Views

commentary
New Israel Fund’s War on Jewish Life
A

ccording to the 
Forward, the rationale 
for the New Israel 
Fund’
s (NIF) push to create an 
alternative philanthropic sys-
tem can be explained by what 
a Philadelphia 
psychologist 
named Roy 
Idelson con-
sidered to be 
a reasonable 
request. He 
wanted his local 
umbrella Jewish 
philanthropy — the Jewish 
Federation of Greater 
Philadelphia — to allow him 
to use its foundation to donate 
money to an entity of his 
choice, IfNotNow.
A number of federations 
and many others operate 
foundations that allow their 
supporters to create so-called 
“donor-advised” philanthrop-
ic funds to funnel money 
to nonprofit groups of the 
individual’
s choice. The 
arrangement is profitable for 
federations because they make 

money by fees earned by man-
aging the donor’
s money and 
hopefully increasing it by wise 
investment decisions.
But, to its credit, the 
Philadelphia federation 
refused Idelson’
s request.
The reason was that giv-
ing money to IfNotNow was 
contrary to the interests of 
the community. IfNotNow 
is not just critical of Israeli 
policies but avowedly neutral 
about Zionism. In practice, its 
efforts are indistinguishable 
from overtly anti-Zionist and 
often anti-Semitic groups. 
It also seeks to sabotage the 
work of organizations such as 
Birthright Israel that provide 
free trips to the Jewish state 
for young people.
Idelson was outraged and 
now thinks that Philadelphia’
s 
federation — and others that 
share its policies — aren’
t 
operating a big enough tent. 
That’
s why he’
s supporting the 
New Israel Fund’
s new project. 
The NIF is seeking to create 
an alternative to federations by 

allowing donors to give money 
to exactly the kind of groups 
that mainstream philanthro-
pies want no part of.
The NIF’
s Progressive 
Jewish Fund, which was 
launched late last month, will 
do just that. That’
s good news 
for groups like IfNotNow, 
which hope to reap more 
donations, in addition to the 
New Israel Fund, which will 
profit from such gifts.
This is nothing less than 
an attempt by the Jewish left 
to topple the basis on which 
Jewish philanthropy in this 
country exists. By taking 
money away from the fed-
eration’
s charitable funds in 
this manner, it will drastically 
reduce already-diminishing 
resources in an era of shrink-
ing Jewish demographics and 
donations. What’
s worse, its 
purpose is to better direct 
Jewish money to priorities that 
are currently being neglected, 
as it’
s an effort to destroy the 
links between American Jews 
and Israel.

The New Israel Fund has 
always been controversial. 
Founded in 1979, its purpose 
was to provide a vehicle for 
donating to nonprofits that 
advanced a liberal agenda 
inside Israel. Many of its recip-
ients were connected to causes 
that promote the rights of 
women or civil liberties. But 
others of their beneficiaries 
were inherently political, such 
as B’
Tselem and Breaking the 
Silence — both groups that 
seek not merely to criticize, 
but to impede the efforts of 
Israeli security services to 
defend the nation against ter-
rorism. Still other recipients in 
the Arab sector, like Adalah, 
falsely smeared Israel as an 
“apartheid state” that commit-
ted war crimes or supported 
the BDS movement.
While the NIF can be crit-
icized for its choices, up until 
now it didn’
t necessarily seek 
to punish federations whose 
agendas were both Zionist and 
aimed at building the Jewish 
community.

Jonathan S. 
Tobin

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