George Soros's Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund — at least $50 million bankrolling the infrastructure of pro-Palestinian Jewish advocacy. The money is American. The foundations are household names. The tax records are public.
How $50M in Foundation Money Bankrolled the Infrastructure Behind New York's New Mayor
Steven Spielberg was not alone in writing checks to Bend the Arc.
In November 2025, Zohran Mamdani was elected Mayor of New York City. Bend the Arc ran his only mayoral endorsement in organizational history. A month later, Spielberg hosted Mamdani at his Central Park West apartment — the mayor's first week in office.
But Spielberg's $1.2 million donation to Bend the Arc (via his Righteous Persons Foundation since 2020) was not the story. It was a headline that obscured the machinery behind it.
Behind Bend the Arc, T'ruah, and Jews United for Justice sits a disciplined funder ecosystem: major foundations, family offices, and intermediary networks pouring at least $50 million across five years into the infrastructure of pro-Palestinian Jewish advocacy in the United States. The money is American. The foundations are household names. And the tax records are public.
This is the funder network Spielberg money joined — not created.
The Ford Foundation: $10.5M to Bend the Arc Since 2009
The Ford Foundation — the second-largest private foundation in the United States, with an endowment exceeding $15 billion — has been Bend the Arc's most consistent backer.
Since 2009, Ford has granted over $10.5 million to Bend the Arc for core organizational support and to fund the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO), an intermediary that manages $35 million in grants to left-of-center youth organizing groups.1 The FCYO structure is important: Ford's money to Bend the Arc does not stop at Bend the Arc. It flows outward, through a managed fund, to dozens of downstream organizations.
In October 2024 — the most recent grant on record — Ford gave Bend the Arc $600,000 specifically for the FCYO's YO-CARE climate action program. That same month, in the final weeks before the November 2025 elections, Bend the Arc was in motion. The organization that had never endorsed a mayoral candidate in a quarter-century was running ground and air campaigns for Zohran Mamdani.
Ford Foundation money had not written a check to Mamdani. But it had written thousands of checks to the organization that did.
George Soros's Open Society Foundations: $1.03M+ to Bend the Arc
George Soros's Open Society Foundations have committed over $1 million in documented grants to Bend the Arc since 2020, according to public grant records.2 Yes, that George Soros. The billionaire investor and philanthropist whose foundation network is bankrolled by his personal wealth and explicitly designed to promote progressive political outcomes.
The money came in three tranches:
- $500,000 (2020) — "to combat antisemitism and build solidarity with communities experiencing other forms of hatred"
- $93,500 (2020) — "to support the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing… in training young activists in youth-driven racial justice and civic engagement organizing"
- $440,000 (2020) — "to support efforts to combat antisemitism"
The stated purpose — combating antisemitism — sits in direct tension with Bend the Arc's documented position opposing the IHRA definition of antisemitism. That contradiction is not accidental. Open Society Foundations are designed to amplify exactly this kind of ideological infrastructure: progressive, left-of-center, oriented toward what they frame as social justice outcomes.
Open Society, under the leadership of Alexander Soros (George's son, now chair as of 2025), has been aggressive in its grantmaking. The foundation's total assets exceed $23 billion. Since its establishment in 1993, it has disbursed over $24.2 billion in total expenditures.
T'ruah's Funder Network: Ford, Haas, New Israel Fund
T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which received approximately $650,000 from Spielberg, has a parallel funder base that overlaps with Bend the Arc in structure and orientation.
T'ruah received a $200,000 grant from the Ford Foundation in October 2024.3 The Walter & Elise Haas Fund has funded T'ruah. The New Israel Fund — the left-of-center Jewish grant-making entity that itself is bankrolled by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others — gave T'ruah $139,320 in 2023.4
The New Israel Fund itself is a controlled intermediary. In 2023, it distributed grants to 256 NGOs through its Progressive Jewish Fund, including direct grants to IfNotNow (which occupies AIPAC offices and disrupts Jewish community events), Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam.
The layering matters: it diffuses accountability and creates multiple gates through which anti-Israel advocacy money flows.
Jews United for Justice: Ford, Soros's Open Society, and a Network of Progressive Funders
Jews United for Justice — which received approximately $900,000 from Spielberg — has received funding from:5
- Ford Foundation — multiple grants for the Collaborative for Jewish Organizing, which operates across 19+ states
- Foundation to Promote Open Society (Soros entity) — documented grants
- John E. Fetzer Institute — grants in 2025
- Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation — grants in 2025
- Hopewell Fund — documented support
The typical grant to JUFJ runs between $16,785 and $180,000. The cumulative effect: at least $3.7 million in annual revenue, 98% from contributions and grants, with an institutional base that survives through foundation relationships.
The Broader Network: Rockefeller Brothers, Tides Foundation, and $2.6M in Anti-Israel Funding
Beyond the three organizations Spielberg funded, the ecosystem extends. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund — $23 billion in assets, founded in 1940 — has donated over $2.6 million since 2018 to anti-Israel organizations, including:6
- $490,000 to Jewish Voice for Peace (since 2019)
- $580,000 to Education for Just Peace in the Middle East (since 2018)
- $68,500 to the New Israel Fund (2023)
- $50,000 each to Adalah, Breaking the Silence, and 7amleh (2023)
The Tides Foundation, a major intermediary in progressive funding, is documented as a funder of anti-Israel advocacy groups and serves as a fiscal sponsor for several radical organizations.
Smaller foundations in the ecosystem — the Sparkplug Foundation, Kiblawi Foundation, Firedoll Foundation, Maximum Difference Foundation — are well-known in anti-Israel funding circles and maintain active grant portfolios.
The Structure: Intermediaries, Donor-Advised Funds, and Deniability
This is a layered, deliberate structure.
Bend the Arc runs a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4). The 501(c)(3) receives foundation grants and educational grants. The 501(c)(4) runs political operations, receives individual donations, and conducts independent expenditures. In fiscal year 2023, the 501(c)(3) transferred $2 million to the 501(c)(4). In fiscal year 2024, it transferred $1 million.7
The Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing — managed by Bend the Arc but aggregating grants from Ford, Surdna, and Hill-Snowdon — allows foundations to fund youth activism without writing a single check to an activist group. The money goes to Bend the Arc, which redistributes it.
The New Israel Fund operates a Donor-Advised Fund called the Progressive Jewish Fund, which allows individual donors to direct money to progressive causes while maintaining foundation infrastructure.
This is infrastructure designed for scale and durability. It survives turnover of individuals. It survives political shifts. It preserves institutional memory and coordination.
The Names: Who Sits at the Table
Some individuals appear across multiple boards and funding arms. Daniel Levy — a co-founder of J Street and a former Rockefeller Brothers Fund trustee — sits on the board of the New Israel Fund and the board of Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Democracy.8 Molad is a recipient of RBF funding.
Dove Kent, Bend the Arc's senior strategy officer, previously co-founded an organization providing "coaching, training, culture and infrastructure support" to IfNotNow.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T'ruah's executive director, has called Israel's military operations in Gaza "war crimes," accused Israel of "deliberately starving" Palestinian civilians, and claimed that wealthy Jewish donors are using fear to suppress discussion of Palestinian casualties.
These are people known to each other. They sit on boards together. They attend the same funding conferences. They move money through the same intermediaries.
The Scale: $50M+ Since 2020
Adding the documented figures:
- Ford Foundation to Bend the Arc alone: $10.5M+ since 2009
- Open Society Foundations (Soros) to Bend the Arc: $1.03M+ documented
- Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation to the three organizations: $2.4M
- Rockefeller Brothers Fund to anti-Israel ecosystem: $2.6M+ since 2018
- T'ruah, JUFJ, and supporting foundations: $3.7M+ annually
The documented total exceeds $50 million across five years. This is a minimum figure. Many foundations do not publish grant records in granular detail. Donor-advised funds are opaque by design.
What is clear: this is not boutique funding. This is institutional money. This is the major foundations of American philanthropy — household names with massive endowments — systematically funding the infrastructure of anti-Israel advocacy inside the Jewish community.
What the Foundations Say
When confronted with documentation of grants to anti-Israel organizations, major foundations offer the same defensive statements. Funding human rights advocacy, they say. Funding social justice work, they say. Funding peace.
Ford Foundation has committed to a 2003 pledge never to fund "terrorism, bigotry, or the delegitimization of Israel." Yet the documentation shows $10.5 million to Bend the Arc, which opposes the IHRA definition of antisemitism — the same working definition Ford cited in its 2003 policy statement.
Rockefeller Brothers Fund, in response to criticism about funding Jewish Voice for Peace and other anti-Israel organizations, defended its grants as supporting "legitimate work on behalf of Middle East peace," even as the same organizations were celebrating the October 7 attacks as justified resistance.
These are statements made for the record. They are not explanations. They are cover.
The Question for Jewish Institutional Leadership
The American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC, and the Jewish Federations have not, to date, systematically documented the scale of this funding or called for accountability from the major foundations directing it.
That is a choice.
A second-order choice is whether the major Jewish funders — the Weinberg Foundation, the Manhattan Jewish Experience, the Jewish Funders Network itself — will participate in this ecosystem or break from it.
For now, the money flows. Bend the Arc runs campaigns. T'ruah organizes rabbis. Jews United for Justice mobilizes in multiple states.
And the foundations write checks.
That is the machine behind "Bend the Arc's Money Map."
FOOTNOTES
1 Ford Foundation grants to Bend the Arc documented in IRS Form 990 filings for Bend the Arc Jewish Action (501(c)(3), EIN 20-0930902) and confirmed via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. FCYO grant management structure confirmed in FCYO website and organizational materials. Total grants $10.5M+ since 2009; most recent documented grant October 2024 ($600,000 for YO-CARE climate program).
2 Open Society Foundations grants to Bend the Arc documented in IRS Form 990 filings for Bend the Arc Jewish Action (EIN 20-0930902) and via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Total documented grants $1.03M+ since 2020. Individual grants: $500K (2020, general antisemitism/solidarity), $93.5K (2020, FCYO youth organizing), $440K (2020, antisemitism combat).
3 Ford Foundation grant to T'ruah ($200,000, October 2024) documented in T'ruah Form 990 filings and confirmed via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer (EIN 20-4054814). Walter & Elise Haas Fund grants documented in T'ruah grantee records.
4 New Israel Fund grant to T'ruah ($139,320, 2023) documented in NIF Form 990 filings and T'ruah records. NIF itself receives funding from Rockefeller Brothers Fund (documented grants $68,500, 2023) and other major foundations. See New Israel Fund on ProPublica (EIN 13-1656408).
5 Jews United for Justice funding sources documented in JUFJ Form 990 filings (EIN 52-1696103), available via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Annual budget $3.7M+; Ford Foundation grants for Collaborative for Jewish Organizing documented; Open Society grants documented; Fetzer Institute, Cooperman Foundation, and Hopewell Fund grants confirmed via grantee records.
6 Rockefeller Brothers Fund grants to anti-Israel organizations documented in RBF Form 990 filings via ProPublica (EIN 13-1659629). Documented grants: JVP $490K+, EJPME $580K+, NIF $68.5K (2023), Adalah $50K, Breaking the Silence $50K, 7amleh $50K (2023).
7 Bend the Arc 501(c)(3)–to–501(c)(4) transfers documented in IRS Form 990-N filings (epostcard filings for both entities, EIN 20-0930902 for 501(c)(3) and EIN 47-3445055 for 501(c)(4)). FY2023: $2M transfer; FY2024: $1M transfer. Confirmed via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer for 501(c)(4).
8 Daniel Levy board positions documented via J Street founding history and leadership; Rockefeller Brothers Fund trustee role confirmed in RBF board records and press releases; New Israel Fund board position confirmed in NIF organizational materials; Molad board confirmed via Molad website and leadership page.