By Sharon Wisch-Ray
The Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas (JFGD) and the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation (DJCF) have no investments with any Madoff companies. The Dallas Jewish community’s central institutions were unaffected by the scandal because “the Foundation does not invest in hedge funds,” emphasized David Agronin, DJCF executive director and chief executive officer.
Federation CEO and President Gary Weinstein wrote in his weekly e-newsletter last week:
“I know everyone has been glued to the news reports regarding the Madoff Ponzi scam and the loss of some reported $50 billion. One of the tragedies here is that many of those in the organized Jewish community have lost millions. I want to assure all of you that none of the Federation’s investments are with any of the Madoff companies. We monitor and earnestly review our investment vehicles and can promise that we will continue to do our due diligence to the utmost degree.
Our own Dallas Jewish Community Foundation (DJCF) invests primarily through Barclays Global Investors. BGI has a track record of more than 30 years and is the world’s leading asset manager (June 2007). BGI’s investment strategies span a wide spectrum of risk/return exposures, ranging from broad-capitalization index funds to narrowly targeted active funds. They cover every major securities market in the world, with over 2,800 funds benchmarked across more than 250 indexes. DJCF offers seven different asset allocation models, based solely or substantially upon BGI investment choices, none of which contains any investments in hedge funds or in any of the failed investments that have just made headlines in recent days. To read the United Jewish Communities briefing on the Madoff case, click here. To contact the Dallas Jewish Community Foundation directly, please click here.”
“Our hearts go out to all those investors whose trust was shattered and lives uprooted. Some of our national Jewish communal institutions were particularly hit hard and this will impact the thousands of Jews and non-Jews that depended on their programs and services. Additionally, as far as we can determine non of our own Dallas institutions were impacted,” Weinstein added.
