Abstract
For decades, the philanthropic relationship between American Jews and Israelis remained fairly consistent. Most donated funds flowed from one centralized American organization (United Jewish Appeal) to one centralized Israeli organization (Jewish Agency). The American partners were comfortable deferring to Israelis on how to use the funds they contributed. But starting in the mid-1980s, this relationship began to change dramatically. Hundreds of new American organizations began raising money to support thousands of new Israeli NGOs. In addition, American Jews became less likely to give to centralized bodies, and many Americans began demanding a greater say in the use of their donations. From 1975 to 2007, the portion of American Jewish donations that went to the core Jewish Agency budget dropped from 80% to somewhere between 4-7%.\r Understanding the American Jewish-Israeli philanthropic relationship is important because it explains a lot about both the American Jewish and Israeli communities, as well as how the two communities relate. Yet there has been no study of the developments in the relationship.\r This study addresses some of the key questions surrounding the changes. First, how, why, and into what did the classic patterns of philanthropic partnership change? Second, how do American Jews and Israelis share power in the contemporary philanthropic setting? Since there are so many involved organizations, this study approaches this question by examining the relationship in the context of one sample of 16 Israeli NGOs that all work on the same issue—Jewish settlement in the West Bank and traditionally Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Eight of the NGOs support settlement in some way, and eight oppose it. Through analysis of interviews with key figures affiliated with each of the NGOs, it explores questions of trust, attitudes towards one another, and willingness to accept changes in traditional relationship patterns.\r It concludes by offering some hypotheses on the development of the Israeli third sector, based on observations from the NGOs in the study. It then places findings on philanthropic relationships in a broader historical context, and speculates on how some of the newest developments in the field stand to affect the diaspora philanthropic relationship in the future.