Haaretz is reporting this morning that Young Judaea in Israel to lay off staff in wake of financial crisis, Madoff scam. The highlights:

• Employees learned that a financial crisis is forcing Hadassah to cut $1 million from the YJ in Israel budget.
• Hadassah’s hospital system and college face even bigger budget slashes of $15 million and $6 million respectively
• It was also announced that over 20 employees would be let go. Members of the program’s administrative staff would be fired immediately, while educational staff would be lose their jobs at the end of the school year.
• Yesterday, instructors were informed by senior Year Course staff that the full-time faculty would be dismantled, and that starting this fall Year Course would rely on freelance teachers.

(eJP note): Despite the Year Course boasting a forty percent increase in early registration, between the staff reductions and the YJ youth hostel campus in Jerusalem for sale, it sounds like this historic and successful program is being decimated.

For more on Young Judaeas’s major cutbacks, be sure to also see our companion post, Young Judaea Makes Massive Funding Cuts.