THE CONVERSATION via AP — American Jews make significant donations to charities. One of the tactics that help in the United States, Israel and elsewhere is collective, through large donation organizations.
In researching this organized philanthropy, I observed that the proportion of Jewish institutional donations to Israeli motives has declined since 2009. I several factors, which add demographic and social changes, a diminishing belief that Israel is in need and considerations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most likely, Choque has been behind this decline for years.
More recently, Israel’s increasingly conservative policies on social and devout issues, which are at odds with what most American Jews support, may also play a role.
American Jews have proven to be a primary source of philanthropic aid to the Israeli state and Israeli society in the twentieth century. A network of Jewish advocacy and fundraising teams has long organized crowdfunding and lobbying efforts.
These teams make gigantic donations to giant Israeli nonprofits, such as the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Joint Distribution Committee, which then distribute them to smaller local nonprofits.
However, wisdom about the true scope of Jewish philanthropic contributions to Israel is limited. Data collected through my colleagues at Brandeis University indicates a stable accumulation of $1. 05 billion a year in 1975 to $2. 05 billion in 2007 in genuine dollars.
And knowledge from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics indicates that charitable donations to organizations in Israel, from resources in the United States and other foreign countries, have more, from $1. 95 billion in 2009 to $2. 91 billion in 2015.
I’m doing a study with a colleague at Brandeis University, Matthew Brookner, in collaboration with tel Aviv University’s Institute of Law and Philanthropy. Together, we explore patterns and trends in the granting of Jewish grants to Israeli reasons that have been fully understood so far.
To learn about Jewish donations to Israel, we extracted data from the Foundation Search database, which provided us with large amounts of digitized financial data.
To see what changes to this type of donation, we broke the data down into giant grants over $500,000 and smaller grants. Our first effects are found in an investigation of 21,062 primary grants awarded through 1,235 Jewish investment agencies between 2000 and 2015, totaling $46. 3 billion.
We found that the overall success of donations to Israel was greatest between 2000 and 2015. As more money goes to Israeli reasons, the percentage of Jewish donations going to Israel from global contributions — which also includes Jewish reasons outside of Israel and not Jewish charities — has declined.
Among other things, we found that the top organizations investing in Israeli motives are still the Jewish Federations, networked fundraising establishments that operate in most of the metropolitan areas of North America. These federations gave Israeli motives a total of $2. 3 billion between 2000 and 2015.
But donations from personal foundations and intermediary organizations, intermediaries that move donations to other teams, now compete with this source of income. These types of donors provided $2. 2 billion each in aid this period.
Two-thirds of grants supporting Israeli motives have been allocated to U. S. -based organizations. Usa, such as Friends of the Israel Defence Forces. 2008 and 2011.
These recoveries coincided with primary events, the Second Intifada, the Second Lebanon War, and the Gaza clash in 2008 and 2009.
Donations, however, fell after the Great Recession. The point of divergence at the time followed the devastating Mount Carmel wildfire in 2010 near the Israeli city of Haifa.
Although American Jews give even more to Israel in emergency situations during the war, we have not noticed spikes in donations following a primary military operation in Gaza in 2012 or 2014, when the standoff in Gaza broke out again.
And overall, the proportion of Jewish donations going to Israeli motives as a percentage of donations is declining, as is the percentage of donations to non-Jewish motives. Meanwhile, donations to Jewish motives outside of Israel are increasing.
In fact, only 9% of organized Jewish donations were allocated to Israeli reasons in 2015. By comparison, 58% supported non-Jewish reasons and 32% supported Jewish reasons outside of Israel.
This low in the percentage of donations for Israeli reasons was evident as early as 2009, the heavy backlog of donations in 2011 caused by the Mount Carmel wildfire.
To explain this decline in donations, it is mandatory to recognize the lifestyles of political, economic, and demographic trends that have an effect on American Jewish philanthropy. In addition, Israel fits in many tactics to be more socially, politically and religiously conservative. exacerbating issues of discord between many American Jews, who are likely to be more liberal than conservative, and Israel.
Among the most internal disagreements is what conversion to Judaism should require to be identified through the Israeli government, which has implications for foreign Jews to immigrate to Israel and there as citizens.
After “Who is a Jew?” Having been hotly debated in the United States and Israel for over 3 decades, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, granted the Grand Rabbinate, an ultra-Orthodox government establishment, a monopoly on the procedure of conversion to Judaism in the summer of 2017.
This resolution absolutely ruled out Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist conversions, drawing objections from American Jewish leaders. Although Israel later delayed the enactment of the bill, criticism expressed through many American Jews subsided.
Another source of friction between the world’s two largest Jewish communities is the continued efforts of non-Orthodox Jewish denominations to create a prayer area shared by women and men at the Western Wall, a holy site in Israel.
Former US President Donald Trump’s policy toward Israel has deepened this divide, at least because of his resolve to move the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Israel’s increasingly conservative social and devout policies may gradually erode Jewish philanthropy for Israeli causes.
I this trend will only grow, following the passage of a surrogacy law that instituted state aid for surrogacy, excluding gay men seeking to become fathers.
Another moot law would possibly have an even deeper impact. He said that other Jews have the exclusive right to self-determination in Israel. Its passage sparked large protests in Israel and drew objections from some of America’s largest Jewish organizations.
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