Senior Israeli spiritual leaders called Sunday for all organizations that receive donations from the New Israel Fund (NIF) to boycott the fund and refuse its money.
The NIF is known to support organizations and initiatives aimed at westernizing Israeli society and diluting the state’s Jewish character. In recent years, the fund has begun targeting Israel’s more traditional sectors in what many see as an effort to neutralize opposition to its agenda.
For years, a cultural conflict has raged in Israeli society between the state’s westernized ruling class – often supported by foreign governments and sources of funding – and the public more deeply connected to the Jewish people’s ancient values and way of life. Most Israelis tend to see themselves as between these camps and while the elites still control the media, courts, academia and law enforcement, their opposition has been growing stronger in both the military and Knesset.
While experts predict that factors like a disproportionately high birthrate and stronger ideological commitment have all but assured ultimate victory to Israel’s more traditional sectors, the NIF has begun to fund organizations and movements at the periphery of more nationalist and traditional communities for what many understand to be attempts at promoting western ideas within those societies.
Last week, the Ḥotam organization produced a video warning of the NIF’s infiltration into Israel’s national-religious community.
In a public letter, leading rabbis made clear the danger NIF poses to Israeli society and cautioned organizations who receive money from the fund to sever all ties.
“A comprehensive study recently conducted by the Ḥotam organization has come to our attention. It shows how there are forces and organizations that are working to weaken the Jewishness of the state and its spiritual and moral strength in a consistent and premeditated manner, even within the national-religious public, and in effect to bring about a process that will ultimately erode the Jewish identity of the State of Israel.”
“Therefore, there is a great obligation to reveal to the public all these grave facts and intentions, and not to leave them hidden from their eyes, so that the goals of these organizations’ actions are clear and the public knows how to treat them and beware of them.”
The letter was signed by senior Rabbis Zvi Tau, Dov Lior, David Ḥai HaKohen, Shmuel Eliyahu, Shlomo Aviner, David Dudkevitch, Yigal Kaminetzky and Shlomo Levi, who praised the activists exposing the work of NIF-funded groups.
