Madoff Scam Soaks Jewish Charities

Rich investors and hedge funds aren’t the only ones losing their shirts in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Madoff was a giant in the small world of Jewish philanthropy, running millions for a variety of charitable organizations, the Washington Post reports. Deborah Coltin, for example, woke up yesterday to discover that the $8 million family foundation she’d run for a decade—and which had invested its endowment with Madoff—had just gone poof.

Madoff’s own $19 million foundation also was wiped out, while a Long Island Jewish Health program lost $5 million, and a Texas-based foundation that gave to Jewish causes lost $6 million. “I laid off five people today,” said a shell-shocked Coltin, whose group dispensed about $1.5 million a year to Massachusetts Jewish groups. “Our foundation was the lifeblood of this community. It’s just very, very sad.” (More Bernard Madoff stories.)