Adelaide school buckles under debt
MASSADA College, Adelaide’s Jewish day school, has gone into voluntary administration, owing more than $500,000 in debts.
MASSADA College, Adelaide’s Jewish day school, has gone into voluntary administration, owing more than $500,000 in debts.
The 35-year-old school, with an enrolment of around 20 students, has been struggling financially for some years.
Acting as administrator, accounting firm Korda Mentha will try to restructure the school’s debts, amid hopes that a new lifeline can be thrown to Massada from within the Melbourne or Sydney Jewish communities.
Fiscal woes were kept at bay by a $100,000 rescue package from Melbourne mining magnate Joseph Gutnick late in 2009, but debt burdens have come back to haunt the school.
Gutnick told The AJN he is once again prepared to help.
He will be speaking to the administrator this week for an independent assessment of the school’s debt, including how much funding it is receiving from the South Australian Government.
Massada will remain operational for the time being, with classes scheduled to reopen next week for the 2011 South Australian academic year.
The school caters to students from reception (prep) to year 7, but families of around three quarters of pupils are subsidised.
Jewish Community Council of South Australia president Norman Schueler this week described Massada as essential to the wellbeing of Adelaide’s tiny Jewish community of around 1000.
“It has provided leaders both in business and community for Melbourne and Sydney and none of its product has stayed in Adelaide,” Schueler told The AJN.
He said the school could be maintained if its debt was restructured. “With an achievable amount of donations, it can run each year without incurring any debt,” Schueler said.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry executive director Peter Wertheim said the crisis would be discussed at the national Jewish roof body’s committee of management meeting, due to be held next Monday.
Massada president Yuval Yarom had not returned calls from The AJN at the time of going to press.
PETER KOHN
Caption: Massada College principal Kathy Cresswell. Photo Keryn Stevens, courtesy of Messenger Community News.
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