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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element" dir="ltr"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/wider-bridge-gay-rights-group-funded-homophobes/26726">https://electronicintifada.net/content/wider-bridge-gay-rights-group-funded-homophobes/26726</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">A Wider Bridge: the "gay rights" group
funded by homophobes</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/stephanie-skora">Stephanie
Skora</a></span> <span class="field field-publisher">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2019-02-25T13:29:00+00:00">25 February 2019</span></span>
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<p>If you’ve encountered LGBTQ Jewish life in the United
States, odds are you’ve heard of A Wider Bridge. The
LGBTQ-specific Israel advocacy organization, whose
mission in its own words is “Equality IN Israel and
Equality FOR Israel,” has tried hard to portray itself
as progressive and to create a pro-Israel bent in
LGBTQ life in the United States.</p>
<p>The organization has repeatedly drawn accusations of
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/pinkwashing">pinkwashing</a>
– the attempt to use the supposedly positive record of
the Israeli state on LGBTQ rights to cover up the
state’s brutal oppression and ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians – to which it responds by <a
href="https://awiderbridge.org/our-work/trainings/the-myths-of-pinkwashing/">declaring</a>
that pinkwashing is a myth.</p>
<p>A Wider Bridge insists that accusations of
pinkwashing are nothing more than an attempt to
silence progressive, LGBTQ Jews and other Zionists who
support the Israeli state, and it often leans hard on
its carefully cultivated progressive image to give its
pushback credibility. A closer look at the
organization’s internal politics and institutional
funding sources, however, paints a much different
picture.</p>
<h2>A funding problem</h2>
<p>A Wider Bridge receives funding directly from
organizations with a long and troubling pattern of
giving to groups that could be classified as
right-wing, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, pro-settlement;
campus-specific organizations dedicated to those
causes; or agents and politicians in the Republican
Party. All eight of their publicly available <a
href="https://awiderbridge.org/our-institutional-funders/">institutional
funders</a> have repeatedly given to organizations
that fit these categories.</p>
<p>Of particular note among that group are the Paul E.
Singer Foundation; the Jewish Community Federation and
Endowment Fund of San Francisco, The Peninsula, Marin
and Sonoma Counties (otherwise known as the JCF); and
the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.</p>
<p>The Singer Foundation is the personal giving vehicle
of Republican mega-donor, billionaire and vulture
capitalist Paul Singer. Singer, who made a large
portion of his money buying distressed debt from
developing nations such as Peru, Argentina and Congo,
donates extensively to <a
href="https://littlesis.org/person/52680-Paul_E_Singer/political">Republican
interests</a>, and an examination of his individual
political giving and tax Form 990s from his foundation
revealed donations to the <a
href="https://www.glaad.org/blog/heritage-foundation-intensely-anti-lgbtq-white-house-pipeline">anti-gay</a>
Heritage Foundation, the <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/revealed-canary-mission-blacklist-is-secretly-bankrolled-by-major-jewish-federation-1.6528545">Canary
Mission-linked</a> Central Fund of Israel, and a $1
million donation to the Inaugural Committee for Donald
Trump.</p>
<p>Likewise, an examination of the Schustermans’ taxes
shows similar donations to the Central Fund of Israel,
extensive support for right-wing, pro-Israel campus
organizations, many of which were featured in the
censored Al Jazeera documentary <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876"><em>The
Lobby – USA</em></a>.</p>
<p>This author has already published <a
href="https://medium.com/@stephanieskora/the-jewish-federation-of-san-francisco-funds-far-right-and-anti-muslim-groups-and-i-can-prove-it-dc030484266c">a
report</a> on the JCF’s giving to right-wing groups.</p>
<h2>Money talks</h2>
<p>A Wider Bridge’s extensive history of right-wing
political actions fits more clearly into its
organizational story in light of its institutional
funding. The organization frequently creates backlash
and smear campaigns that are similar to other
right-wing groups funded by their common institutional
donors.</p>
<p>It notably cosponsored multiple pinkwashing events
with the pro-Israel and anti-gay organization <a
href="https://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/northwest-pinkwashing-events-cancelled-standwithuss-record-of-queer-exploitation-exposed/">StandWithUs</a>,
a series of which became the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/battle-seattle-outing-truth-behind-israels-gay-friendly-spin/14839">subject
of a 2015 documentary</a> by scholar and activist
Dean Spade, called <a
href="https://pinkwashingexposed.net/"><em>Pinkwashing
Exposed: Seattle Fights Back</em></a>.</p>
<p>It was behind the <a
href="https://medium.com/@cancelpinkwashing/post-creating-change-a-response-from-cancelpinkwashing-6f9b5adb822b">largely</a>
fabricated <a
href="https://www.out.com/2016/1/27/op-ed-creating-change-protest-was-pure-anti-semitism">backlash</a>
in the wake of the 2016 Creating Change conference in
Chicago.</p>
<p>A Wider Bridge created the <a
href="https://awiderbridge.org/press-release-lgbtq-jews-dismissed-from-chicago-dyke-march/">controversy</a>
around the 2017 Chicago Dyke March, during which a
then-current employee of A Wider Bridge, Laurel
Grauer, disrupted the march by harassing Palestinian
attendees and disrupting chants about Palestine. The
Chicago Dyke March Collective later <a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170628015647/https://chicagodykemarchcollective.org/2017/06/27/chicago-dyke-march-official-statement-on-2017-march-and-solidarity-with-palestine/">proved</a>
that Grauer came to the event with the intent to
disrupt, or cause a controversy.</p>
<p>And just weeks ago, A Wider Bridge <a
href="https://awiderbridge.org/anti-semitism-returns-to-creating-change/">attempted
to smear</a> a group of queer, trans, Muslim and
Jewish activists (including myself), as anti-Semitic,
homophobic and transphobic after we disrupted the
opening plenary of the 2019 Creating Change conference
in Detroit to call attention to the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/cancelpinkwashing.org">censorship
of programming</a> related to Palestine.</p>
<p>This is the true essence of pinkwashing: using an
LGBTQ-friendly or intra-community LGBTQ image to paper
over right-wing politics and create a progressive
image. To those who have been paying attention to A
Wider Bridge’s actions since their founding in 2012,
the news of their right-wing political leanings will
come as little surprise. However, for those to whom
this is news, I’ve written an educational resource
about A Wider Bridge’s funding sources and an analysis
of the political priorities of their institutional
funders.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://bit.ly/PrideWithPrejudice">Pride
With Prejudice: Exposing A Wider Bridge’s Right-Wing
Funding</a>” is a 36-page report that goes into
detail on the nonprofit’s institutional funders; each
of their respective histories of right-wing giving;
provides an expanded definition of pinkwashing; and a
method of analysis for a nonprofit’s political
leanings. The report is intended as an exposé and a
call to action; an organization with links to
anti-gay, anti-Muslim and Republican groups has no
place representing LGBTQ Jewry, and no place calling
itself “progressive.”</p>
<p>Anti-pinkwashing organizers, or simply those who feel
duped by A Wider Bridge’s marketing, now have the
tools to fight back.</p>
<p><em><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/stephanieskora.com">Stephanie
Skora</a> is an organizer, writer, Ashkenazi
Jewish trans woman and dyke who organizes for
Palestinian, Jewish, queer and trans justice and
liberation.</em></p>
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