The Picower Foundation, based in Palm Beach, Fla., is the largest yet to close in the wake of the Bernard Madoff scandal.
Started by Barbara Picower and her husband, investor Jeffry Picower, the foundation — which in 2002 gave $50 million to start a brain research center — had almost all of its assets invested with Madoff, according to the New York Times.
The foundation, which is listed as the 71st largest in the nation by the Council on Foundations, had 552,046,532 in charitable assets in 2007, according to its latest 990 tax filing.
Picower also lost money, but recovered much of it, in the securities fraud of Ivan Boesky.
In 2007, the foundation gave away almost $2.5 million to Jewish and Jewish-realted charities.
These are the gifts from that year, according to the foundation’s 990 tax form:
- American Friends of Herzog Hospital to help children living under fire in Sderot ($100,000)
- Foundation for Jewish Camp ($109,278)
- Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundatoin ($1,500)
- Jewish Family and Life ($33,333)
- Jewish Outreach Institute ($185,000)
- UJA –Federation of New York ($56,250)
- American Jewish World Service ($75,000)
- Jewish Television Network ($50,000)
- Limmud New York ($225,000)
- Moving Traditions ($75,000)
- Hillel ($50,000)
- Interfaith Family.com ($25,000)
- Jewish Coalition for Service ($40,000)
- Avodah ($75,000)
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Brooklin, Mass. for diabetes research $50,000
- Jewish Community Center in Manhattan $10,000
- Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews $5,000
- South Florida Chapter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation $5,000
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum $10,000
- American Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art $5,000
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Diabetes Research $500,000
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