This is Modern Orthodoxy's financial Baruch Lanner scandal. And it seems clear…
…Modern Orthodoxy has learned little in the years after Lanner's arrest and conviction.
The New York Post reports:
A DEMAND TO BOUNCE BOARD
By JAMES COVERT
New York Post
An activist Wall Street investor is calling for the ouster of the board of Yeshiva University, following the school's endowment's devastation by the alleged Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Andrew Sole of Esopus Creek Advisors - the hedge fund that led a shareholder revolt last year against off-price retailer Syms when the chain's management voluntarily delisted its shares - demanded in a letter this week the immediate resignation of Yeshiva's entire board of trustees.
Yeshiva President Richard Joel admitted this week that the university's endowment has plunged to $1.2 billion from as high as $1.8 billion as the Madoff scandal has unfolded. Yeshiva had made financial bets with Ascot Partners, the collapsed hedge fund run by Ezra Merkin, the embattled GMAC chairman with close ties to Madoff.
Both Madoff and Merkin had served on Yeshiva's board, and both have resigned those positions.
"Yeshiva has the opportunity to begin the healing process today by installing new fiduciaries that are untainted by scandal and embarrassment," Sole, a member of the Class of 1999 at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law, wrote to Joel in a Monday letter obtained by The Post.
Josh Joseph, the Yeshiva president's chief of staff, responded to Sole in an e-mail Tuesday that "an excellent team of lawyers, accountants and financial experts are studying the situation to make sure all board governance and conflict issues are considered."
Sole called the university's response "scripted" and "beyond offensive," and accused Yeshiva of making an "ostrich defense" by ignoring the crisis.
[Hat Tip: Jason.]