JEWISH WORLD

Tough Love?
Do guidelines such as
those recently published
by the San Francisco
Jewish Federation unite
the American Jewish
community in support of
Israel? Or do they widen
the schisms?

become an issue that has been avoided, in order

to minimize arguments, or has served as a
lightening rod to attract the most passionate
supporters and critics. Indeed, as reported in
The Jerusalem Report (“Learning How to
Argue,” November 9, 2009), the Bay Area’s
AVI KATZ

Jewish Community Relations Council even

sponsored a program to instill “a new civility”
in Jewish discourse, especially with regard to
Jan Jaben-Eilon Atlanta v’Shalom and former Knesset member Marcia Israel.
Freedman, poetess Adrienne Rich and Rabbis But this is the first time that any Federation

T
HE HEADLINE WAS
compelling. “An Open Letter
to All Jewish Communities:
Warning!!!” In a half-page ad
published in The Forward in
early May, 72 prominent Bay Area scholars,
rabbis, philanthropists, artists and community
leaders warned that their “usually liberal com-
munity had set a dangerous precedent” that
could “limit debate, threaten dissent and estab-
David Cooper and Lavey Derby, were protest-
ing against the new guidelines set by the San
Francisco Jewish Community Federation
(JCF) for funding organizations and projects in
the US and abroad. These guidelines, they
warned, would have a “chilling effect” on
Israel discussion in the American Jewish com-
munity.
The guidelines say the Federation is com-
mitted to diversity and pluralism, but will not
in any community has articulated specific
guidelines “on potentially controversial Israel-
related programming.” The guidelines could
potentially affect not only the relationships
between philanthropists and grantees but also,
and even more significantly, the relationships
between the younger, secular base of Jewish
support for Israel in the US and its relationship
with the State of Israel.

lish for the first time a litmus test for loyalty to
Israel…”
The signatories, including Hebrew litera-
ture scholars Robert Alter and Chana Kronfeld,
Jewish Studies scholars Steven Zipperstein and
David Biale, founding president of Brit Tzedek
fund organizations that undermine Israel’s
legitimacy or participate in the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Controversy over Israel in the Bay Area is
not new. In San Francisco, as in many other US
cities, discussion surrounding Israel has
T
HE GUIDELINES STATE THAT
the Federation’s “core values include
an abiding commitment to a secure
Jewish community here and abroad, to the
strong democratic Jewish State of Israel, and to
mutual respect and diversity within Jewish

24 THE JERUSALEM REPORT JUNE 7, 2010

life.” They go on to say the JCF does not fund
organizations that endorse anti-Semitism or
“other forms of bigotry, violence or other
extremist views,” proselytize Jews away from
Judaism; or advocate for, or endorse, under-
mining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure
independent, democratic Jewish state, includ-
ing through participation in the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement,
in whole or in part.”
The policy also explicitly prohibits co-spon-
soring or co-presenting public programs on the
Middle East with groups that “undermine the
legitimacy of the State of Israel.” Thus, an
organization could find itself in violation of the
federation’s guidelines not because of its own
positions on Israel but as a result of the views
of a speaker, panelist or co-sponsor for one of
its programs.
To qualify for funding, organizations must
produce documentation to prove their consis-
tency with the JCF core values, or initiate the
development of such documentation.
Federation representatives contend that the
guidelines were intended not to hinder the con-
versation about Israel, but rather to provide “a
measure of confidence about the ability for
institutions to continue to present a broad range
of views, which they might not have absent the
guidelines,” Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive
director of the Bay Area’s Jewish Community
Relations Council (JCRC), tells The Report. It
was Kahn who was asked to bring together a
group to formulate the guidelines, and it is
Kahn and the JCRC that Federation-funded
agencies are officially encouraged to approach
for a judgment on potentially controversial
Israel-related programming.
Jim Offel, the Federation’s chief operating
officer, tells The Report that the guidelines
were intended to “provide as much clarity as
possible” as to what programming is consistent
with the Federation’s mission and values, and
“that are in line with our donors and funders.”
T
HE CRISIS LEADING TO THE
publication of the guidelines erupted
on July 25, 2009 at the San Francisco
Jewish Film Festival, the oldest and largest
Jewish film festival in the US, surrounding the
controversial movie, “Rachel,” about Rachel
Corrie – the young American woman killed by
an Israel Defense Forces’ bulldozer in 2003, as
she stood before a Palestinian home in Gaza
during a demonstration by the militantly pro-
Palestinian International Solidarity Movement
and other foreign activists against Israel’s poli-
cy of house demolitions. The Israeli military
has ruled that Corrie’s death was an accident,
but her parents are pursuing a civil case in
Israeli courts.
The film was introduced by Dr. Mike
Harris, a local pediatrician and one of the co-
founders of the grassroots group called “SF
Voice for Israel,” now affiliated with the right-
leaning advocacy group Stand With Us. Only
two minutes into Harris’s 10-minute introduc-
tion, however, the booing and catcalls from the
audience exploded, as he declared that Rachel
‘Why San Francisco? Because Israel-related issues play
out particularly intensely here. We are encountering an
explosion of anti-Israel feeling here.’
– Rabbi Doug Kahn
Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council
Corrie had intentionally put herself in harm’s
way. He proceeded to name other “Rachels”
killed in Israel by Palestinian terrorists, includ-
ing Americans Jews. Facing continual catcalls
and mocking laughter, Harris concluded his
short introduction by stating that the film
demonizes Israel and the Film Festival should
not have included co-sponsors such as the left-
leaning “Jewish Voice for Peace.” He left the
podium accompanied by wild clapping and
cheers of “Bravo!” as well as jeers.
It was as if someone lit a match to a volatile,
fume-filled enclosure: the San Francisco
Jewish Community exploded. The Jewish Film
Festival organizers, who had for decades
attracted the largest and most varied Jewish
members of the community, were under fire, as
was the Jewish Community Federation of San
Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma
Counties (JCF), which had provided some of
the funding for the Festival.
Always a Jewish community with a wide
range of opinions – including extremes on both
the left and the right – San Francisco had fis-
sured again. Bullying e-mails and blog posts
drew imagined links between the festival, the
Goldstone Report, J Street, President Obama
and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Within months, Federation board member
Anat Pilovsky submitted a resolution to the
board calling for prohibiting support of events
that “defame” Israel or partner with anyone
who calls for boycotts, divestment or sanctions
(BDS) against Israel. When the resolution
failed, Pilovsky resigned.
THE JERUSALEM REPORT JUNE 7, 2010
But the controversy continued. Jennifer
Gorovitz, acting Federation executive director
since October, established a committee to cre-
ate guidelines for the funding of grantees who
sponsor Israel-related programming. Ironically,
Gorovitz had assumed her position when her
predecessor, Daniel Sokatch, ended his short
stay at the Federation to head the New Israel
Fund – which has subsequently also come
under attack by right-wing Israel-supporters for
its ostensible anti-Israel activity.
On February 18, 2010, the Federation for-
mally approved the “Funding Policy for
Grantees on Potentially Controversial Israel-
Related Programming.”
T
HE FEDERATION STATES THAT
its policy “supports free speech and
constructive debate in our community.
In fact, we were concerned that the absence of
such a policy would inhibit free speech and
constructive debate as our partners would not
know the boundaries.”
But predictably, the guidelines have drawn
extensive, heated criticism, especially from
left-leaning individuals and organizations.
“This is too blunt an instrument,” agrees
Robert Rubin, director of litigation for the
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. “The
Federation has issued a memo telling Jewish
agencies what is verboten [forbidden]…The
community has a right to say who is ineligible
to be a member, but I’m questioning where the
line is being drawn, and the timing.”
Describing himself as an active member of
the Jewish community, Rubin says that “the
essence of the Jewish people is to question
responsibly, to challenge and not be afraid of
the depth of competing ideas. That’s what
searching and real solutions are all about.”
Professor David Biale, chair of the history
department at the University of California-
Davis, tells The Report that he fears the guide-
lines will be used by the more right-wing ele-
ments of the community as a tool to “pressure
the Federation to de-fund organizations” or
25
JEWISH WORLD
stymie Israel programming and discussion in
the community.
Steven J. Zipperstein, who holds the
Koshland Chair in the Jewish Culture and
History Department at Stanford University and
was a signee of the ad in The Forward, tells The
Report angrily, “To say that it’s OK to be criti-
cal of Israel [is not acceptable]. I don’t need
permission. Anything one loves one can love
critically. This is worse than gratuitous.”
Both the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA)
and J Street have issued statements against
the Bay Area Federation’s funding guide-
lines. PJA, a liberal or left-leaning group,
states, “We are particularly fearful of the
effect these rules may have on a younger
generation of Jews who are grappling with
their Jewish identity, their relationship to
Israel and their place in the larger communi-
ty, precisely by engaging in the time-hon-
ored Jewish tradition of questioning.”
Indeed, as Peter Beinart writes in his
upcoming article in the New York+ Review
of Books, (June 10, 2010): “For several
decades, the Jewish establishment has asked
American Jews to check their liberalism at
Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they
are finding that many young Jews have
checked their Zionism instead.”
The guidelines may impact the ability of
some Jewish organizations to partner or coop-
erate with Christian, Quaker or Muslim groups,
many of which support some sort of Boycott-
Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement. In this
regard, Zipperstein says that he also doesn’t
like “the way in which the document punishes
funded organizations for indirect sins, such as
co-sponsorships to their programming. We
should be judged on who we are and not with
whom we speak.”
And noting that the guidelines essentially
set up the JCRC, a consensus-oriented body, as
the designated arbiter of approval, he snaps, “I
also don’t agree with anybody serving as adju-
dicator. Doug Kahn won’t be there forever.
Who will serve that function after him or, for
that matter, elsewhere in the country if the
guidelines are picked up by other Jewish
communities?”
Kahn counters that “the concept of a fund-
ing agency to set some reasonable criteria for
grantees…is unexceptional.” Arguing that the
guidelines are only formalizing what had been
informal, he says, “The JCRC has always been
consulted by agencies about sensitive program-
ming and speakers. It’s important for an orga-
nization to have consultation before a program
so they’ll know the potential reaction from the
26
community.” Furthermore, he says, “The
guidelines emphasize that not one size fits all.
The culture of a Hillel on a university campus
is different than the culture of the arts
community.”
Rabbi Amy Eilberg, who directs interfaith
dialogue programs in Minneapolis/St. Paul,
tells The Report that she is most concerned by
“the impulse that says listening to people
with whom we strongly disagree is danger-
ous.” The Jewish value of pursuing peace,
she says, “within the Jewish community
requires we be in respectful conversation
with those with whom we disagree. It makes
sense that people want to be in an echo
chamber about passionate issues; we want to
be in conversation with people we’re most
comfortable with. But that’s not high level
communication. It blocks learning and it’s
unhealthy for the fabric of a community.”
Refusing to comment on the guidelines
specifically, Eilberg contends that the “ques-
tion of whom we can’t talk to is the wrong
question. The question of who the
Federation should fund is a difficult ques-
tion, especially during tight economic times.
But the question that stands before the Jewish
community is how can we expand the conver-
sation with those we disagree with and can
learn from.”
T
HE FACT THAT THE GUIDELINES
specifically mention the Boycott-
Sanction-Divest movement may be an
indication of the extent to which this move-
ment had been gaining traction, at least on the
West Coast and its campuses. To many in the
Jewish community, any organization promot-
ing or even associated with the BDS movement
is considered to be guilty of delegitimization of
Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, espe-
cially since the BDS movement draws clear
parallels between Israel and the apartheid state
of South Africa.
In fact, a recent report by the Tel Aviv-
based, non-profit Reut Institute identified the
Bay Area as one of the global hubs for the BDS
movement. The report warns that the “effec-
tiveness of the catalysts of delegitimization
stems from their ability to engage and mobilize
others by blurring the lines between delegit-
imization and criticism. They do so by
demonizing Israel, deploying double stan-
dards … and promoting grassroots activities
such as boycotts, divestments and sanctions
that are aimed primarily at tarnishing
Israel’s face.”
Similarly, in a recently-published posi-
THE JERUSALEM REPORT JUNE 7, 2010
tion paper, written following the Global
Forum Against Anti-Semitism held in
Jerusalem, in July 2009, Gil Troy, professor of
history at McGill University in Montreal and
currently a research fellow at the Shalom
Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, wrote that “we
need to point out how BDS crosses the line
from legitimate criticism to historically laden,
anti-Semitic messaging.” The report suggests
cooperation with the Israeli foreign minister to
put in place “legislative prohibitions against the
BDS which can then be applied to different
communities” and “pursuing a strategy of
ridicule and satire, especially on the Internet.”
Troy also suggests expelling boycotters from
international organizations.
Troy, together with a group of others from
the left and the right in Israel, is currently work-
ing on a document that speaks of delineating
what falls between the “blue and white lines
affirming Israel as a Jewish and democratic
state” and “the red lines beyond which people
shouldn’t go.”
The guidelines will have a particular affect
on one of the Bay Area’s largest Jewish organi-
zations, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which
supports divestment from companies that prof-
it from the occupation and was one of the con-
troversial sponsors of the film. But Dana
Bergen, San Francisco JVP board chair tells
The Report that her group only wants to sup-
port boycott and divestment from companies
that support and profit from the Israeli military
and the occupation. “Our work is for human
rights for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
“We see BDS as a non-violent, moral strat-
egy to end the occupation,” adds Penny
Rosenwasser, member and former national
board member of JVP. “I’m fighting to save the
soul of my people.”
At this point, the guidelines, which claim to
strive for greater consensus, seem to limit only
the left-wing organizations. Visual artist, musi-
cian and composer Laurie Polster started an
endowment fund held at the SFJF 22 years ago.
In an e-mail interview with The Report, she
relates that she has, in the past decade, become
increasingly involved in what she defines as
Israel/Palestine peace work and has shifted the
focus of her giving towards Israeli and US non-
governmental organizations that focus on
peace and human rights work. In 2003, 2006
and 2008, she requested a grant from the SFJF
for JVP, which was approved, as were requests
for grants for “Courage to Refuse,” an Israeli
group that encourages conscientious objection
from the Israeli military, the Israel Committee
Against Home Demolitions (ICHAD), a
radical-left Israeli group, and others.
However, Polster tells The Report, on
March 8, she made another request for JVP,
which was still officially on the Federation
Endowment’s list as an approved recipient;
the request was denied because, Polster says
she was told, JVP did not meet the new
guidelines.
If, she demanded to know from the SFJF,
left-wing organizations are excluded for politi-
cal reasons, then why are not some right-wing
organizations, which support settlements and
other non-consensual activities, such as the
Hebron Fund and the Central Fund for Israel,
similarly excluded? SFJF executive director
Gorowitz says that the Federation “is not
reviewing an entire list of accepted charities,
but is reviewing each one as a grant is
requested.
Attorney Rubin warns that, at least in the
short term, “we will run into the law of unin-
tended consequences. We will see less debate
and more toeing of the line, especially in this
kind of economy where organizations are fear-
ful of losing funding.”
Indeed, in April, after two lengthy, turbulent
meetings at the University of California-
Berkeley, the board of regents upheld its deci-
sion not to accept their student senate’s recom-
mendation that they divest their holdings in
General Electric and United Technologies, two
companies that have reportedly profited from
Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, the
expansion of settlements and the demolition of
Palestinian homes. The decision was widely
regarded as influenced by the new guidelines,
since UC-Berkeley and other California cam-
puses, including Davis and Santa Barbara, as
well as Stanford, have received grants from the
Federation and other Jewish donors for
decades, despite the often stridently left-wing
positions critical of Israel and supportive of
BDS by their faculty and guest lecturers.
“S
UCH EXCLUSIONARY LAN-
guage has a long history,” Marcia
Freedman, former member of
Knesset and one of the organizers of the Open
Letter, tells The Report. “Let us not forget that
not too long ago advocacy for a two-state solu-
tion was considered beyond the pale. In the
past, even discussions with Palestinian or
Muslim groups were considered out of bounds.
”But Kahn, who has been with the JCRC over
20 years, says the “schism in our community is
the greatest I’ve ever seen. We’ve reached a
point in the polarization that it is harder to
engage around Israel at all.”
Kahn proudly tells The Report, “We have
treaded where no Federation has treaded
before. We may have been the first community
to realize the critical need, and by no means,
the last. Why San Francisco? Because Israel-
related issues play out particularly intensely
here. We are encountering an explosion of anti-
Israel feeling here.”
‘To say that it’s OK to be
critical of Israel is not
acceptable. I don’t need
permission. Anything
one loves one can love
critically. This is worse
than gratuitous.’
– Prof. Steven Zipperstein
Stanford University
Will the guidelines spread throughout the
country? A spokesman for the Federation
umbrella group, Jewish Federations of North
America (JFNA), refused The Report’s
requests for comments on the guidelines and
would not comment on whether these guide-
lines will be adopted elsewhere. But in a recent
New York Times article, William Daroff, vice
president for public policy of JFNA, defended
the San Francisco Federation’s decision. “An
open exchange of views within the pro-Israel
community is good,” he was quoted as saying.
“But there has to be some sort of line between
constructive discussion and destructive com-
munication that does not recognize Israel as the
eternal home of the Jewish people.”
In contrast, Dr. Steven Nasatir, president of
the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Chicago, tells The Report, “We
don’t need guidelines on how to behave as far
as Israel.” Other Jewish organizations around
the country, however, have in fact created sim-
ilar policies to those in San Francisco. Rabbi
Howard Alpert, executive director of the Hillel
of Greater Philadelphia, tells The Report that in
March his group passed a “set of policies
regarding use of Hillel resources for Israel or
other controversial programs.”
Alpert says that his group’s focus, however,
is different. “Our primary question is, how do
we create an inclusive Jewish community
THE JERUSALEM REPORT JUNE 7, 2010
among Jewish students, recognizing that there
are parameters? We want to cast as wide a tent
as possible.” Those parameters, he says,
include the exclusion of “anyone advocating
harm to the Jewish community, or boycotting
and other punitive measures against Israel.”
But Sokatch, the former SF Federation
executive director who now heads the New
Israel Fund, predicts that both sides of the aisle
will test the guidelines. The right wing will “try
to shut up or shut down” organizations they
don’t like. “The bullies on the hard left have
left the community and the more progressives
who are committed to the Jewish community
will try to test the guidelines to see if they are
being applied evenly and equally to organiza-
tions, regardless where they stand on the ideo-
logical spectrum.”
Meanwhile, Peter Stein, executive director
of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
(SFJFF), slated to present its films July 24 to
August 9, says the festival is still committed to
its mission of “showcasing a broad range of
stories for our very diverse community, and to
encouraging conversations through film,
even about difficult topics.” However, “in
order to avoid some of the issues that arose
last year, the SF Film Festival will handle its
partnerships differently this year,” he tells
The Report. “The distinct missions and
activities of SFJFF’s many partner organiza-
tions should never be confused with those of
SFJFF. To avoid this confusion, SFJFF will
recognize our partnerships in ways that we
hope will eliminate any misinterpretation
about their role in individual SFJFF pro-
grams. At SFJFF’s discretion, institutional
partners may be acknowledged as assisting
the Festival as a whole, without connection
to individual programs or issues.”
SFJFF’s founding director Deborah
Kaufman and its founding board president
Alan Snitow lament what they consider regres-
sion in the community. “For us in the Bay Area,
with our history of liberalism and free speech,
it’s particularly egregious,” Snitow tells The
Report. Referring to the guidelines, Kaufman
said, “This is completely unprecedented. A lot
of us in the middle are feeling under siege. It’s
making us feel like we can’t have a Jewish
community with life and vibrancy.”
Jewish historian David Biale concludes
soberly that “the range of opinion permissible
in the Jewish community in America ought to
be as broad as it is in Israel,” where the docu-
mentary “Rachel” premiered at the Haifa Film
Festival and recently played at the Tel Aviv
Cinematheque without much ado. •
27