Jane Kahn and Michael Bien, two long-standing members and supporters of our community, raise questions about the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund’s funding guidelines. These questions deserve analysis. Let’s look closely at their critique.
First, it bears noting that Jane and Michael don’t take issue with the federation having some set of funding guidelines. Even for donor-advised funds, the federation is placing its imprimatur on the contribution. I think Jane and Michael would agree that the federation should not approve grants that are fundamentally at odds with the organization’s mission.
Second, and more importantly, Jane and Michael appear not to be challenging the guidelines as written. That conclusion, too, seems sound: The criteria have been reviewed many times — not just here but by other organizations around the country struggling with similar questions — and they have withstood very close scrutiny.
Rather, Jane and Michael are challenging the guidelines as applied, both to their proposed donations to Jewish Voice for Peace and American Friends Service Committee, which were refused, and to donations by others to several organizations on the political right, which were approved.
I am not privy to the internal deliberations concerning the organizations in question. But it didn’t take me long to verify that JVP falls outside the guidelines. Last February, JVP abandoned its previous policy of supporting targeted divestment aimed at settlements. That policy enabled it to argue — against considerable evidence to the contrary — that it was not anti-Israel; it was merely anti-occupation.
But no longer. On its own website, JVP poses the question “Why is JVP moving beyond Occupation-focused Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaigns?”
JVP gives the following answer: “JVP has long participated in the global movement to hold Israel accountable through nonviolent economic pressure, and we’ve done so by focusing on Occupation-specific targets including corporations as well as academic and cultural institutions. Today, the idea that there is a clear economic, political, or social separation between ‘Israel’ and ‘the occupation,’ has been widely discredited.”
Plainly, JVP “advocate[s] for, or endorse[s], undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through participation in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, in whole or part,” for which the federation’s guidelines bar funding.
It is equally easy to address the American Friends Service Committee. Many have noted its evolution from a laudable organization dedicated to pacifist service to one that is deeply committed to the Palestinian cause and, in the broadest sense, anti-Israel and pro-BDS. Here is what the organization said in a release on its Middle East policy last October:
“Accountability for Israel’s brutal and excessive use of force against Palestinians is also necessary. Actions to bring about this accountability include ending all U.S. military aid to Israel and support for boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against companies and institutions complicit in sustaining injustice and violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.”
By its own declared policy, AFSC falls outside the federation’s guidelines.
But what about contributions that were approved to organizations on the political right?
Jane and Michael criticize approval of contributions to the Horowitz Center partially on the ground that it hosted Geert Wilders at a conference, and they cite the ADL’s condemnation of Wilders as an anti-Muslim bigot. But the AFSC hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at intimate dinners, which the ADL also condemned. The Horowitz Center may be problematic for other reasons, but merely hosting a condemnable speaker is probably an insufficient basis on which to judge it as falling outside the guidelines.
Nonetheless, Jane and Michael raise fair questions about contributions to specific far-right organizations. The answer, I think, is not to withdraw support from the federation, but to ask that the federation revisit the application of the guidelines to these organizations.
While I disagree with Jane and Michael’s conclusion, I respect their concern. Many of us are struggling with similar questions: what do we stand for, and what is reasonable to ask of our community’s organizations, given that we have widely divergent opinions on many issues? How do we balance maintaining community unity — in the face of indisputably dangerous threats and outright enemies — while allowing free and open debate?
Experience has shown that the federation’s guidelines work well in balancing these complex aims. Will they sometimes require close decisions? Undoubtedly. Is it appropriate to raise questions about their application? By all means. But let’s be sure that we don’t reach overly broad conclusions based on a few decisions with which we may disagree.