January 2, 2013

NEW YORK (JTA) — A Chabad-affiliated yeshiva in Worcester, Mass., has launched a last-ditch effort to prevent its imminent closure.

The Yeshiva Academy is hoping to raise $472,000 in donations before Friday, when the building in which it is housed will be auctioned off by the Internal Revenue Service. By Wednesday afternoon, the academy had raised $35,564 in online donations.

“We have received calls from alumni and supporters from all over the world asking how they can help,” said Moshe Fogelman, the school director. “These are people who recognize the yeshiva’s contributions to their own lives and the lives of countless others over the past 70 years, and they want this tradition to continue.”

The academy owes at least $435,235 in federal taxes dating back to 2004, according to the IRS and the Worcester County Registry of Deeds. Fogelman said the Jewish institututions’ financial standing went from bad to worse following the 2008 market crash, when donations dried up.

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