The Open Society Foundations, founded by Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros and now led by his son Alex, announced that it would give $30 million to organizations fighting antisemitism and Islamophobia.

“As the son of a Holocaust survivor and a Jew, I am acutely aware of the dangers of antisemitism,” Alex Soros said in a video announcing the campaign Wednesday.

The grants, which will be rolled out over the next three years, represent a major infusion of cash for organizations approaching antisemitism with a more progressive framework than establishment Jewish groups.

Many of those receiving funding — including Bend the Arc, the Nexus Project and New Jewish Narrative — have focused much of their efforts on countering what they see as efforts to restrict legitimate speech criticizing Israel under the guise of countering antisemitism. That work also involves attempts to recalibrate how incidents get counted.

Open Society said in a press release that it is committed to “distinguishing antisemitism from legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies that violate international human rights and humanitarian law.”

The Nexus Project, for example, was significantly expanded in 2024 after creating an alternative to the  International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which classifies much criticism of Israel as antisemitic and continues to be promoted by the country’s largest Jewish groups.

Several of the organizations being funded as part of the new $30 million commitment had received one-off Open Society grants in the past, including Nexus and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Kevin Rachlin, Washington director for Nexus, said its new funding from Soros will be directed toward the launch of an antisemitism research center, led by a former senior analyst from the Anti-Defamation League who has sought to show how the ADL’s “messaging doesn’t always match with what their data shows.”

While the ADL continues to produce the most detailed accounting of antisemitic incidents in the U.S., it has changed its methodology in recent years to count certain political expressions of anti-Zionism as forms of antisemitism. For example, Aryeh Tuchman, director of the Nexus research center, said in a recent interview that 20% of the 600 campus incidents tallied by the ADL in its count released earlier this month referred to students using slogans like “from the river to the sea.”

“When the audit puts contested incidents like that in the same report as a neo-Nazi putting a swastika on a synagogue and it’s just presented in a topline number — that number can perhaps distort our understanding of what is actually happening,” said Tuchman, who until recently helped oversee the ADL’s annual audit.

But even with the new dollars, organizations that contend anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism, and that have accordingly sought to crack down on campus protests against Israel, retain a large funding advantage. Annual budgets for the ADL and the American Jewish Committee, for example, each exceed $100 million.

Soros grants come with ‘baggage’

The Soros grants also come with some controversy attached. Open Society has long funded Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups as well as pro-Palestinian organizations in the United States, including Al-Haq, B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence.

It has also supported Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a major source for the recent New York Times column that alleged Israeli prison guards have used dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners — a report condemend as a “blood libel” by the Israeli government.

George Soros and Open Society have also been the subject of many far-right conspiracy theories, some of which have relied on antisemitic claims — including that Soros was supposedly taking over the world on behalf of, variously, socialists, Jews or “globalists.” George Soros, a Holocaust survivor born in Hungary in 1930, invested heavily in projects promoting democracy behind the former Iron Curtain, making him a target for oligarchs as they consolidated power.

“Obviously, for any funding, there’s baggage,” said Rachlin. “There are those who are going to hate Soros.”

The decision to funnel the $30 million to not only combating antisemitism but also fighting anti-Muslim hate emphasized what the foundation sees as the need for Jewish and Muslim organizations to work together. “We’ve seen this alarming intensification of antisemitism over the past few years, and at the same time the explosion of anti-Muslim hate,” said Sean Savett, a spokesperson for Open Society. “It just feels like we’ve gone back 10 or 15 years in this country.”

Alex Soros is married to Huma Abdein, a longtime advisor to Hillary Clinton, who is Muslim, which he referenced in his announcement video. “Discrimination and hate aren’t abstract concepts to me or my family,” he said.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, another one of the grantees, helped organize a statement from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a major coalition of legacy civil rights groups, following the firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado, last spring, and has partnered with the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

“Post-Oct. 7, we’re seeing extreme voices on both ends of the political spectrum exploit the conflict to pit our communities against each other,” said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of JCPA.

Open Society is also funding the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, a coalition of nearly 70 mostly progressive Jewish organizations that executive director Abby Levine said had recently focused more specifically on addressing antisemitism.

The post Alex Soros commits $30 million to organizations fighting antisemitism — and its weaponization appeared first on The Forward.

Tennessee State Capitol Building in Nashville. Photo: Andre Porter/Wikimedia Commons.

On April 27, 2026, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) signed legislation requiring state agencies to use the geographic name “Judea and Samaria” instead of “West Bank” in official state materials. Known as the “Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act,” the law asserts that these terms are historically and Biblically accurate.

Just the week before, the members of the Arizona House passed a nonbinding resolution saying the same thing, after the Arizona Senate approved the legislation in February.

These pro-Israel bills earned little press in the Jewish community and even less in the general media outside of Tennessee and Arizona. Americans of all faiths who support Israel should applaud the lawmakers in both Arizona and Tennessee for their leadership and commitment to historical truth. At a time of increasing misinformation and the targeting of Israel, this bill sends a clear message about the significance of recognizing the Jewish people’s deep ties — dating back to Biblical times — to the Land of Israel.

The city of Hebron is in Judea and is the ancient resting place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. There are so many other links and ties proving the deep and continuous Jewish presence in the land, and these bills acknowledge that. 

What’s more, this is a defeat for anti-Israel radicals in Tennessee who fought against the bill. The New York Times reported about those efforts: “The day of lobbying this month in the State Capitol in Nashville, coordinated by the American Muslim Advisory Council, attracted more than 100 Muslim students and community leaders.”  

One year ago, Arkansas state legislators passed their “Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act,” following a 2023 Arkansas General Assembly resolution urging the use of the term “Judea and Samaria” instead of “the West Bank” in official state language.

While it can be argued that Arkansas, Tennessee, and Arizona are right leaning states, they often have Democratic or moderate trends and representatives. For example, from December 2020 through the beginning of 2023 neither of Arizona’s two senators were Republican. While Arizona Republicans control the state legislature, the margin is far from wide with just a handful of seats separating the parties.   

Given the unprecedented levels of anti-Israel activity in both parties and the fact that anti-Zionists radicals are winning the anti-Israel legislation fight in far too many parts of the country, the question of how these seemingly symbolic wins matter is a legitimate one to ask.

Tip O’Neill, the Speaker of the House from 1977 to 1987, is remembered for coining the saying that “all politics is local.” From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, how many politicians serve early in their careers in their state legislatures? What’s more, these efforts force anti-Israel activists to play defense and occupy their time with things other than BDS, as was the case in Tennessee. 

These are the kinds of innovative, accessible, and positive initiatives that the pro-Israel community should pursue much more frequently. Our confidence has been shaken by the harsh criticism of Israel from far too many on Capitol Hill, and these local efforts have been missing from our playbook for much longer than may have been reasonable. If only a handful more states enact such legislation, it will still be well worth it. Correcting false narratives and fighting for a cause you believe in is always worth it.

Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, AFSI, (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.

Cars burn in a street during an anti-regime protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

A recent CNN article by Iranian freelance photojournalist Maryam Rahmanian, in collaboration with Kyle Almond and Brett Roegiers, purports to feature pictures and interviews of “everyday Iranians” amidst the war.

In “‘Nothing feels normal anymore’: How everyday Iranians are coping with war,” CNN claims to depict the average Iranian, but it should raise eyebrows. Whether a result of biased or gullible journalism, the CNN article fails to accurately inform its audience. 

While there are no reliable surveys, there is clearly a significant portion of Iranian society that supports the war out of desperation, hoping for regime change.

Just four months ago, the Islamic Republic responded to mass protests with extreme violence, killing up to 36,500 protesters.

More were executed in the aftermath despite President Donald Trump’s clear red line warning the regime against killing protesters. Many Iranians posted videos of themselves asking President Donald Trump to militarily intervene.

In the early days of the war, many Iranians also posted videos of themselves thanking President Donald Trump and dancing in public. Then came the mass celebrations that erupted on Iranian streets following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei by Israeli forces.

Anti-regime sentiments have been noted elsewhere in the media, too. Left-wing, diaspora Iranian journalist Arash Azizi wrote for The Atlantic that he was surprised that even Iranian socialist activists, typically biased against war and especially against the United States, were sympathetic and supportive of a military intervention.

NPR interviewed Iranians who had fled the war to Iraq and Turkey and reported that “most people told us they supported the strikes.”

After two months of war, Iranian attitudes have undoubtedly shifted, but in which direction we cannot know, given the regime-enforced Internet blackout in Iran. But anecdotal evidence — including my own conversations with those in Iran — suggests that a large portion of the population continues to hope that the hostilities resume until the regime falls.

Euronews’ Persian service recently published interviews of Iranians showing a divide between those who want the war to resume to bring down the Islamic Republic and those who oppose it, including those who have changed their minds since the war began.

Honest journalism would have reflected the diversity of views. But Rahmanian’s report instead falsely depicted Iranian views as monolithic against US and Israeli strikes.

Her first subject told her, “When I stepped outside, the atmosphere felt very different,” adding, “The streets were extremely crowded. Mothers were crying. A route that usually takes me 40 minutes took nearly three hours.”

A second subject said, “Fear quickly settled in. I live next to a mosque, and that made everything more frightening. I kept thinking it might become a target.”

These are common reactions to war, and that is precisely the problem. Iran is not a normal society at war. When it comes to Iran, anti-war and patriotic sentiments common among war-torn nations tell only a partial story when another significant portion of society invited foreign militaries to liberate them.

The context of the previous conflict is informative. The Twelve-Day War created a perception that military action would be light, and many Iranians assumed this war would look the same. They were wrong, but that group of people did not have a representation hearing in the CNN article. 

One comment stood out. A 35-year-old woman, Salemeh, told Rahmanian, “I jump at every noise, wondering if something has been hit again,” adding, “There is construction near our house, and even those constant sounds make me anxious.” This recalled a conversation I had with a woman in her 60s from Tehran two weeks before the war, who told me the same thing almost word for word.

“There is construction by our apartment,” she told me, “At every loud sound, everybody jumps, asking, ‘Did [America] finally hit?’”

There is a key difference: The woman I talked to was excited about the prospect of war, hoping that it would take down the Islamic Republic. She told me, “I heard a very loud noise one day while in the shower.” She went on, “Convinced that the war had started, I excitedly jumped out to celebrate, naked, only to be disappointed.”

Another woman I interviewed weeks into the war, with the pseudonym Golnaz, whose home had been destroyed in a strike, told me that the destruction had made her even more supportive of the war. She explained that, because the price the nation had paid was so high, she did not want the war to stop before the regime fell, for the destruction to have been all for nothing.

She told me, “Do not let the war stop until they surrender.”

None of Rahmanian’s subjects said that they had previously supported the war, but several were against it in the outset. One woman, Akram, 63, told her, “I believe Israel and the United States have manipulated the situation, and I am proud that we have stood against a superpower and defended ourselves. For me, it is an honor to stand firm and say we resisted.”

While opposition to Israel persists among the older generations of Iranians (but not among the youth), anti-Americanism has been out of the mainstream for decades. The average Iranian does not view the “resistance” favorably. A plurality blamed only the regime for the Twelve-Day War, with 69 percent saying that “the Islamic Republic should stop calling for the destruction of Israel.” In other words, while CNN and Rahmanian claim that they were representing the everyday Iranian, they had to reach for the fringe.

The network also failed to provide readers with important context, shaping the credibility of the sentiments expressed. The Islamic Republic has been persecuting, even executing, those who have supported the war. For Iranians to publicly support the US and Israeli strikes is to put their lives on the line. Rahmanian, Almond, and Roegiers did not disclose this important context. The authors also failed to mention the January protests, during which many more Iranians were killed over four days than during 39 days of bombardment.

The largest news organization in the world should know better. There are a plethora of images and social media posts that confirm that a large number of Iranians have supported the war throughout. Many have even recorded themselves on rooftops cheering for the American and Israeli F-35s flying over their heads.

CNN should also know, and have reported on, the threat Iranians face for speaking out against the regime. It is also obvious that no journalist in Iran would be safe reporting on these matters for an American outlet, an act the regime equates with treason. By selling this one-sided story as the mainstream view in Iran, CNN erased the millions of desperate Iranians suffering under the thumb of the Islamic Republic’s oppression. 

Shay Khatiri is an immigrant from Iran and a media researcher at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, where this article also appeared.