111 Livingston Street, Suite 1928

Beit Hakeren, 10 Hata'as Street

Brooklyn, New York 11201
Ramat Gan 52512, Israel
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(718) 855-3627
(972) 3-7514175
USA@israellawcenter.org
www.israellawcenter.org

March 30, 2016

Mr. Stephen Heintz, President
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
475 Riverside Drive, Suite 900
New York, NY 10115
Re: Providing Grants to Organizations that Support BDS against Israel
Dear Mr. Heintz:
I am an attorney and New York counsel for the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, a civil-rights
organization that represents American victims of terror in civil litigation in the United States
courts.1 My colleague, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the director of the Law Center, joins me in this
letter. Our organization has also been involved in efforts to counter anti-Semitic and anti-Israel
campaigns designed to delegitimize the Jewish State, including combatting extremist internet
incitement and the second Gaza Flotilla.
It has come to our attention that the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) has in recent years
funded a number of organizations that actively and publicly promote BDS (Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions) against Israel, Israeli manufacturers, companies, and products.2

See, e.g., Sokolow v. PLO, 2014 WL 6811395 (S.D.N.Y. 2014); Wultz v. Islamic Rep. of Iran, 864 F. Supp.2d 24
(D.D.C. 2012); Kaplan v. Central Bank of Islamic Rep. of Iran, 55 F. Supp. 3d 189, 2014 WL 3610784 (D.D.C.
2014); Wyatt v. Syrian Arab Rep., 908 F. Supp. 2d 216 (D.D.C. 2012); Ungar v. Arafat, 634 F.3d 46 (1st Cir. 2011).
2
For example, the New York Daily News reported that RBF provided significant sums in 2015 to the following
groups who use such funding to promote BDS and other anti-Israel activities: Jewish Voice for Peace ($140,000);
American Friends Service Committees Israel program ($50,000); Zochrot ($20,000); Middle East Policy Network,
a/k/a Al-Shabaka ($100,000); Middle East Childrens Alliance, Grassroots Jerusalem, the Institute for Middle East
Understanding, and +972 (collectively, $300,000). Ziva Dahl, Promoting peace or assaulting Israel? New York
Daily News (March 27, 2016), available at: http://m.nydailynews.com/opinion/ziva-dahl-promoting-peaceassaulting-israel-article-1.2578085.

This letter is to put RBF on notice that the BDS movements efforts constitute unlawful
discrimination on the basis of national origin, race, and religion under the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Anti-Racism
Convention) and numerous U.S. federal and state statutes, including New York law. Funding
organizations that promote BDS raises serious legal issues for RBF. Accordingly, we strongly
advise you to consider whether RBF should continue to provide financial backing to these hate
groups who promote BDS against Israel and Israeli companies, individuals, and products.
The BDS movement is inherently racist, anti-Semitic, biased and prejudicial and has an extremist
agenda that unfairly singles out Israel and Jews. The BDS movements true goal is the
destruction of the State of Israel and its Jewish community. It masquerades as a human rights
movement, but it is singularly fixated on Israel and Jews and ignores egregious human rights
abuses that do not feed its anti-Israel agenda.
For example, the BDS movement ignores Hamas terrorists who shoot rockets into Israeli civilian
population centers with the expressed intention of killing civilians; it ignores ISIS thugs in Syria
and Iraq who routinely violate every imaginable human right as they kidnap and rape children,
behead prisoners of war, burn prisoners of war alive in steel cages, and destroy archaeological
treasures; it ignores the Syrian regime dropping barrel bombs on civilian population centers; and
it ignores Irans efforts to obtain a nuclear bomb, which is particularly alarming given its stated
goal of genocide against the Jewish population of Israel. For the BDS movement to claim that its
purpose is the promotion of human rights while ignoring all this is blatant hypocrisy.
The BDS movements anti-Israel boycott is not only morally reprehensible, as mentioned above,
it is also illegal under numerous statutes.
These include the following:
-- N.Y. Exec. Law, Article 15 296(13) makes it an unlawful discriminatory practice for any
person to boycott or blacklist, or to refuse to buy from, sell to or trade with, or otherwise
discriminate against any person, because of the race, creed, color, national origin, sexual
orientation, military status, sex, or disability of such person, or of such persons partners,
members, stockholders, directors, officers, managers, superintendents, agents, employees,
business associates, suppliers or customers, or (ii) for any person wilfully to do any act or refrain
from doing any act which enables any such person to take such action.

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-- New York City Admin. Code 8-107(18) makes it an unlawful discriminatory practice for any
person to discriminate against, boycott or blacklist or to refuse to buy from, sell to or trade with,
any person, because of such persons actual or perceived race, creed, color, national
origin, gender, disability, age, marital status, partnership status, sexual orientation or alienage or
citizenship status or of such persons partners, members, stockholders, directors, officers,
managers, superintendents, agents, employees, business associates, suppliers or customers, or (ii)
for any person wilfully to do any act or refrain from doing any act which enables any such
person to take such action.
-- Title 42 U.S.C. 2000a provides that all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal
enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any
place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation
on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.
-- Title 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a) makes it unlawful for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to
discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his
compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individuals race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin; or to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or
applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of
employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of
such individuals race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Moreover, boycotts are unlawful racial discrimination under:
a. 42 USC 2000e-3(b);
b. N.Y. Exec. Law, Article 15 296(1)(a);
c. New York City Admin. Code 8-107(1)(a);
d. N.Y. Exec. Law, Article 15 296(1)(d);
e. New York City Admin. Code 8-107(1)(d);
f. N.Y. Exec. Law, Article 15 296(2)(a); and
g. New York City Admin. Code 8-107(4).
In addition, legislative bodies across the United States have recently passed laws specifically
directed towards the discriminatory practices of the BDS movement. This has been followed by
similar legislation being passed in the United Kingdom and Canada. Moreover, the Regents of
the University of California unanimously voted last week to adopt a report that finds, inter alia,
that extreme anti-Zionism and the very challenging of the Jewish States right to exist constitute

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unacceptable forms of racism in California. "Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism

and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.3
Accordingly, participants in the BDS movement act with the clear purpose and actual effect of
nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise on an equal footing of the human
rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, and cultural fields of those
persons and organizations whom they seek to boycott, divest from and sanction.
A discriminatory boycott is not protected by the freedom-of-speech language of the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because a boycott is not speech, it is action. Calls for and
instruction in implementing unlawful actions are not protected speech (see Holder v.
Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 130 S. Ct. 2705 (2010)).
By knowingly funding groups engaged in promoting BDS and discrimination based upon
national origin and religion, RBF could be considered complicit and as a participant in these
groups illegal activities. Supporting BDS organizations could place RBF, its directors and
officers at both criminal and financial risk. It is unfathomable that RBF its directors and officers
are unaware of the discriminatory and anti-Semitic policies of the groups it provides funding to
that are actively engaged in egregious BDS activities. Accordingly, and in light of the above, we
urge RBF to seriously consider whether RBF should continue to fund organizations who
advocate and promote the anti-Semitic BDS movement.
Please be advised that Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center will continue to follow this matter, and
intends to seek all remedies available by law in the event RBF finances, participates, advances or
facilitates any boycott imposed against Israel, Israelis or Israeli entities, including without
limitation filing legal action against the RBF, its directors and officers without further notice.
We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you and members of your staff to discuss our
concerns over the RBFs support for BDS organizations and their racist activities. I can be
contacted at the above address and telephone number.
Please provide prompt written confirmation that you have read and acknowledge the above.

U of California leaders adopt report condemning anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism, JTA, March 26, 2016
http://www.jta.org/2016/03/24/news-opinion/united-states/u-of-california-leaders-adopt-report-condemning-antisemitic-forms-of-anti-zionism
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Yours Sincerely,

Robert J. Tolchin, Esq.

United States Counsel to
Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Esq.

President
Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center

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