(RNS) — Jewish philanthropies in the U.S. have supported a host of liberal projects through the years, including climate change initiatives, abortion care and immigrant support and advocacy.
Palestinian solidarity — not so much.
Since the war in Gaza began, after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel, some Jewish philanthropies have disciplined or withdrawn funding from social justice organizations that expressed support for Palestinians or criticized Israel. The war, which has killed some 46,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and flattened most of the enclave, led many otherwise liberal philanthropies to bow out of funding for progressive nonprofit organizations.
They’ve done so with language provisions that silence a grantee’s ability to speak out about Israel’s conduct of the war or by outright pulling support from an organization over its views on the war in Gaza.
The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies ended grants to the Altanta-based Access Reproductive Care-Southeast. The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation cut off funding to CASA, an immigrant rights group based in Maryland. (Weinberg then went so far as to remove its name from two CASA buildings the foundation had helped fund.) And the Nathan Cummings Foundation did not renew a grant to The Rising Majority, a coalition of multiracial activist groups that organize around economics and labor.
The philanthropies regard themselves as Zionists, meaning they support a Jewish nation-state.
“Your words and actions are in conflict with the Foundation’s mission, which includes work in Israel, a country with personal ties to the life and legacy of our founder,” wrote the board chair of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation to CASA’s executive director in 2023, explaining the foundation’s decision to cut ties with the group.
A full-page ad in the New York Times on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, says “Trump has called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say NO to ethnic cleansing!” (Photo via X/@JFREJNYC)
But now a newer group of Jewish philanthropists has begun to challenge restrictions in funding to organizations critical of Israel. A recent full-page New York Times ad that condemned President Donald Trump’s plan to clear Gaza of its Palestinian residents is one of the first public statements paid for by those efforts.
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The ad, published Feb. 13 and signed by celebrities and rabbis, stated boldly, “Jewish people say NO to ethnic cleansing!” Its nearly six-figure price tag was paid by In Our Name, a Jewish-led effort to raise money for organizations that support Palestinian safety and self-determination.
“This practice of defunding is actively silencing organizations and represents a major threat to democracy overall,” said Cody Edgerly, the campaign’s director.
The In Our Name campaign began with a public letter this past summer from Jewish philanthropists that derided the “dramatic ramping up of efforts in philanthropy to marginalize, discredit, and censor voices — including Jewish voices — that dissent from certain orthodoxies.”
Its 200-plus signatories said, “We will not let our faith be used as an excuse to silence the voices of progressive activists.”
The campaign has so far raised $2.8 million. About 75% of the funds raised will support Palestinian-led social initiatives in Gaza and the West Bank. Decisions on funding will be turned over to Palestinian leaders or advisory boards that reflect the communities they support. (The other 25% will remain in the U.S. to fund actions and movements in support of Palestinians.)
American Jews broadly support Israel, and funding to help with its war in Gaza has grown exponentially. The Jewish Federations of North America, an umbrella group, has raised upward of $850 million since the war began, and private foundations have topped that with at least $1 billion in aid, according to Alliance, a British philanthropy newsletter.
But some Jewish philanthropists, especially younger ones, have begun to question that support.
David Roswell, one of multiple heirs to an oil fortune, has been engaging family members of the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation based in Baltimore to reconsider aid to Israel.
Roswell, who considers himself an anti-Zionist, said the events of Oct. 7, 2023, clarified the need to push the foundation to rethink its Israel giving. Roswell, 34, is not a member of the Blaustein board but a related family foundation, the Elizabeth B and Arthur E Roswell Foundation. This past year he has been working to steer his elder relatives on the Blaustein board to change their funding strategy.
“Every time there’s been a big news moment, I’ve sort of knocked on the door of the foundation: ‘What are you gonna do about this? This is really crazy,’” he said. “Maybe if there were more Jewish foundations being clear about not being OK with what Israel is doing, that would have given cover for more nonprofits.”
Roswell, his sister, Naomi, and several other younger members of the family privately contributed about $250,000 to the In Our Name campaign.
Liana Krupp, another Jewish philanthropist who has contributed to In Our Name, wrote in an email to RNS that she was “committed to building a world that supports Palestinian self-determination as much as it does for any other people.”
Rebecca Vilkomerson. (Photo by Jess Benjamin)
Krupp, who is president of the Krupp Family Foundation, wrote: “I don’t believe bridge-building within the American Jewish community can only happen on the conditionality of bending one’s beliefs and values. …There are more Jews who support Palestine than are publicly represented. Many of us have been actively demonstrating that we listen, learn, and show up with people we may disagree with on certain issues because there are other intersections of Jewish life that we can find common ground on. ”
Rebecca Vilkomerson, co-director of Funding Freedom, a group that builds support for Palestinian freedom in the philanthropic sector, said the Jewish philanthropic space has been riven by the war.
“Most Jews think of themselves as liberal and progressive and have concerns about the way the genocide has been waged on Gaza,” said Vilkomerson, formerly the executive director of the anti-Zionist nonprofit Jewish Voice for Peace. “That’s dividing synagogues, it’s dividing Hebrew schools, it’s dividing arts institutions, it’s dividing every kind of institution you can imagine. And it’s creating enormous fractures, including in the funding world.”
Additionally, lawfare, or the use of legal systems to delegitimize an opponent’s political views, has raised the costs of working in the solidarity space.
And last month, Jewish Voice for Peace agreed to pay $677,634 to settle allegations made by a pro-Israel lawyer that the progressive Jewish organization had fraudulently received a second Paycheck Protection Program loan.
Many progressive nonprofits also fear a bill that passed in the U.S. House would enable the secretary of the Treasury to rescind the tax-exempt status of any nonprofits the secretary concludes are “terrorist-supporting organizations.”
But Vilkomerson said she was heartened by the rise of groups such as In Our Name.
“Every organization is having to make some decisions,” she said. “And obviously, some organizations are deciding that the time is now; they have to speak out.”
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