that money he was Super-Jew, now he’s from Mars.  How ‘bout FINALLY taking some responsibility and seeing how, what, where, why and what is wrong that your/our culture/religion which produced, nurtured, and applauded this man.  Looks like a simple answer so far: MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.  But shhh, don’t let the goyim know.  Guess what, THEY KNOW!  How ‘bout you folks gettin’ a clue and teaching and demanding some morals and decency, and stop looking at wealth and greed as the only measure of success. 
Also don’t worry about the non-Jews, many of them are just as bad and they’ll always blame the Jews.  Problem is this time the culprit is a Jew.  How do our leaders not see him for who is really is/was?  Answer: MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.  I don’t expect any real change until a lot more of these crooks are exposed.  So be it.

Comment by The Levite Line on 12/12/08 at 8:14 pm

Jews do not steal like this.  Clearly Madoff was a Muslim or Arab.  Only Muslims and Arabs commit crimes.

Comment by Tkv on 12/12/08 at 10:19 pm

So you got 100mil lets say and you want to invest with Madeoff with your Money, aka Bernie the Bastard. But your not happy with a pedestrian return of a Cd or bond. 4% on 100mil is 4mil. You only can get conned if your greedy? So I ask? Is it worth the extra 6.5% return that shithead was supposedly making for you? Sorry for the rhetoric. 4mil wasn’t enough of a return? Now look at you, you are *** on balls broke. That 4mil return is looking good now huh? There is a bridge in Brooklyn for sale anyone interested ?

Comment by TK on 12/12/08 at 10:22 pm

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