Steven Spielberg's Charity is Funneling Money to Anti-Israel Groups

A foundation established by filmmaker Steven Spielberg with proceeds from Schindler’s List is facing growing criticism over its financial support for Jewish organizations that sharply oppose Israel and have accused it of war crimes during the Gaza conflict.

The Righteous Persons Foundation was created in 1995 using roughly $100 million Spielberg earned from the Oscar-winning Holocaust film. At the time, Spielberg said he could not personally accept the money, calling it “blood money” that needed to be returned to the Jewish community. The foundation’s stated mission is to preserve Jewish history and strengthen contemporary Jewish life.

In recent years, however, the foundation has directed millions of dollars toward left-wing Jewish advocacy groups whose rhetoric on Israel has alarmed parts of the Jewish community, particularly since the October 7 Hamas attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Among the recipients is T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization that has organized protests against Israel’s military campaign and accused the country of deliberately starving civilians. The group has continued making such claims even after Israel implemented daily humanitarian pauses to facilitate aid deliveries. Since 2021, T’ruah has received approximately $650,000 from the foundation.

The foundation has also given more than $1 million to Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish group that has urged the United States to impose an arms embargo on Israel and blamed American support for Israel for rising antisemitism. Bend the Arc has endorsed political figures who have declined to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and has opposed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which includes certain forms of anti-Zionism.

Another organization opposing the IHRA definition, Jews United for Justice, has received close to $900,000 from the foundation. The group argues that Israeli leaders and Jewish institutions worldwide should be held accountable for what it describes as oppression of Palestinians.

Critics note that while the foundation has provided roughly $2.4 million to such groups since 2020, it has allocated comparatively little funding to Holocaust-related initiatives during the same period. Its last donation to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was made in 2019.

Spielberg himself remained largely silent in the weeks following the October 7 massacre, drawing public appeals from Holocaust survivors urging him to speak out. In March 2024, he issued a statement condemning Hamas’s attacks while also criticizing civilian deaths in Gaza.

The foundation has not publicly responded to the criticism.