The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles (JFGLA) and the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles (JCFLA) were on a growing list of victims emerging in the wake of Madoff debacle, it was reported on Tuesday.
"Wall Street financier Bernard L. Madoff's alleged 50-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme appears to have extended deeply into Southern California's Jewish community, with millions of dollars in losses tallied Monday by charitable organizations, Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and a foundation bankrolled by director Steven Spielberg," the Los Angeles Times said.
The JFGLA said it lost 6.4 million dollars, about 11 percent of its endowment as a result of Madoff's alleged fraud, according to the paper.
The Chais Family Foundation, dedicated to Jewish causes in the region, have shut down after losing money invested with Madoff, said the paper.
Madoff, who ran a years-long Ponzi scheme, was arrested last week on suspicion of masterminding a fraud in which early investors are paid artificially high returns using money put up by later investors.
So far, more than 30 organizations and individuals around the world have been identified as victims of the alleged deception.
But the disclosures by Jewish organizations in California "suggest a so-called affinity scam, in which members of a perpetrator's ethnic or religious group are targeted," the paper noted.
The losses at the charitable organizations came to light as they began notifying their boards of directors, donors and recipients, the paper said.
"In a word, it's a catastrophe -- by far the biggest Jewish story of the year," Rob Eshman, editor in chief of the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal, was quoted as saying.
Source:Xinhua
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