A prominent Jewish Chicago-area Democratic donor and philanthropist lamented rising anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism after a progressive Illinois congressional candidate issued a public statement saying he would reject the donor’s contribution to his campaign due to his ties to AIPAC.

Union organizer Anthony Driver Jr. is running in Illinois’s 7th Congressional District, on a platform critical of Israel and in opposition to AIPAC. He said in a statement that he would return a contribution by Michael Sacks, a local Jewish, pro-Israel philanthropist and Democratic donor who had been a prominent supporter of former President Barack Obama and close ally to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Sacks also chaired the 2024 Democratic National Convention host committee and raised nearly $100 million to put on the convention.

“Michael Sacks has supported community violence intervention work in Chicago for years. I served nearly four years as President of the Chicago Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, helping advance real public safety reform,” Driver said. “The first time I heard about any link between Michael Sacks and AIPAC was on the debate stage. As I said on that same stage, I will return the contribution.”

Sacks, in response, pointed to public anti-Israel and antisemitic currents as pushing Driver, who has been endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, to take such a position.

“It is truly sad there is so much anti-Israel sentiment and outright Jew hate that Anthony found himself in this position,” Sacks said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune. “I can only hope that the electorate rejects hate in all forms.”

Sacks said he asked Driver to contribute the donations to a community violence prevention group of his choosing, calling Driver a “pragmatic [progressive]” and praising his work on violence reduction.

On the campaign trail, Driver has railed against AIPAC and spending by its super PAC, supporting one of his rivals, Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. Conyears-Ervin faced attacks by several of her opponents about her support from AIPAC’s super PAC during a candidate forum last week.

Driver also states on his campaign website that he supports efforts to restrict offensive weapons transfers to Israel, including the Block the Bombs Act, and the recognition of Palestinian right of return.

Driver’s unwillingness to even accept support from a pro-Israel donor underscores the deepening hostility to Israel and its supporters in certain Democratic circles. As part of their anti-Israel campaign, progressives are working to make campaign contributions from individuals who have supported pro-Israel causes unacceptable — even if they haven’t been directly connected with AIPAC. 

Benjamin Landa, a New York businessman and the son of a Holocaust survivor, was nominated in October to be the U.S. ambassador to Hungary — a delicate assignment given tensions over the U.S.’ relationship with the country.

Landa, 69, is a yeshiva graduate and well-known philanthropist supporting Jewish, Israeli and other causes, including as founder of the Chabad of Port Washington. His father, Yehoshua Boruch Landa, served as a rabbi in prewar Czechoslovakia and survived the Nazi regime, but most of his family, who resided in Hungary, were killed in the Holocaust, according to Newsday. 

“My father, despite all the horrors he went through, he never lost his humanity, he never lost his sense of humor,” Landa told the New York Post. “It taught me the idea of resilience and starting from scratch – starting all over from the depths of hell to rise like a phoenix and that was my father – he never gave up.”

He’s also been a prominent donor to Republican political causes, and met in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump and advisor Roger Stone earlier this year. Landa was reportedly actively pursuing the role during that White House meeting.

He also met with right-wing Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir during the Israeli official’s visit to the United States in April.

But Landa’s confirmation process could be a tricky one — for multiple reasons. 

Landa and his business, SentosaCare, have been dogged by a series of scandals. Nursing homes affiliated with Landa’s company have repeatedly faced fines, violations and complaints over allegations of insufficient care, among other issues. A federal judge ruled in 2019 that Landa and his business partner had violated human trafficking laws, using threats to coerce more than 200 nurses to remain in their jobs. 

In 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Landa, various business partners and a nursing home of which he was a part owner for “repeated and persistent fraud and illegality … including but not limited to violating several laws designed to protect nursing home residents and cutting necessary staffing in order to further enrich the owners and their families.”

Landa has disputed such allegations and sued media outlets that have alleged wrongdoing or mistreatment of patients in the past. Some lawmakers may bring up the scandals at Landa’s as-yet-unscheduled confirmation hearing.

Additionally, while the Trump administration and other conservatives have forged close relationships with Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, other Republicans have been deeply critical of Orbán and his government, particularly due to the Hungarian leader’s hostility to NATO and the Ukraine war.

In 2023, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blocked arms sales to Hungary over its refusal to approve Sweden’s entry into NATO.

Landa could face questions at his hearing on how he’ll navigate that relationship and work to persuade Hungary to cooperate with the U.S. on Ukraine and other priorities.

Donor-advised funds, with assets totaling over $115 billion, are rapidly growing as a popular vehicle for American charitable giving. Tapping into that momentum, the New Israel Fund has created the Progressive Jewish Fund (PJF) in part to make it possible for politically liberal Jews to make philanthropic donations to organizations that are often not included by major American Jewish organizations and local federations.

The NIF’s PJF is an attempt to provide an alternative funding avenue for funders who want to make contributions to groups, such as the progressive activist group IfNotNow, which are deemed too controversial by some Jewish federations, many of which operate their own donor-advised funds. Among donor advised funds “there are Jewish funds, there are progressive funds but there are no progressive Jewish funds,” said Jennifer Spitzer, NIF’s vice president of finance and operations, and manager of the new donor-advised fund. “We want to be the organization that provides a national Jewish progressive home.”

“Donor advised funds are the most popular charitable giving vehicle in the U.S,” Spitzer noted  The world’s first donor-advised funds were created by and housed in community foundations and Jewish Federations in the 1930s; national donor-advised fund programs emerged in the 1990s.

Assets in U.S. donor-advised funds jumped by more than $20 million between 2016 and 2017, according to a report issued last year by the National Philanthropic Trust, a public charity that runs its own donor-advised fund and conducts research in the field. Contributions to donor-advised funds and money disbursed to charities grew by about 20 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to NPT. In 2017 alone, “Twenty-nine billion dollars was contributed to donor-advised funds,” Spitzer told Jewish Insider.

After several months in beta mode, NIF’s fund formally debuted last month, having already brought in $1.4 million in 16 different funds, said Spitzer. She told JI that she hopes to have $10 million under management within the Progressive Jewish Fund’s first year.

Speaking of her previous role as CEO of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund of San Francisco, “we had 900 funds and over $300 million under management,” Spitzer told JI. “That’s the same kind of trajectory I would hope to see here.”

The NIF’s new endeavor has competition in the American Jewish community from funds with lengthy track records. The 50-year-old Jewish Communal Fund of New York has $1.9 billion in assets from 3,900 individual funds, and this fiscal year has disbursed $456 million.

In 2017, the most recent year for which its tax filing is publicly available, the NIF took in just over $29 million in donations. The NIF takes a fee of .75 percent of assets under management, a standard practice across the industry, though percentages vary.

Buying into the Progressive Jewish Fund requires a $5,000 initial contribution. After its “initial phase,” Spitzer said she hopes to be able to lower that threshold to make it more inviting to young donors. In the meantime, about one third of the accounts opened at the PJF have been created by parents and grandparents for their young adult children and grandchildren.

Donor-advised funds offer philanthropists multiple benefits. For one, donors decide where to direct a gift, but have the fund’s staff to manage their money and handle logistics. Philanthropists with donor-advised funds can donate a large amount to a fund in one year and get a tax deduction for the full value of their contribution, but take several years to distribute the funds to the recipient charities. Unlike private foundations, donor-advised funds are not required by the IRS to distribute five percent of their assets each year. Donor-advised funds also offer a way for individuals to donate stocks, art or real estate whose value has grown since acquisition, take a tax deduction for its full current value and avoid paying the capital gains taxes that would be owed to the IRS if the property was sold.