Israel's Consul in New York, Asi Shariv, cited on Tuesday a couple of examples of the impact of the current global financial crisis on the expected donations to charitable foundations in Israel. Without naming names, Shariv said, "One man told about leaving $40 million in his will to institutions in Israel, but that the money is gone now…

"A man who had $150 million in Lehman Bros. now will receive only 7 cents on each of those dollars…

"It's true that among those people usually it wasn't all of their money, but a person who loses $100 million feels very poor. It doesn't matter how much he has left."