Letters
“I will be using a different donor advised fund…”
Thank you for your excellent article about Operation Israel. (“Fair Lawn-based Operation Israel gets protective equipment to the IDF” by Leah Adler; September 11, 2025.) It inspired me to contribute to them. I attempted to do so via Fidelity Charitable, a donor-advised fund.
To my surprise, Fidelity Charitable declined the grant recommendation, stating that it did not meet their criteria, which includes, “Any other reason determined in the sole discretion of the Trustees.” In other words, for any reason or for no reason at all.
After my insisting on an explanation, Fidelity Charitable responded that the Trustees determined that, “directly or indirectly supporting armed conflict is not considered a charitable purpose” and Operation Israel’s provision of protective and life-saving gear was deemed to be support of armed conflict.
I learned from Operation Israel that there are at least 12 donor advised funds that do make grants to them, including funds associated with Schwab, Vanguard, and Bank of America.
I decided to conduct an experiment. I found an excellent organization, United Help Ukraine, that does many of the same things for Ukraine that Operation Israel does for Israel. Their website includes the following description of their Defender’s Aid Program:
“… provides supplies such as boots, helmets, protective equipment, and tactical first aid kits… In addition, UHU donates thermal wear, drones, radios, generators, satellite communications devices, and evacuation vehicles for those on the frontlines.”
I submitted a grant recommendation for United Help Ukraine, which was promptly approved.
I can’t know with certainty why a charity supporting Ukraine’s defenders was approved and a similar one supporting Israel’s defenders was not. What I can say with certainty is that Fidelity Charitable’s stated criteria are unpublished and are applied inconsistently. Perhaps there is another, unstated reason.
I will be using a different donor advised fund in the future.
Steven Lerman
Fair Lawn
Shocked by a story
It was with shock and dismay that I read Curt Schleier’s article about Sari Bashi (“Why it was hard to finish this story,” July 3) who claims that Israel was established by forcibly taking over the land in 1948 and throwing out those who were there first. Bashi, who is Jewish and married a Muslim, also thinks Israel should be an equally Jewish and Muslim State but not a Jewish one. He attributed his reluctance to do the interview and spread her version of history until he was reminded about his grandparents who were Holocaust victims and whose fatal mistake was that they refused to believe the Nazis would not bother us and would not leave Switzerland when they had the chance. He then goes on to say that we should not make the same mistake again, incredulously comparing what the Nazis did to the Jews to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and standing up for what is right. And then it gets worse. He then ponders, “ Is Israel really a Jewish state, not to my Tikkun Olam sense of Judaism.”
The comparison of the Nazis to the Israeli settlers is abhorrent, and using it as a justification to highlight Bashi’s perversion of history is horrific enough. The notion that Israel should not be a Jewish State because he believes there are some abuses of Palestinian civil rights is a page out of the Mamdami, and the Pro-Palestinian anti- Israel playbook. Look at how well Jews have done under Arab rule or the fact that the majority of Palestinians want a one-State solution (theirs- not ours) and the fact that the majority here and in Israel support Hamas.
As a son of survivors, and with grandparents who were killed in the Shoah, I can’t imagine how a son of survivors can spread such anti-Israel rhetoric or publicize the words of others with that point of view as well. Had Israel existed as a sovereign Jewish state before the Shoah, millions of lives may have been saved. He then says that events in Israel effect him here and asks if we feel squeamish wearing a kippah in public. I, for one, wear mine proudly every day. This is not Tikkun Olam, this is Jewish suicide and has no place in a pro-Israel newspaper.
Steve Fox, Chair, Northern NJ Holocaust Memorial & Education Center
Teaneck
Curt Schleier responds:
Steve Fox conflates different parts of my article to make points that completely misrepresent what I wrote. So let me try to set the record straight.
1. I read Ms. Bashi’s book, which I described as a romcom if it were written by Mel Brooks but directed by Martin Scorsese. I zoomed with her twice to discuss her views about a Middle East future without a Jewish state, views I found so abhorrent that I was going to drop the story. That’s when I was reminded of the story about my grandparents, and their decision to ignore everything going on around them, believing they wouldn’t be impacted. So I wrote about the interview.
We can’t bury our heads in the sand and make believe everything is all right. Jews and Jewish institutions all over the world are coming under attack, and my point — I thought clearly made — is that ignoring the threat is dangerous.
2. Second, I said we must also be aware that Israel is functioning less and less like a Jewish state. And by that I mean in a tikkun olam, repair the world way. The charedim attacking police and settlers attacking West Bank farms does not fit my definition — or Hillel’s — of what Judaism is.
3. I never compared the settlers to Nazis. Mr. Fox did that. I get daily reports from four Israeli newspapers and at least three or four days a week there are stories of settlers uprooting trees in Arab orchards, killing livestock, burning homes and cars, physically assaulting Palestinians, always with impunity and often with the help of government forces. I wonder, Mr. Fox, does that not sound a little like Kristallnacht?
4. Wearing a kippa here in North Jersey is not really a sign of bravery. Bravery is standing up for what’s right, even when it hurts the ones you love.