The San Francisco-based Walter and Elise Haas Fund, a major grantmaker to local and national Jewish nonprofits over the past 70 years, is winding down millions of dollars in annual grants focused on what it called “Jewish life.”
The change is part of an overhaul of the fund’s philanthropic approach in the last few years, which includes empowering young adults in the grantmaking decision process.
Now, a $100,000 grant to a San Francisco-based organization known for its strident anti-Zionist activism, chosen by the young adult fellowship, is angering some in the Jewish community, including the Jewish organizations whose funding has ended, or soon will.
The grant to the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) is counter to a central tenet held by the mainstream Jewish community—namely, solid support for Israel, and opposition to those who promote the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
AROC is an unsparing critic of Israel, accusing it of white supremacy, colonialism and, since Oct. 7 of last year, genocide. Its executive director, Lara Kiswani, encouraged activists to help “overcome Zionism” at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit in May.
Naomi Tucker, executive director of Shalom Bayit, the Bay Area’s Jewish domestic violence prevention organization and a recipient of Haas Fund grants since 2001, said the choice to award AROC with a $100,000 grant gives the group more than financial backing. It’s an endorsement of AROC as an organization, she said.
“When you fund them, you are lending credibility,” said Tucker, whose nonprofit received its final $100,000 grant from the Haas Fund earlier this year.
Tucker calls AROC a proponent of violence and hate speech against Jews and Israel.
“We have seen the violence against the Jewish community that they have perpetrated and perpetuated since Oct. 7,” Tucker told J. “I don’t understand how anyone couldn’t see that.”
Tye Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, a multiyear recipient of Haas grants, told J. that the Haas Fund had done a “good job telling the community” that Jewish life grants were ending.
However, he considers the choice to fund AROC as a major “flip” in the fund’s values.
“This foundation went from funding bridge-building and protecting the Jewish future to funding the arsonists trying to burn it down,” he said.
The Haas Fund declined to comment on Jewish community concerns but did affirm its choice about the grants made to AROC and other groups.
“These grants reflect our commitment to bridge-building, inclusion and advancing social justice across diverse communities, demonstrating our ongoing dedication to the values Walter and Elise championed—values that guide every decision we make,” a communications strategist wrote in a Dec. 9 email to J.
The Haas family has deep roots in San Francisco’s Jewish community.
Walter Haas Sr. was president, and later, chairman of Levi Strauss and Co. He joined the company in 1919 after marrying Elise Stern, a relative of Levi Strauss. Walter and Elise Haas were benefactors of the Jewish community, in addition to other causes like the city’s parks and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Walter Haas, who died in 1979, contributed to the Jewish Welfare National Fund, according to the fund’s website, Elise, who died in 1990, became the first female president of the board of directors of Mount Zion Hospital, founded by San Francisco’s Jewish community in 1887.
Since 2019, the Haas Fund granted more than $11 million in the Jewish life category, according to its website.
In November 2023, however, the foundation announced that it would “pause” accepting applications and awarding grants in several areas, including for Jewish life.
“The Fund is undergoing a strategic refresh of its programmatic work and has paused grantmaking in its Arts, Jewish Life and Racial Justice program areas. This year, the Fund awarded $1,580,000 to Jewish organizations and $320,000 to interfaith organizations, including Muslim groups,” the communications strategist told J. in the Dec. 9 email.
In total, the fund “exited” 112 grantees this year in the arts, Jewish life and racial justice categories. The Anti-Defamation League was among them.
“ADL is grateful for the many years of funding,” Marc Levine, director of the organization’s Central Pacific Region, told J. “Its grants have built the foundation upon which we are fighting antisemitism in the crisis we find ourselves in today.”
‘There was tremendous values alignment’
The Haas Fund, likewise, has been a critical financial backer for local and progressive nonprofit organizations, including Wilderness Torah, Jewish Youth for Community Action, Shalom Bayit, Urban Adamah and dozens of other organizations across faiths that align with the Haas Fund’s mission “to help build a healthy, just and vibrant society in which people feel connected to and responsible for their community.”
The fund’s “strategic refresh” has simultaneously included opening “possibility grants” earlier this year, aimed at providing $100,000 to each of 10 Bay Area organizations “deemed essential to building a more just and equitable society and actively working to challenge systems of oppression,” according to a Haas Fund press release.
The fund announced the 10 recipients of its possibility grants in October. The recipients were chosen not by the Haas Fund board but by a small group of Bay Area Youth Fellows described in the press release as individuals ages 18 to 24 “who identify as BIPOC with lived experiences.” (BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous or people of color.)
The fellows reviewed 177 applications, according to an email viewed by J. They ultimately picked a range of organizations with a focus on youth leadership in Bay Area communities, including the Anti-Police Terror Project, the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants, Feed Black Futures, Dads Evoking Change and El/La Para TransLatinas.
They also selected AROC, described in the grant press release as a “grassroots membership-based organization working toward racial and economic justice and the dignity and liberation of Arab and Muslim communities.”
AROC has been at the helm of anti-Israel activism, particularly in Bay Area schools, since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war.
In November 2023, AROC led a “block the boat” protest at the Port of Oakland, rallying against U.S. military aid to Israel and causing a U.S. military vessel to delay its voyage. Last school year, AROC also led Oakland and San Francisco public school students in Gaza solidarity walkouts and teach-ins, upsetting Jewish parents.
The Haas Fund was an early and key funder of Dayenu, a national Jewish nonprofit founded in 2020 that seeks to reverse climate change. Dayenu’s current $300,000 three-year grant ends in 2026.
“One of the things that I really appreciated about their support is that it felt like there was tremendous values alignment,” Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, CEO and founder of Dayenu, told J.
When asked if she thinks the philanthropy’s values have changed, Rosenn, based in New York, said she didn’t have enough information to comment. But she remains hopeful “that even as they’re closing their formal Jewish life program that they will continue to support faith-based social justice work.”
JCRC’s Gregory, meanwhile, said he believes the Haas Fund’s support for AROC signals the beginning of a larger shift at the foundation.
“I’m worried about our work becoming harder because they’re emboldening those trying to undermine us,” he said.
This story originally appeared in J. The Jewish News of Northern California.