An open letter from Jewish donors and Jews in Philanthropy

First, we feel compelled to call upon our colleagues in philanthropy to cease the harmful practice of withdrawing funding for and/or delaying payments to organizations that speak up for the lives and safety of the Palestinian people. Second, we wish to correct the increasingly common misperception that Jews in philanthropy are uniformly aligned behind the false binary of Jewish versus Palestinian safety. The values of tzedek, tikkun olam, and a deep historical belief in open debate – all values we have been taught by our families, our communities, our ancestors, our synagogues, and our Torah – are what motivate us to speak out against these harmful practices and misperceptions. These are the same values that have called us to work in philanthropy and to support movements that seek liberation for all. 

As funders and as Jews, we have watched with increasing alarm over the past few months as our peers in philanthropy–many of whom espouse values of democracy, justice, listening, learning, and respecting the leadership and autonomy of their grantees–have issued threats, delayed funding, or withdrawn funding to organizations doing essential work at this moment in history, simply because those organizations have dared to criticize Israel’s policies, call Israel’s attacks a genocide, or even call for a ceasefire. We have also seen a dramatic ramping up of efforts in philanthropy to marginalize, discredit, and censor voices – including Jewish voices – that dissent from certain orthodoxies. It is not lost on us that the majority of the organizations that have lost funding as a result of their solidarity with Palestinian liberation are BIPOC-led, youth-led, and/or based in the Global South. Several of the groups that donors have sought to silence and/or punish are intermediary groups and public foundations–groups that play a critical role in our shared philanthropic ecosystem by providing financial and technical support to smaller, more nascent organizations that do not have direct access to consistent funding sources. Withdrawing funds from those groups has a ripple effect throughout the ecosystem we have worked so hard to nourish, punishing those doing life-saving work in exceptionally vulnerable communities and contexts.

A common claim being used to silence and defund organizations in this time is the notion that their words in support of Palestinian liberation are in fact expressions of antisemitism. As Jews who take seriously the very real and frightening rise in antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of racism and bigotry in this period in history, this claim is particularly upsetting to us. The truth is that Jews have long argued over strategies for achieving Jewish safety and the relationship between Jewish safety and Jewish statehood. Attempts to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and claims that any criticism of the state of Israel’s policies or actions constitutes antisemitic hate speech, are practices that take us down an extraordinarily dangerous path at a historical moment when we should be building bridges to preserve democracy and fight authoritarian tendencies in the US and around the world. Rather than championing free speech, open debate, thoughtful dialogue, and political and analytical discernment, we see some colleagues in philanthropy using intimidation and punishment to silence those with whom they disagree, issuing gag rules or ultimatums, and otherwise aligning themselves with policies, practices, and actors that are antithetical to the values we espouse as Jews and as progressive donors.

As Jews, we know in our bones that fighting antisemitism and building Jewish safety depend on mobilizing a broad cross-section of people to defend inclusive, multiracial, multifaith democracies and to hold governments to account for their mistreatment of citizens, migrants, and indigenous peoples. They depend on resisting attempts to divide neighbor from neighbor through division and hate. They depend on doing the hard work of staying connected even while in disagreement. They depend on addressing the ways in which structural racism continues to disempower people of color, including Jews of color. And they depend on supporting organizations that combat antisemitism without fanning the flames of racism and Islamophobia, since antisemitism cannot be eradicated in a world where other prejudices thrive. 

These strategies cannot take root when we refuse to acknowledge the interconnectedness of our struggles, and when we weaponize our fear and trauma to silence opinions that make us uncomfortable or even simply invite us to reflect. As progressive donors, we cannot divorce one people’s fight for liberation, safety, and self-determination from another’s. We cannot call for the liberation of women, LGBTQIA+, Indigenous, disabled, BIPOC, and Global South majority peoples without calling for the same for all people – including Palestinians. The current defunding and censoring of organizations and movements working or speaking out for Palestinian liberation has served to undermine, discredit, and fracture multiracial movements at a time when these movements are needed more than ever. We are concerned that this trend will expand, increasing the polarization that fuels hatred, undermining painstaking work to build bridges across communities, missing an opportunity to deepen the nonprofit sector’s understanding of antisemitism, and in the end, making it harder to build thriving communities – including Jewish communities–that honor diverse perspectives.

As Jews, we have had to fight for our right to exist, to gather, and to practice our religion and traditions since the beginning of our existence. Today, we see the Palestinian people being forced to fight for their very survival and being pushed into exile as we were and we cannot be complicit as Palestinians face the same fate as ourselves, our relatives, and our ancestors. We will not let our faith be used as an excuse to silence the voices of progressive activists, and particularly BIPOC and Global South movements, that see deep linkages between their own struggles for liberation and the struggles of the Palestinian people. We understand our own history as one of struggle for survival, and we will not let our history be used to reject the freedom and safety of others. We invite our Jewish colleagues in philanthropy to join us in building a different future together. Specifically, we invite you to cease the harmful practice of cutting off funding to groups that express solidarity with Palestinian liberation and/or criticize the state of Israel’s policies. We invite you to recommit instead to democratic forms of debate: conversation, learning, curiosity, and the struggle for mutual understanding amidst disagreement. We offer our support and allyship to all those who are grappling at this time, and we recommit to building the world we all deserve–a world stronger, braver, and more whole than the one we all inherited.

With great hope!