Settlers Group Seeks Funds from Local Jewish Federations

Supporters of Jewish settlers in the West Bank are pushing federations to break their long-standing tradition of not donating to independent causes overseas.

This effort on behalf of the settlers has so far not made significant inroads. But last year, the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex Country gave it its first major victory, allocating $22,000 to the American Friends of the Israel Community Development Foundation.

The foundation provides medical, educational, religious and social services of Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This money came from the $2.75 million the Middlesex federation raised in the 12 months ending in June 1994.

Now, the United Jewish Community of Bergen Country, N.J., is establishing a committee to study the matter.

Similar efforts by the settlers group to solicit funds were rebuffed by the United Jewish Federation of Metro West, the largest in New Jersey, and by the UJA-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.

Those two federations reiterated long-standing positions that the united Jewish Appeal-federation system does not fund projects over the “Green Line,” as Israel’s pre-1967 borders are known.

But as settlers and their supporters see it, this refusal by the central Jewish philanthropies to fund projects in the territories constitutes discrimination.

“We’re making it a priority to approach as many federations as we can, because we don’t see why any federation shouldn’t give a portion of its funds to legitimate humanitarian causes in the territories,” said Barry Liben, president of the American Friends group.

“When you give a few thousand to the settlements, which are so isolated today, it makes a big difference, both Psychologically and materially,” he said.

Michael Shapiro, executive vice president of the Middlesex federation, agrees.

“We found it absurd that one of the places we could not help Jews in need was in Israel,” he said.

In Middlesex as well as in Bergen County, a main consideration in the debate over funding the settlers is the strong support the settlers have in the Orthodox community. It is a support based on family ties as well as an ideology.

Some of the settlers’ supporters call for aid to the settlements to be combined with boycotting the federation.

Liben said his group opposes the boycott idea.

“We believe that the work federation does is fabulous. Jews should continue to support them. But the Jews that support them should not ignore a substantial part of the Israeli population that is not being served by federations,” he said.

Ronald Meier, the recently appointed executive director of the Bergen federation, said the question of aid to settlers has been raised on “a number of occasions” since he assumed the post late last year.

“Particularly, the more traditional part of the community raises it as a concern,” he said.

“The impression I have so far is that the long-term supporters of the UJA campaign have not been affected, have not stepped away form the campaign because of those concerns,” he said.

But not funding the settlers “is certainly a stumbling block” as the federation tries to draw newcomers into the campaign from “some quarters of the community,” he said.

Under an agreement reached between the settlers fund and the Middlesex federation, the settlers group will not raise funds during the federation’s four-month campaign period.

And in an unusual demonstration of the close ties the Middlesex federation wants to have with the settlers group, when the group does solicit in Middlesex County, donors will be asked to make out their checks to the federation, which will forward them to the foundation’s offices in New York. These moneys will be above and beyond the $22,000 that the federation is allocating directly.

Shapiro of the Middlesex federation said he set up this arrangement “to make a statement” to his community and to the broader federation system.

His federation is saying “as a representative federation that it is OK to do this”, he said.

Besides the settler grant, his federation like most no grants to overseas causes other than UJA.

Gerald Nagel, director of public relations at UJA, denies that his organization is committing discriminating by not funding projects over the Green Line.

“This is not an ideological position, and we’re sorry that some people think we are discriminating unfairly. We are not,” he said.

Negal said the Jewish Agency for Israel, the principal recipient of UJA funds in Israel, “provides services within the Green Line to Jews form the territories, such as when a youngster from a territory settlement enrolls in a Jewish Agency Youth Aliyah school.”

The UJA policy on this, he said, is based on the policy of the United Israel Appeal, which serves as the conduit between UJA and the Jewish Agency.

In part, said Nagel, UIA has not modified its policy against funding projects in the territories because of “concerns that such a change in policy would lower overall donations.”

Additionally, “the economic and social needs of Jews in Israel’s Galilee, central corridor and Negev continue to be significant and are worthy of even more help than we can provide.

“We’d also like to note that no Israeli prime minister has ever asked us to change this policy,” he said.

He had not comment on the actions by the Bergen County or Middlesex federations.

But Shapiro’s critics within the central fund-raising structures warn that by directly allocating money to an overseas charity other than UJA, the federation is in the long run “committing suicide,” in the words of one Philanthropic official.

“What about the guy who said, `I’m giving the federation $5,000 but I want $1,000 to go to my sister on Kibbutz Na’am?’ The federation now has no logical reason to say no. Once you break discipline, you break discipline,” said this official.

The UIA policy against funding over the Green Line is rooted in the stance of the American government, which does not encourage Israeli settlements in the territories.

It also reflects UIA’s fears, shared by the Israeli government, that pushing for the right to operate over the Green Line would bring far more risks that gains.

In the immediate wake of the Six-Day War, the U.S. government made it clea that it did not want the central American Jewish Philanthropies to operate in the territories that had newly come under Israeli control.

The government did not say that operations in the territories could not, per se, receive tax-exempt status. The American Friends of the Israel community Development Foundation is only one of many organizations whose religious, charitable or educational work in the territories qualifies it for tax exemption form the Internal Revenue Service.

Instead, the government seized on the terms by which the UIA’s tax-exempt status had been clarified in 1964.

According to the terms agreed upon by the UIA and the IRS, the UIA’s mandate was to conduct philanthropic activities in the “the State of Israel.”

At the time, three years before the Six-Day War, there was no question of disputed territories.

But in 1967, “the State Department went out of its way to tell my predecessor that they recognize the STate of Israel as having the boundaries it had on June 5, 1967,” said lrving Kessler, executive vice president emeritus of UIA.

UIA was told it could apply for a modified letter, allowing it to operator in the territories.

But it was also clear, said Kessler, that “we could be held up for any number of reasons” in getting a modified letter approved, meanwhile jeopardizing the status of hundreds of millions of dollars in donations.

American concern over possible UIA operations over the Green Line continued over the years, coming up in every conversation Kessler had with the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The Israeli government did not ask the American philanthropists to fight the State Department over this.

“If we didn’t have the assurance by the Israeli government that all settlement across the Green Line was being handled equitably, we might have been dispute on our board. But there never was any disadvantage in any of those areas. The government always took care of people across the Green Line better than within the Green Line,” said Kessler.

“Any charges that the UIA or UJA discriminates against [the settlers in the territories] are phony, because they get the exact same thing from government funds” as they would have gotten had they settled within the Green Line, said Kessler.

Most of the projects funded by the settlers foundation, such as mobile medical units, synagogues, security services and schools, are not generally among the Jewish Agency’s priorities, even within the Green Line.

Further clouding the claims that settlers are deprived by the UJA is the fact that while the Jewish Agency scrupulously avoids sending dollars over the Green Line, the World Zionist Organization steps into fill the breach.

The relationship between the WZO and the Jewish Agency is so close that the organizations share senior executive officers as well as offices.

The WZO is funded by the Keren Hayesod, which collects money raised by Jews outside the United States and parallels UJA.

There is a line item in the WZO’s Aliyah Department to cover absorption centers and ulpan centers over the Green Line.

The funding directly parallels the funding the Jewish Agency gives to the more numerous absorption centers and ulpan centers within the Green Line.

Much of the Israeli government’s activities in the territories are contracted out to WZO. In 1993, the WZO Settlement Department employed 125 people, with a budget of more than $36 million. All the funding for this department came from a direct Israeli government allocation.

One American Jewish philanthropic official dismissed the entire settler claim for federation funding as a political stunt.

“They claim they want humanitarian needs. What they really want is a imprimatur for their political aims, and we’re not in the business of giving imprimatur for political aims,” said the official.