When Portland charities condemned Israel, Jewish philanthropy was put to the test

This Passover, Rabbi Michael Cahana urged his congregation to use the portion of the seder commemorating the bread of affliction to “call out the hunger of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”

Such a message “reflects the values of this congregation, of this community,” Cahana, who serves Congregation Beth Israel in Portland, Oregon, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The fact that civilians are suffering in wartime is real and terrible, and I think it’s important that we, as a Jewish community, recognize that suffering.”

Two weeks later, the Oregon Food Bank — which, for years, has received financial and other forms of support from the congregation — drafted its own statement about hunger in Gaza. This one called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war; accused Israel of perpetuating a “war against Palestine,” and said the Israeli military was “indiscriminately” targeting bakeries, aid workers and hospitals, along with otherwise hindering relief efforts in the region. 

While the draft did not accuse Israel outright of genocide, a common allegation among pro-Palestinian activists, it referenced “colonial ideologies” and said the food bank would work “to keep policymakers accountable and press them to refrain from enacting foreign policies that contribute to genocide, warfare, famine, and hunger.” 

Beth Israel congregants, who knew their synagogue had organized funding drives for the food bank, were outraged. Cahana was, too: the food bank’s words, he thought, failed to account for Hamas and evinced little of the empathy for all victims of war his own Passover message had sought to convey. Even after conversations with the local federation, the food bank refused to significantly change its statement. 

In response, a dozen Portland Jewish groups — including the federation, several synagogues including Beth Israel, and a Jewish family service group — decided in late May to cut off their support. Today they’re funding other local hunger groups instead, at least two of which are Jewish-run. 

“From our point of view, it seems like you’re targeting this particular conflict because you want to demonize Israel,” Bob Horenstein, director of Portland’s Jewish Community Relations Council, told JTA. “That’s the impact of what they’re doing.” 

The food bank is not the first Portland charity to lose financial support from a Jewish group as a result of a statement on Gaza. Hygiene4All, a nonprofit that runs a small center providing sanitation, basic medical supplies and other needs to the city’s homeless population, voluntarily removed itself as a beneficiary of a Jewish communal fund drive earlier this year. The fund had expressed objections to Hygiene4All’s Feb. 5 statement that called for “an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the end of the genocide against Palestinian people, and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.” 

Taken together, the incidents point to a growing concern in Jewish philanthropy circles since Oct. 7: that the rise of a “statement culture” around the Israel-Hamas war, in which a range of organizations regardless of mission are taking positions on the issue, is fraying relationships between Jews and non-Jews in institutions across the country. 

Jewish groups have a responsibility, Cahana said, to make sure the causes they’re supporting align with their values. Yet pulling funds over such statements, in turn, can have the effect of feeding into pernicious antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish power and influence around Israel, and could even hurt the marginalized communities Jews set out to help.

“This is a sad situation,” Cahana said. “Because it’s unnecessary.”

With the food bank, the Jewish groups objected to two main points: the fact that this was the first time the charity had issued a stance on an international issue, and the specific accusations the statement made against Israel. 

Jewish leaders questioned why the food bank has said nothing about ongoing famine in Sudan or Syria — the latter of which, the federation said, affected “thousands of Palestinians.” They also believed it was inappropriate for the food bank to accuse Israel of “intentional” targeting of aid workers, hospitals and sources of food. (As a humanitarian crisis has intensified in Gaza, aid groups and international bodies have accused Israel of hindering the delivery of aid as a policy, and Israeli strikes have killed aid workers. Israel has apologized for those strikes, which it says were accidental, and insists it is doing everything possible to deliver aid to the enclave.)

The federation met with senior staff at the food bank both before and after the statement’s publication in the hopes of compelling the group to soften it. 

“Just stay out of it,” Horenstein, whose group is affiliated with the federation, said they told the food bank. “Stay in your lane. Your lane is to address hunger and the root causes of hunger.”

But they feel their calls went unheeded. “They completely ignored our concerns,” he said. 

Federation CEO Marc Blattner, during a recent address following the federation’s annual meeting, said, “We viewed this statement as a one-sided attack on Israel.”

The food bank sees it differently. Susannah Morgan, the charity’s president, told JTA in a statement that they “took into consideration the diversity of viewpoints” expressed by groups including the federation before issuing their final statement.

“We experience grief when some of our donors determine they can no longer support our mission,” Morgan said. “For us, it is a moment of disagreement — and we continue holding space and possibility for relationship with these organizations and community members here at OFB.” 

From Cahana’s perspective, the food bank was out of line. And by refusing to alter its statement beyond incorporating a mention of the Oct. 7 attacks, the charity seemed more committed to its Gaza stance than it was to maintaining a relationship with the Jewish community. 

“If you’re going to ask for the involvement of the Jewish community, recognizing that this is going to be read in a way that’s problematic, and then not incorporate any of those suggestions, or incorporate them in such a way that they felt like just an add-on and not really addressing the core issue, that felt very insulting,” he said.

For the Jewish groups, the disagreement was too pointed to keep private. “We decided at that point to publicize what they were doing,” Horenstein said. The result was a letter sent at the end of May, titled “A Jewish Statement to the Oregon Food Bank.” It was signed by a dozen groups, who also pledged to redirect their dollars toward other local food-based charities that had not taken a similar stance on the conflict. 

“We maintain a commitment to the mission of eliminating hunger in Oregon, and its root causes,” the letter said. “But we cannot see how calling on one party of a conflict thousands of miles away to commit to a ceasefire, while allowing the terror organization that broke the ceasefire to continue to flourish on its borders, helps eliminate hunger in Oregon.”

Some individual Jewish donors to the food bank also, separately, rescinded their support over the statement, according to multiple local Jewish leaders. It was an outcome that the federation hadn’t sought, but isn’t particularly motivated to reverse.

“We never told people, ‘Don’t donate.’ That was never our intention. We decided people can make up their own minds,” Horenstein said. But, he said, “the fact that they’ve lost some major support from within our own community — you know, we’re not crying about that.”

The Hygiene4All breakup was more amicable. The group was originally included as one of six beneficiaries of a homelessness-focused funding campaign spearheaded this year by the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, a local philanthropic venture. In an accompanying Q&A on the foundation’s website, Hygiene4All director Sandra Comstock thanked them for their “generous” support and said the money would go toward staff wages, the purchase of items such as tents and sleeping bags, and a newsletter spotlighting “BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled focused stories.”

But then Hygiene4All posted its statement to Instagram. In addition to accusing Israel of genocide, it also apologized for being “120 days late” — indicating that members believed the day after the Oct. 7 attacks would have been the appropriate time to call for a ceasefire. 

Soon after, both groups told JTA, the foundation contacted Hygiene4All with concerns about its statement. In response, Hygiene4All volunteered to remove itself from the funding drive; information about the group was scrubbed from the foundation’s website.

Both groups now say they are pursuing “a different type of collaboration” that will involve further dialogue between the boards. “We are grateful for the opportunity to engage in deeper discussion with H4A and our community members around important issues and hope those discussions will lead to a collaborative effort for improving the world,” Rachael Evans, director of stewardship for the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, told JTA in a statement.

Comstock described this new relationship as “one where unpressured, thoughtful, carefilled [sic] conversation might deepen trust and broaden common ground and mutual commitment in the longer term.” 

These issues come as Jews in Portland are experiencing heightened tensions with a local community that’s known for progressive stances and is fired up over the war. Concerns have arisen over a teachers’ union’s intense pro-Palestinian advocacy, and in the spring, activists extensively damaged a library at Portland State University. 

In response to blowback, the food bank has held steadfast to its statement, arguing that since they believe Gazans are facing an increasingly likely prospect of famine, it is well within the organization’s mission to denounce Israel’s conduct in the war. 

The charity also said it has received “overwhelming support” since news of the dispute broke, and it has encouraged its supporters to also give to the World Central Kitchen, an aid group distributing food in Gaza. A few of the group’s workers were killed in an Israeli military strike in April.

Morgan said that, despite the exits of some donors, “the financial losses have not been significant” and the food bank is calling on its community “to redirect their support to the people of Gaza who, unfortunately, are facing full-blown famine.” 

The anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, meanwhile, launched a fundraising effort for the food bank. “The OFB called for a ceasefire and was attacked by some members of the Zionist community here in Portland,” JVP’s Portland chapter wrote on Instagram. In a follow-up post, the group called the Jewish community’s stance “unconscionable and punitive to the most vulnerable members of our community,” adding, “The Jewish Federation does not speak for all Jews in Portland.” 

A letter spearheaded by JVP supporting the food bank has been signed by hundreds of people and groups, including the rabbi of Havurah Shalom, a local Reconstructionist congregation.

In his June 7 community address, Blattner, the federation executive, defended the decision by describing a recent phone call with a critic of Israel.

“During my conversation with one person who called expressing their anger, I asked, ‘Are you a contributor to the Jewish Federation?’” he recalled. “They replied, ‘No, I do not like your support for Israel so I give to other Jewish causes.’ I then responded, ‘So why is our choice to look at other food organizations any different?’ They just hung up.” 

Horenstein acknowledged that pulling support from a food bank might not paint the Jewish groups in the best light. 

“To the person who doesn’t understand what’s going on, are the optics not favorable to us? Yeah, that’s probably true,” he said. “But at some point, when an organization crosses a red line — and this was a red line for us — then we have to be who we are, and we have to stand up for principle.”

The Jewish groups have pledged to redirect their support to other local food charities, some of which were founded by Jews — including Stone Soup PDX, named after a Jewish folktale about food insecurity. That group’s co-founder, Craig Gerard, told JTA that he has not seen a significant difference in funding from the Jewish community since the food bank controversy. He noted that Stone Soup has seen large support from the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation’s current campaign, which still lists the group as one of five remaining beneficiaries.

Cahana said that Beth Israel’s work to redirect funding began “immediately,” and that he has already had conversations with another local food organization, Urban Gleaners, about sending donations to them. Like Stone Soup PDX, Urban Gleaners was founded by a Beth Israel congregant.

Yet there was one important matter to settle before he could approve redirecting fundraising dollars to them. Cahana had to ask the head of Urban Gleaners “if they had any plans about making public statements about international events.”