The Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation is a Jewish non-profit organization that operates programs for Jewish youth. The Foundation's largest program is the "Youth to Israel" program, which offers Jewish youth a free trip to Israel. Over 1,800 Jewish teenagers have been supported by the foundation in their visit to Israel. The program started in 1971. It also supports enrichment programs for Jewish educators, and interfaith outreach initiatives. In 2007, the foundation gave about $1.5 million to Jewish groups.

History

The foundation was founded in 1993 by Robert Israel “Bob” Lappin (1922–2020), a retired vacuum cleaner and real estate magnate and native of

Swampscott, Massachusetts Swampscott () is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located up the coast from Boston in an area known as the North Shore. The population was 15,111 as of the 2020 United States Census. A former summer resort on Massachusetts Ba ...

. On December 12, 2008, the Lappin Foundation was forced to close due to the arrest of

Bernard L. Madoff Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDAQ s ...

for securities fraud, and the subsequent freeze of assets that Madoff managed, which included the majority of the Lappin Foundation's assets. The group has been noted by many as one of the most severely affected clients of Madoff's firm. Additionally, the foundation had invested its employees'

401(k) In the United States, a 401(k) plan is an employer-sponsored, defined-contribution, personal pension (savings) account, as defined in subsection 401(k) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Periodical employee contributions come directly out of their ...

fund with Madoff, all of which was presumed lost. Lappin subsequently donated replacement funding to make the 401(k) whole. The Foundation's employees worked on a volunteer basis to raise funds to ensure Jewish Youth to Israel could continue in 2009. Due to donations by Lappin and others, the foundation reopened. Robert I. Lappin died at the age of 98 on April 3, 2020.

References

Jewish organizations based in the United States

External links

Lappin Foundation , Enhancing Jewish Identity across Generations
Lappin Foundation website {{Nonprofit-org-stub