{"id":74509,"date":"2019-12-01T17:05:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T15:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=74509"},"modified":"2019-11-24T08:33:34","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T06:33:34","slug":"19-09-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=74509","title":{"rendered":"New Israel Fund\u2019s war on Jewish life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>New Israel Fund\u2019s war on Jewish life<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

JONATHAN S. TOBIN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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By creating a mechanism to fund anti-Zionist groups, it is attacking not just Israel, but also a federation system vital to maintaining Jewish institutions in America.<\/strong><\/p>\n

IfNotNow rally. Source: IfNotNow Facebook Page.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(November 4, 2019 \/ JNS)<\/span><\/strong> According to the Forward<\/em>, the rationale for the New Israel Fund\u2019s push<\/strong><\/span><\/a> to create an alternative philanthropic system can be explained by what a Philadelphia psychologist named Roy Idelson considered to be a reasonable request. He wanted his local umbrella Jewish philanthropy\u2014the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia\u2014to allow him to use its foundation to donate money to an entity of his choice, IfNotNow.<\/span><\/p>\n

A number of federations and many others operate foundations that allow their supporters to create so-called \u201cdonor-advised\u201d philanthropic funds to funnel money to nonprofit groups of the individual\u2019s choice. The arrangement is profitable for federations since they make money by fees earned by managing the donor\u2019s money and hopefully increasing it by wise investment decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, to its credit, the Philadelphia federation refused Idelson\u2019s request.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason was that giving money to IfNotNow was contrary to the interests of the community. IfNotNow is, contrary to the Forward\u2019s<\/em> description of its activities, 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 provides free trips to the Jewish state for young people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Idelson was outraged and now thinks that Philadelphia\u2019s federation\u2014and others that share its policies\u2014aren\u2019t operating a big enough tent. That\u2019s why he\u2019s supporting the New Israel Fund\u2019s 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 philanthropies want no part of.<\/span><\/p>\n

The NIF\u2019s Progressive Jewish Fund<\/a>, which was launched late last month, will do just that. That\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Idelson is free to give money to anyone, this is more than a spat within the alphabet that most of us don\u2019t know and couldn\u2019t care less about. It 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 federation\u2019s charitable funds in this manner, it will drastically reduce already diminishing resources in an era of shrinking Jewish demographics and donations. What\u2019s worse, its purpose is to better direct Jewish money to priorities that are currently being neglected, as it\u2019s an effort to destroy the links between American Jews and Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 recipients were connected to causes that promote the rights of women or civil liberties. But others of their beneficiaries were inherently political, such as B\u2019Tselem and Breaking the Silence\u2014both groups that seek not merely to criticize, but to impede the efforts of Israeli security services to defend the nation against terrorism. Still other recipients in the Arab sector, like Adalah, falsely smeared Israel as an \u201capartheid state\u201d that committed war crimes or supported the BDS movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the NIF can be criticized for its choices, up until now it didn\u2019t necessarily seek to punish federations whose agendas were both Zionist and aimed at building the Jewish community.<\/span><\/p>\n

With its decision to create an alternative, it\u2019s clear that their goal is far more ambitious than it has been in the past. The Progressive Jewish Fund could be the domino that sets off a chain reaction that will do even more damage to the Jewish world than IfNotNow\u2019s antics.<\/span><\/p>\n

The worst thing federations could do in response to the NIF\u2019s efforts would be to seek to compete with them by opening themselves up to donors who want to direct money to anti-Israel groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

The notion of a big Jewish tent is a noble one. Inclusion of as many sectors of Jewish life, such as all the religious denominations and political groups from left to right, is certainly desirable. However, it has also led federations to adopt a consensus model of decision-making that can often make it hard to make difficult choices about priorities. For all of its myriad faults, that model is an effort to create a broad platform on which most Jews can stand. But it fails when it is asked to accommodate those who are seeking to attack the foundation of Jewish life itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what groups like IfNotNow do. Their anti-Zionist campaigns are framed in the high-sounding rhetoric of human rights, though they seek to undermine and disarm Israel while strengthening those who are not shy about proclaiming their goal of destroying the one Jewish state on the planet. They are also supporters of the BDS movement, and its anti-Semitic allies and goals. Their efforts to intimidate and shame Jewish kids on Birthright trips remove any doubt as to the despicable nature of their activities.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so, inclusion cannot be the primary goal of any Jewish community. A community that funds Jewish and Zionist philanthropies while also giving donors an option to back anti-Zionist and pro-BDS efforts that seek to hurt Israel is one that isn\u2019t so much inclusive as one that stands for nothing. And communities that stand for nothing have no purpose or chance of survival.<\/span><\/p>\n

The best response to this challenge is for federations to stand firm against this disreputable effort not only to damage Israel, but to impact the ability of these philanthropies to fund the infrastructure of Jewish life\u2014namely, schools, camps, adult-education and vocational assistants, services to the elderly and poor, as well as aid to overseas Jewish causes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rather than helping the NIF, this ought to convince well-meaning liberal donors to think twice about giving to them. Their campaigns aimed at making Israeli society more fair for all people are one thing; their backing for the likes of IfNotNow is quite another. This is a moment when those who care about Israel\u2014no matter where you stand on the ideological spectrum\u2014must draw a line and demand that Jewish philanthropies continue to say \u201cno\u201d to anti-Zionist groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Jonathan S. Tobin<\/strong> is editor in chief of JNS\u2014Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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New Israel Fund\u2019s war on Jewish life JONATHAN S. TOBIN By creating a mechanism to fund anti-Zionist groups, it is attacking not just Israel, but also a federation system vital to maintaining Jewish institutions in America. IfNotNow rally. Source: IfNotNow Facebook Page. (November 4, 2019 \/ JNS) According to the Forward, the rationale for the New Israel Fund\u2019s push to create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74509"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74755,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74509\/revisions\/74755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}