Jewish Agency Yanks Funds From Youth Group Over Anti-Occupation Activism
Image by YouTube
By Josh Nathan-Kazis September 19, 2017
The Jewish Agency has cut funding from an Israel trip for young Jews over allegations that trip leaders brought participants to at a leftist protest camp in the West Bank, Haaretz reported.
The Israel trip, called Achvat Amim, is run by the socialist Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair and funded by the Jewish Agency’s MASA program. The trip brought American Jews to volunteer for Israeli-Arab coexistence groups. Last month, a right-wing Israeli organization accused Achvat Amim of taking participants to West Bank protest camp, where they shouted at Israeli soldiers.
Achvat Amim said particpants went to the protest camp on their own. The group’s leader, Daniel Roth, said participants never clashed with Isareli soldiers.
“We face a big challenge these days as a left-wing Zionist organization trying to convince young Jews abroad that it is possible to oppose the occupation and at the same time support Israel,” Hashomer Hatzair secretary general Oren Zukerkorn told Haarets. “If it weren’t for programs like this that target left-wing Jews, these kids would be pushed straight into the hands of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] movement.”
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Dozens of members of UK’s largest Jewish group sign letter condemning war in Gaza
-
Fast Forward Shapiro house fire suspect targeted Jewish governor over pro-Israel stances, search warrant says
-
Fast Forward Jewish family killed in New York plane crash
-
Fast Forward Israelis can no longer enter the Maldives after Palestinian-solidarity ban goes into effect
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Dozens of members of UK’s largest Jewish group sign letter condemning war in Gaza
-
Culture Actor Ben Platt says his Jewish identity is ‘not defined’ by Israel, showing a gap between him and his influential family
-
Fast Forward Shapiro house fire suspect targeted Jewish governor over pro-Israel stances, search warrant says
-
Fast Forward Jewish family killed in New York plane crash
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.