(JTA) — A foundation managed by the San Francisco Jewish federation once funded Canary Mission, a secretive blacklist of anti-Israel students, according to a Forward expose.
San Francisco’s Jewish Community Federation said the funding was a one-time grant of $100,000 made in 2016. The funding came from the Helen Diller Family Foundation, a private foundation managed by the federation, and was sent via the Central Fund of Israel, an organization that funds right-wing pro-Israel initiatives, according to the Forward.
The Jewish Community Federation has since determined that the Central Fund of Israel does not comply with its funding guidelines. The federation will not be directing grants to Canary Mission in the future, according to J., the city’s Jewish newspaper.
The Diller Foundation is best known in the Jewish world for working with Jewish youth and sponsoring a fellowship program for teens focused on Jewish leadership and social action.
“A one-time grant was made in 2016 by the Helen Diller Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Federation, to the Central Fund of Israel and earmarked to support the work of the Canary Mission,” the statement Wednesday said, according to J. “In 2017, we strengthened the implementation of our review process and determined that the Central Fund of Israel is not in compliance with our guidelines … Both the Helen Diller Family Foundation and the Federation will not support the Canary Mission in the future.”
Canary Mission says that it “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” Critics have accused it of seeking to intimidate pro-Palestinian college students and stifle their activism with the threat of a blacklist.
In April, a coalition of pro-Israel students wrote in JTA that the website “is antithetical to our democratic and Jewish values, is counterproductive to our efforts and is morally reprehensible.”
Israeli border control officers have used information from the site to bar activists from entering the country, according to Haaretz. The Israeli daily reported Thursday that the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry sent a report to Ben Gurion Airport officials with information from Canary Mission that they used to bar an activist from entering Israel.
Canary Mission does not reveal who funds it or manages its activity.
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