Briefs

BARRE SEID, DONOR TO PRO-ISRAEL CAUSES, DONATED $1.6 BILLION TO CONSERVATIVE NONPROFIT

Barre Seid, a low-profile donor to conservative and pro-Israel causes, made a historic $1.6 billion donation last year to a conservative group that seeks to influence policy in the United States.

The New York Times reported last month that the massive infusion went to the Marble Freedom Trust. The group is run by veteran political operative Leonard Leo, who for years led the Federalist Society group of conservative activists and is credited with helping produce the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Seid helmed Tripp Lite, a company that manufactures electronic goods, for decades and has donated to a number of conservative outfits, as well as to Jewish and pro-Israel causes. In 2010, Bar-Ilan University gave him an honorary degree for “supporting those organizations which will fortify Israel’s position in the world.” He has also donated to the Jewish Camp Foundation.

The Times reports that the donation is “among the largest—if not the largest—single contributions ever made to a politically focused nonprofit.” Seid used a complex mechanism, donating shares of Tripp Lite to the Marble Trust prior to its sale to an overseas group, likely as a means of avoiding taxes on the proceeds of the sale.

The Chicago-based electronics magnate is rarely photographed—an exception was a cupcake celebration in 2015, marking 56 years of running his company.

Salon published an article in 2010 suggesting Seid funded the Clarion Fund’s controversial distribution of a DVD titled Obsession Radical Islam’s War With the West to voters ahead of the 2008 presidential elections. Salon’s article spotlighted a previously unreported document submitted to the IRS by Clarion listing Seid as donating nearly $17 million to the organization in 2008. Seid’s assistant denied he had ever donated to Clarion and a Clarion spokesman sent an email to Salon stating that “the sources of anonymous donations to the Clarion Fund in 2008 have been incorrectly identified.” The Salon article concluded by noting that a similarly sized contribution was made by a donor-advised fund, which declined to identify the source of the funding for the donation. (JTA)

ISRAELI FAMILIES OF MUNICH OLYMPICS MASSACRE VICTIMS AGREE TO COMPENSATION DEAL WITH GERMANY

Days before a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Munich Olympics massacre, the Israeli victims’ families reached an agreement with Germany, avoiding a planned boycott.

Last month, the families of 11 victims of the 1972 attack threatened to boycott the Sept. 5 ceremony in Munich, calling Germany’s compensation offer “a joke.” According to The New York Times, Israeli President Isaac Herzog also planned to skip the ceremony.

The agreement brings the total compensation package to 28 million euros ($27.9 million), a substantial increase from Germany’s previous offer of 10 million euros.

“The German government welcomes the fact that it has now been possible to reach an agreement with the relatives on an overall concept to mark the 50th anniversary,” said a spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to the Times of Israel.

Herzog released a joint statement with his German counterpart, welcoming the news but acknowledging “the agreement cannot heal all wounds.”

“With this agreement, the German state acknowledges its responsibility and recognizes the terrible suffering of the murdered and their relatives,” read the statement.

The German spokesman also outlined other details of the agreement. “This includes the reappraisal of the events by a commission of German and Israeli historians, the release of files in accordance with the law, the classification and acceptance of political responsibility within the framework of the commemoration ceremony, as well as the provision of further recognition services by the federal government, by the state of Bavaria and by the city of Munich,” said the spokesman.

During the 1972 Olympics, eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took six coaches and five athletes from Israel’s delegation hostage in their Olympic Village apartment, killing them during a failed rescue operation at a nearby airbase. The incident has been a source of tension in Israel and Germany’s otherwise close relationship.

The International Olympic Committee held official ceremonies to commemorate the victims in 2016 and at last summer’s opening ceremony. (JTA)

JEWISH GOOGLE EMPLOYEE WHO PROTESTED AN ISRAELI CONTRACT RESIGNS

A Jewish Google employee who led activism against a major contract with Israel’s government resigned, citing what she said was retaliation.

“Due to retaliation, a hostile environment, and illegal actions by the company, I cannot continue to work at Google and have no choice but to leave the company at the end of this week,” Ariel Koren said in a statement posted Tuesday, August 30 to Medium. “Instead of listening to employees who want Google to live up to its ethical principles, Google is aggressively pursuing military contracts and stripping away the voices of its employees through a pattern of silencing and retaliation towards me and many others.”

Koren and another Jewish Google employee last year launched an effort to pressure Google to cancel a joint contract with Amazon to build cloudbased data centers on behalf of the Israeli government. Project Nimbus, costing $1.2 billion, will transfer Israel’s data into six cloud-based storage centers over the next several years. Koren said the project would enable surveillance of Palestinians.

In March, Koren said Google told her she would be transferred to Sao Paolo, Brazil, which Koren alleged was retaliation. Google denied retaliation and the National Labor Relations Board found no wrongdoing after an investigation, according to The New York Times.

In her statement, Koren also singled out “Jewglers,” a forum for Jewish Google employees, for not accommodating Jews who hold anti-Zionist views.

Koren helped found the activist group Respond Crisis Translation, which provides translation services for asylum seekers. (JTA)

ISRAEL ADVANCES PLAN TO BUILD 700 UNITS IN NEW EAST JERUSALEM NEIGHBORHOOD

Israel’s government advanced a plan to build as many as 700 new apartment units in a suburb of Jerusalem that opponents say encroaches on a Palestinian village that straddles the country’s pre1967 lines.

The Jerusalem planning and building committee on Monday, Sept. 5 approved a plan for a new neighborhood called Givat Shaked, which would include highrise buildings that come right up to the edge of Beit Safafa—a village that was split from 1948 until 1967, when Israel captured eastern Jerusalem in the SixDay War.

Haaretz quoted residents of the village as saying that the intention appears to be to limit the growth of the Palestinian neighborhood while increasing the Jewish population in the disputed city. The new neighborhood appears aimed at attracting Jewish residents, including in its planning of a site for a synagogue.

Right-wing Jewish activists have objected to a new golden dome atop a mosque in Beit Safafa.

Israeli officials have said in the past that new building benefits all residents of Jerusalem. They note that there are Palestinians renting units in some of the neighborhoods built after 1967.

The new village would also inhibit any future plan to connect Beit Safafa to the West Bank, and it is seen as part of a plan to cut off southeastern Jerusalem from the West Bank.

The Biden administration hopes to preserve the prospect of a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and objects to any building that would inhibit Palestinian statehood. (JTA)