Press Releases

New Tolerance Calls on Major Donors to Hold Anti-Semitic Group Believers Bail Out Accountable

For Immediate Release

June 29, 2020

Contact: kon@newtolerance.org

In a despicable act of anti-Semitism, NGO Believers Bail Out (BBO) organized an event on June 19 called “Muslims for Abolition Rally” that was “open to all, minus cops & zionists.” New Tolerance Campaign is calling on the group’s funders to immediately denounce the organization and withhold any future financial contributions that support this racism. 

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which has been adopted by 31 countries and the U.S. Department of State, includes anti-Zionism as discrimination against Jews because Zionism is a core part of Jewish identity that predates the State of Israel by over 2,000 years. Therefore, to exclude Zionists is to exclude Jews. 

Believers Bail Out has no moral justification for its actions, which harm the actual fight against ending racism by perpetuating hatred on the basis of identity.

Believers Bail Out recently received a grant from the Pillars Fund, which is funded by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Chicago Community Trust, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, MacArthur Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Pop Culture Collab, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, and Democracy Fund. BBO’s fiscal sponsor is Sirat Chicago.

NTC is mobilizing its activists to send emails and tweets to these foundations, whose choice is clear: denounce Believers Bail Out and walk away from the group, or continue lending their support to the group’s racist behavior.

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