Tens of thousands of dollars pumped into organizations involved in recent anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses originated in the fortune of one of America’s most venerable and politically active Jewish families—one that includes a sitting U.S. congressman and a former contender for ambassador to Jerusalem, and which owes its wealth to the Levi Strauss denim dynasty.
A much-publicized recent report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, an Israeli-backed think tank, ranked the Bafrayung Fund as the single largest sponsor of pro-Palestinian activist groups involved in campus demonstrations and adjacent actions.
The Institute’s tabulations appear to include donations to any organization that has ever supported or promoted pro-Palestinian events, and after The Daily Beast published this story, the organization revised its report to no longer list the Bafrayung Fund as the foremost donor.
Nonetheless, The Daily Beast’s own research confirms that the Bafrayung Fund, based in Covina, California, ranks among the most consistent supporters of the Palestinian Youth Movement, which played a major role in the rash of encampments that spread through U.S. colleges this year. The Fund has also contributed substantially to two of the Palestinian Youth Movement’s allies: the Arab Resource and Organizing Center and Critical Resistance.
...
Behind the Bafrayung Fund is a 33-year-old Bay Area resident, Rachel Gelman, scion of the family behind the Levi Strauss company and cousin to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY). The money for the Bafrayung Fund comes from just two sources: Gelman herself, and the Morningstar Philanthropic Foundation—the personal charity of her parents, a pair of major Democratic Party donors who own a chain of publications catering to East Coast Jewish communities, have been long active in organizations promoting American-Israeli relations, and even got engaged on a kibbutz.
The thread connecting Rachel Gelman to the congressman and to the clothing empire runs through her mother, Susie Gelman, who President Joe Biden appointed last summer to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom after reportedly considering her previously for U.S. ambassador to Israel. Born Susan Goldman, the elder Ms. Gelman’s grandfather was Walter Haas, the businessman who spun up Levi Strauss from a small San Francisco wholesaler into a global denim brand. Her father, Richard Goldman, was the founder of a major insurance concern and made the Forbes billionaire list a few months before he sold the company in 2001. Her late brother, also Richard, was a federal prosecutor and father to the now-U.S. representative.
...
According to a 2013 profile in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Susie Gelman’s involvement in Jewish issues started early, and she met her husband through a youth group of the organization now called the Jewish Federations of North America, in which both would later hold leadership roles. The couple co-owns the Mid-Atlantic Media Group, which publishes the Baltimore Jewish Times, the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, and Washington Jewish Week.
...
But even amid these tensions with the country’s current leadership, the Gelmans have ranked among the biggest bankrollers of the Birthright Israel Foundation, which sponsors free trips for Jewish young adults to Israel—and which she also once chaired.
Meanwhile, the Gelmans have simultaneously bankrolled the Bafrayung Fund, their daughter Rachel’s charity, pouring in $3,470,000 between 2019 and 2022—the last year for which disclosures are available—all from Morningstar Philanthropic, the same outfit through which the Gelmans support Birthright and the Israel Policy Forum.
Bafrayund has in turn disbursed money to a wide range of left-wing causes, including those tied to pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli activism. That includes $60,000 for the Palestinian Youth Movement—doled out in annual earmarked tranches to the group’s sponsor WESPAC—and $40,000 for the Arab Resource and Organizing Center.
The Palestinian Youth Movement extensively chronicled its involvement in the proliferating campus encampments this spring, including the flagship protest at Columbia University.
Meanwhile, the Arab Resource and Organizing Committee has been active in encampments at state schools near its home base in the Bay Area, including at UC Berkeley and, most recently, UC San Francisco.
...
The Bafrayung Fund has also given $298,000 to Critical Resistance, which launched primarily as a prison abolition organization, but more recently has participated in multiple pro-Palestinian events in conjunction with the Palestinian Youth Movement and AROC—including protests that temporarily paralyzed San Francisco Airport, the Bay Bridge, and the Port of Oakland.
...
Other politicians to receive hefty gifts from the Gelmans this cycle include House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Nancy Pelosi—and their nephew, Rep. Dan Goldman, to whose committees they have contributed $23,200.
Rachel Gelman, by contrast, has given nothing to her cousin, but has kicked thousands to two of his left-wing colleagues: Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), both Israel critics.
...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-p...-by-rachel-gelman-despite-family-being-jewish