“If they’re going to tell me, ‘You are not a real Jew, you are not welcome here,’ that’s a real serious thing,” said multimillionaire Peter Kalikow.
“It hurts me to do this. But somebody must stand up. It’s the only way to get their attention over what I think is wrong.”
Kalikow, who owns the New York Post, was explaining why he has threatened to curtail the nearly $1 million he commits annually to the United Jewish Appeal and State of Israel Bonds Organization, if Israeli politicians pass legislation redefining who is a Jew.
The legislation, seen by Reform and Conservative Jews as an attempt to delegitimize them further, is the price being demanded by Israel’s politically powerful Orthodox parties for their participation in a new government coalition.
Although Kalikow is one of the rare few willing to admit publicly that the “Who Is a Jew” controversy would affect his financial contributions to Israel, it seems he is not alone.
In discussions taking place around the country, culminating in heated meetings at the recently completed Council of Jewish Federations General Assembly in New Orleans, philanthropists have been threatening to stop their giving altogether or to direct their gifts in such a way that they would not benefit proponents of the legislation.
Fund-raising executives interviewed Monday disagreed on the extent of the problem, but all seemed concerned.
The strongest expression of that concern came from Ernest Michel, executive vice president of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, the country’s largest Jewish community fund.
‘GETTING IT EVERY HOUR’
“The feeling is very widespread. I’m getting it every hour, in phone calls and letters, from major contributors,” said Michel. “I just got a phone call from a guy who gives half a million. ‘Ernie,’ he said, ‘I’m rethinking what I’m going to do.’
“I’ve never seen this kind of reaction before,” added Michel. “This is the most difficult time between Israel and Diaspora Jews since the establishment of the State of Israel.”
His apprehension had its echo in the words of the president of San Francisco’s Jewish federation, Annette Dobbs, who told the CJF General Assembly Thursday that “major contributors, in the six and seven figures,” were threatening to withdraw their donations.
Among those preferring to play down the possibility of cutbacks were two of the largest national organizations.
“There has been no impact at this point, but we would not want to predict what would happen one way or another in the future,” said a spokesman for the State of Israel Bonds Organization.
“There’s been some concern, but we wouldn’t say it’s been a widespread wave,” said Raphael Rothstein, vice president of the United Jewish Appeal.
But even those executives who played down the scope of the problem described their efforts to convince reluctant givers to, in the words of many of those executives, “remain calm.”
Angry major givers have been reminded that the recipients of UJA contributions “should not be victims of political developments,” said Rothstein.
“We know that there have been a lot of rumblings,” said Rabbi Daniel Allen, assistant executive vice chairman of the United Israel Appeal.
TIME TO DOUBLE CONTRIBUTIONS
“But I go back to what Shoshana Cardin said Saturday afternoon. This is not a time to lessen contributions, but to double them and allow the Jewish Agency to be the advocate of Diaspora concerns that it was designated to be.”
Cardin, immediate past president of CJF, is heading a high-level delegation of Diaspora leaders that arrived in Israel on Monday to meet with Premier Yitzhak Shamir on the issue.
Morris Stein, executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas, said he has calmed contributors by describing lobbying efforts being undertaken by the national fund-raising organizations.
But even leaders at the General Assembly had to shoot down an amendment to the resolution adopted, which would have called on the Jewish Agency and individual givers to “cease providing funds to organizations anywhere in the world which support the proposed change in the Law of Return.”
The proposal seemed aimed at, among others, the Lubavitch Hasidic movement of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, which has advocated strongly for a change in the law.
Raymond Epstein, the former CJF president who proposed the amendment, said his effort did not succeed because delegates thought the proposal too divisive and punitive.
“It was meant to keep our constituents with us by assuring them that their money would not be directed to people” who support the “Who Is a Jew” amendment, said Epstein.
‘SOURING PEOPLE’S FEELINGS’
Other leaders said that media reports of a thaw in relations between Premier Yitzhak Shamir and Labor Party leaders, a move that could weaken the Orthodox parties’ bargaining position, had comforted the most vocal of the big givers.
But “what we don’t know is how under the surface” the negative feeling toward Israel is, said Hans Meyer, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston.
Likewise, Jonathan Jacoby, executive director of the New Israel Fund, said he was concerned about the future of fund-raising on behalf of Israel in the wake of the “Who Is a Jew” challenge.
The New Israel Fund, which raises money for alternative civil rights and human services organizations in Israel, has not yet been threatened with cutbacks, Jacoby said.
But he added, “My concern is that people are going to start shifting. I think it’s souring people’s feelings about Israel.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
