WASHINGTON George Soros has been a top funder in recent years of liberal political advocacy groups, and Jews have still been voting for Democrats at a 75 to 80% clip. J Street, meanwhile, has built relations with lawmakers, lined up support from liberal rabbis and communal leaders, and found itself on the White House invite list, even while issuing controversial criticisms of Israel and establishment Jewish groups on several occasions.
So why exactly did J Street and its director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, risk the organizations reputation and undermine its credibility by misleading the world about the donations it received from the financier and philanthropist?
The question had some establishment Jewish leaders and Democratic politicians scratching their heads last week and predicting that Ben-Amis deception would cause the group much greater damage than any association with Soros.
It doesnt make sense to me, said Abraham Foxman, the ADLs national director, when asked about J Streets earlier denials about receiving funding from Soros.
Foxman noted that Soros and J Street share the same posture on Middle East peace: an aggressive US role, including pressure on all sides and opposition to settlement building not to mention an openness to talks with Hamas.
Its the most appropriate thing, it fits, it makes sense theres nothing wrong with it, Foxman said of the relationship.
THE Washington Times revealed in a Sept. 17 story that Soros and his children had given J Street $245,000 in 2008.
The lobby confirmed the amount and said the Soros family since then had contributed another $500,000 7% of the $11 million J Street says it has received in donations since its launch.
Controversy was sparked in 2006 when it was revealed by JTA and other agencies that Soros was a likely funder for the then-unnamed lobby Ben-Ami hoped to establish.
But, several observers said, the politics of just a few years ago when Soros was seen as an unhinged provocateur baiting the Bush administration and Republicans were a thing of the past, with Democrats now controlling the White House and the US Congress.
His reputation is fine, hes pro-peace, Foxman said of the Soros of 2010.
The views espoused by J Street and Soros are now part of the mix, said Shai Franklin, a veteran of an array of mainstream groups like the World Jewish Congress and NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia.
It was unnecessary, and thats what makes it a tragedy, Franklin, now a senior fellow with the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, said of Ben-Amis deception. People like me were willing to accept J Street as the new kid on the block, but this disfigures J Street.
A source associated with J Street dismissed predictions that the controversy would turn J Street into a pariah, noting that 80 of the groups leaders met separately Sept. 28 with Israels ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, and US State Department officials.
Many Jewish conservatives, including US Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House minority whip, continue to cast Soros as a bogeyman and are seeking to make an issue out of his support for J Street.
Even without the Soros funding, Jewish hard-liners would have plenty of reasons to bash the organization. And several prominent and wealthy liberal pro-Israel activists have made a point of steering clear of J Street following the revelation in 2006 about Soros being a likely funder for the intended lobby.
However, J Street since its founding has attracted support in many liberal circles.
IN recent weeks, conservatives and other critics of Soros have noted the recent $100 million donation to Human Rights Watch, a group that is seen by Israel and many of the countrys supporters as biased in its treatment of abuses in the Middle East.
The donation makes it a fine fit for George Soros, whose own biases are well established, Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitors director, wrote in a New York Post op-ed before the J Street controversy broke.
In the Middle East, for example, his Open Society Institute exclusively supports advocacy groups that campaign internationally to undermine the elected governments of Israel organizations such as Adalah, Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, Gisha and Yesh Din.
J Street has openly associated with most of those groups.
One insider who monitors Human Rights Watch for bias told JTA that the groups ties to Soros would not affect J Streets image.
Soros, who made his billions in the hedge fund market, first became known for aggressively backing democratic movements in the former communist world.
He also developed a reputation for micromanaging how his charitable money is spent and unabashedly using it to political ends.
Such an approach may have once been considered outsized, vulgar behavior for a philanthropist, but these days it is commonplace.
In the pro-Israel world, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson unashamedly wears his right-wing politics on his sleeve, and none of the many pro-Israel groups he funds is turning away his money.
Ultimately, much of the fury last week was directed at Ben-Ami instead of Soros for misleading the public in the first place. Even in an apology posted on J Streets blog, Ben-Ami appeared defensive.
Those who attack J Street over the sources of its funding are not good government watchdogs concerned about the state of non-profit financing in the US, Ben-Ami wrote.
If our critics are really so concerned with transparency of funding, then I challenge them to reveal the sources of funds for the organizations with which they agree.
Legalisms, sputtered Rabbi Steve Gutow, who directs the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella body for Jewish public policy groups and has defended J Street on many occasions.
Gutow noted that a number of the JCPAs constituent network of local community relations councils have praised J Street for helping to suck the wind out of anti-Israel divestment efforts by presenting a credible left-wing, pro-Israel alternative.
The potential loss of that voice was worrisome, he said.
I am not happy that the Soros money was not explicitly admitted to all along by J Street, Gutow said.
