Since losing $18 million in cash investments—worth $25.5 million on paper at the end of October—the Jewish Community Foundation has emphasized that it is “aggressively pursuing every possible recovery and remedy.” Tomorrow it will make that effort more official when it announces the creation of a special committee charged by the board with recovering the money the foundation invested with Bernard Madoff on behalf of the participants in its common-investment pool. Members of the committee will include foundation Chair Cathy Siegel Weiss and Chair-elect Lorin Fife, as well as a yet-unidentified senior member of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.
“Even as we remain shocked and appalled by the alleged fraud perpetrated not only on us but hundreds of other victims, The Foundation is moving swiftly and decisively to undertake the level of self-examination and review that is expected of us as stewards of Jewish Los Angeles’ charitable assets for 54 years. We take our role in the community very seriously,” Marvin Schotland, president and chief executive, said in a statement.
Schotland stressed again that losses were limited to the common-investment pool and didn’t affect the donor-advised funds: “We remain highly stable—a hallmark of this foundation.”
Good luck to the special committee. From what I’ve read and heard, it’s going to be a rough road.
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