from the Forward March 24, 2015 by Nathan Guttman
NOTE: Raises a really good question. Can "ALL" Jews have their voice heard if the group is tilted so far to the right?
It was a gala reminiscent of the good old days of Jewish organizational philanthropy.
When leaders of the Israeli American Council described the new community center they intend to build for Israeli expats in the San Fernando Valley, and the $10 million price tag that comes with it, hands were raised from the audience that gathered in Los Angeles on March 9 at the Beverly Hills Hilton. A $3.6 million pledge was announced, then came a matching pledge of another $3.6, and within minutes the entire project was covered. But the fundraising fête was not done until the group’s key backers, Sheldon Adelson and his Israeli-born wife, Miriam Adelson, added their own pledge: $12 million — an increase from their $10 million gift to the IAC last year.
Jewish organizations, most of them older and more established than the IAC, can only envy such a fundraising night, which ended with $23.5 million in the coffers of an 8-year-old organization set up to serve as a communal voice for Israelis living in America.
Backed with cash flowing in faster than it can be used, The IAC has been growing by leaps and bounds. Alongside the first-ever Israeli-American community center being built in Los Angeles, an Israeli House is scheduled to be inaugurated in Boston on March 30, and a Washington branch is in the final stages of launching, making it the group’s seventh branch nationwide.
The funding, the IAC says proudly, comes entirely from Israeli expats. The outpouring, IAC officials say, defies the common belief that Israelis have excluded themselves from the American Jewish philanthropic world.
“This attempt to create an Israeli-American communal structure is worth noting, and shows that at least some Israelis are starting to internalize the American-Jewish model of voluntary, self-funded, communities,” Yehudah Mirsky of Brandeis University said. But he cautioned, “It will be regrettable if the IAC turns out to have a partisan political orientation, and I think we do already see signs of that.”
The Adelsons’ political donations have made Sheldon Adelson in particular a major player on the right in American and Israeli politics. But Sagi Balasha, the group’s CEO, rejected any claim that funding from the Adelsons has come with any strings attached. “He is a very political person,” Balasha said of Adelson, “but our organization has always been apolitical. There is no pressure on us to identify politically with either side. We represent the Israeli-American community, which has a variety of opinions.”CLICK HERE to keep reading
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/217038/can-israeli-american-council-grow-without-kow-towi/#ixzz3VK941ckA
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