We have been bombarded by articles about the recent decision of the Israeli government to freeze the Kotel Plan to give Reform official access to the Kotel, and to work on a new conversion law that would keep control of geirus with the official Israeli Rabbinate. All the representatives of Reform complained that the actions ignore the desires of "American Jewry" and threatened to lower their level of donations to Israel and even to stop supporting it politically. In truth, their is more sound than substance to the complaints.
An article which was written in 2014 in the Forward magazine estimated the size of donations from the Jewish community in the U.S. at $1.7 billion annually. In 2012, the Cohen Institute of the Brandeis University reported that the size of donations transmitted by American Jewry reached $2.1 billion (where a breakdown of the factors in the study showed that over one quarter of this sum reached the hands of the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Keren Kayemet Fund and the World Zionist Organization - bodies whose identity and influence was mainly directed by the Reform and Conservative groups).
The entire government State budget for this year is NIS 376 billion, well over $100 billion. The entire amount of donations from the U.S. is very small by comparison, considering that the Reform tried to use the money as leverage to affect the general Israeli agenda.
To all of these facts, we can add that as presented in the Reform Book of the Center of Jewish Information only 25% of Reform Jews donate money to the State of Israel, as opposed to 63% of Orthodox Jewry, so that from the aforesaid sum, there is hardly any representation of Reform money. There is no breakdown of the sources of US donations, but it may well be that a majority come from Orthodox donors.
If the Jewish identification and concern disappears from the eyes of the philanthropists of the communities most hurt by the decisions of the government regarding the Kotel, then where, exactly, is their threat that they will stop their donations? A look at the surveys of American Reform organizations reveals that most of their connection and funding here in Israel is to those organizations under their affiliation which work within their anti-religious and in many cases anti-Israel agenda.
Take, for example, the Reform Center for Religion and State which is battling in the High Court and elsewhere against the status quo, presenting numerous petitions geared to harm sensibilities of Jewish sanctity. This center is funded by a Reform judicial body to which various philanthropist donate. In simple words: those philanthropist who were insulted from the government's latest decision, were transferring their money to pay for the Kotel campaign and the Reform conversion issue.
Now that they have failed, they threaten to hold it all up? It is logical, but does not pose a threat to, but rather, an internal reassessment [to them].
It is not only the Kosel campaign and that of Reform conversion which is involved in the money of the Reform. According to a detailed analysis of the Liba Center report, Reform money makes it way to the boycott movements against Israel and for the equality rights of Palestinians and infiltrators. The report shows the financial sources of the "Rabbis for Human Rights Organization" is mainly made up from the Reform. There are 54 Reform communities throughout Israel, and the heads of 17 of them who are members of said organization or pivotal members of it. This organization, which works to help Arabs throughout Judea and Samaria and Gaza, was one of the sources for the infamous Goldstein report which described Zahal's activities in the Gaza Strip as war crimes. This organization even acts in strong connection with the fanatic Taayush organization which operates to convince Palestinians to seize State-owned lands throughout Judea and Samaria. The sources of this organization's financial support, whose budget includes five million shekel annually, also includes the New Israel Fund, funds which mainly support the boycott on Israel and back such boycott, and Palestinian organizations which are connected to terrorist bodies from the United Front. The report says that "Rabbis for Human Rights" actually maintains mutual activities with these Palestinian organizations and have carried on widespread activities in the Negev on behalf of the Bedouins while denouncing Israel and comparing the plan of resettling the Bedouin in the Negev to anti-Semitism in Russia.
