Central Fund of Israel

The Central Fund of Israel is a U.S.-based, IRS-recognized nonprofit conduit through which donors can recommend grants to approved Israeli charities.[1][2] CFI states that 100% of contributions reaches charitable causes without deductions or fees and that it supports more than 500 organizations across Israel.[3][4]

Its website highlights medical, religious, community, social and humanitarian, and educational causes.[4] The fund also supports organizations beyond the Green Line.[5] Reports connecting some recipients with politically controversial movements have made its activities a recurring subject of public debate.[6][7]

The Central Fund of Israel was established in 1979 by Hadassah and Arthur Marcus as a grassroots initiative to support the people and land of Israel.[3] Its founders said they created the fund after concluding that a large share of donations sent from the United States to Israel was being consumed by overhead and administrative costs, leaving beneficiaries with less than donors intended.[3] Their response was to build a fund around the principle, "What you give is what they get," committing the organization to passing through donations in full without deducting a commission.[3]

The fund's growth was organic and powered by word of mouth, consistent with its aversion to advertising or promotional campaigns.[2] Jay Marcus, son of the founders, has led CFI for more than 25 years.[5] In 1994, the organization received the Mayor of Jerusalem's Award for Outstanding Volunteer Organizations, and it has been honored by both Chief Rabbis of Israel for its charitable work.[4]

CFI operates as a U.S. 501(c)(3), IRS-recognized nonprofit organization.[5][1] The fund's operational model is notable for its minimal staffing: the organization is volunteer-run except for Jay Marcus, who receives a salary—reported at $95,000 in tax records—and operates the fund from his home in Efrat.[8] The fund's mailing address for dollar-check donations is 429 Central Avenue, Cedarhurst, New York 11516, and donors can direct gifts to a specific approved Israeli charity by including that organization's code with their contribution.[9]

CFI does not solicit donors, does not charge credit-card fees, and does not publish donor names.[5] Many donors route contributions through third-party donor-advised funds, including major platforms such as the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, which shield individual donor identities from public disclosure.[8] The organization accepts donations recommended for specific Israeli nonprofits provided those organizations comply with U.S. charitable law, align with CFI's mission, and have been reviewed and approved by the fund.[2]

CFI functions as a direct conduit suited particularly to American philanthropists with a specific Israeli project in mind, as well as to immigrants to Israel who retain taxable income in the United States.[5] The fund can also accept Canadian donations, though it is not able to issue Canadian tax receipts.[5]

The fund's financial scale has grown substantially over the years. IRS data showed CFI revenues rising from approximately $12 million in 2012 to $48 million in 2021.[10] In the fiscal year ending January 31, 2022, CFI distributed about $55 million, with the amount having increased in each of the preceding five years.[8] By the time of a September 2026 JNS report, CFI was moving more than $100 million a year from approximately 6,000 donors.[5] The fund's homepage reports $95 million donated in 2024 and support for more than 500 charities; its "Who We Help" page says 505 charities received approximately $96 million without specifying the period.[4][11] A separate CFI page says it aids over 300 charities, while JNS reported more than 600 in September 2026; the available sources do not explain the varying counts.[12][5]

CFI describes its grantmaking as spanning six broad categories: humanitarian aid, community projects, education, religious institutions, medical care, and security.[8] Its website highlights specific supported programs, including Israel Big Brother Big Sister, which matches adult volunteers with youth in need of supportive role models; La'Ofek, formerly JobKatif, which assists young Ethiopian-Israelis, at-risk youth, impoverished IDF soldiers, and newly discharged lone soldiers through education and employment programs; and Heart to Plate, which connects lonely and elderly people with volunteers who provide Shabbat dinners and ongoing social contact.[11]

Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks, CFI's giving grew with increased focus on post-traumatic stress disorder and soldier welfare.[5] Marcus described funding support for soldiers with PTSD and their families, widows, and wounded soldiers.[5] Schools supported by CFI donors redirected funds when students returned home from the war zone, and a therapy farm in Efrat began treating trauma after conducting emergency work during the fighting.[5]

CFI distributes grants to organizations operating on both sides of Israel's 1967 Green Line, including some in the West Bank—known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[13][5] Early reporting from ynet documented that between 1998 and 2003 the fund transferred a total of $9,543,124 to Israel, with recipients that included communities in Efrat, Gush Etzion, Itamar, and the local councils of Beit El and Kiryat Arba.[14] The fund's stated aims, as quoted in that 2005 report, emphasized helping poor families, victims of terror, synagogues, and educational institutions, and did not specifically identify settlement support as a stated purpose.[14]

CFI provided 13.3 million shekels to the Securityists Association in 2024, representing about 82% of its 16.3 million shekels in total donations that year, up from 7.9 million shekels in 2023.[7] The association's chair, Amir Avivi, explained the use of CFI as a conduit by citing the fund's no-fee model and described the association as having a broad range of donors rather than one dominant patron.[7]

Donations routed through CFI may originate from Israeli as well as American and other foreign donors, since the American entity serves as the technical vehicle for the transfer.[7]

For more than a decade, media outlets and advocacy organizations have raised allegations that CFI distributes donor money to extremist Israeli settler groups, with critics suggesting that some grants might implicate U.S. law prohibiting charitable support for violence.[8] CFI has consistently denied these allegations.[8]

T'ruah, a rabbinic human-rights organization, filed complaints with the IRS challenging CFI's tax-exempt status and alleging ties to groups accused of terrorizing Palestinians.[8] A 2015 T'ruah complaint resulted in a brief criminal inquiry by the IRS law-enforcement division.[10] An email from an IRS investigative special agent indicated the agency had opened a formal investigation, but former IRS exempt-organizations director Marcus Owens interpreted CFI's continued operation as a nonprofit—more than six years after the investigation opened—as evidence that it had closed.[10] A CFI representative told Haaretz in 2016 that the IRS had investigated the organization and "found nothing improper."[10]

In June 2021, nineteen rabbis wrote to the Jewish Communal Fund urging it to stop allowing donor-advised-fund grants to be directed to CFI.[10] IRS records showed that the Jewish Communal Fund gave CFI $1.6 million in 2021 and $23 million in total since 2002.[10] Specific organizations named in press reports as alleged CFI beneficiaries included Lehava, Honenu, Im Tirtzu, and the West Bank yeshiva Od Yosef Chai.[10] Those claims are disputed: a 2022 JNS opinion article by Morton A. Klein and Elizabeth A. Berney of the Zionist Organization of America stated that CFI had never funded Lehava, that its last grant to Od Yosef Chai was in 2014, and that CFI had asked Honenu to discontinue a small charity fund in 2015.[15] That article described CFI's grantees as including organizations serving people with special needs, poverty relief and nutrition programs, battered-women's shelters, job assistance for Ethiopians and other vulnerable groups, bereaved families, soldiers, and the elderly, though it represented an advocacy position rather than an independent audit.[15]

A 2015 Mako report, drawing on a Peace Now study, identified CFI as a channel through which donations reached Im Tirtzu and said the fund had also transferred money to Honenu, characterized as an organization assisting Jewish suspects and those convicted of nationalist-motivated offenses; the report provided no dollar amounts and did not include a CFI response.[6] A 2019 ynet investigation reported that CFI donated approximately 100,000 shekels to the Hemlah association in 2015 and tens of thousands of shekels in 2014, without alleging that the donation itself was unlawful.[16]

A 2023 ynet report described proposed New York State legislation that specifically named CFI and would have prohibited charitable organizations from transferring donations to Israelis in Judea and Samaria, East Jerusalem, and other areas beyond the Green Line, and would revoke tax-exempt status for organizations deemed to support settlement activity.[17] Twenty-five state legislators, most of them Jewish, opposed the proposal, arguing it would penalize charities providing aid and emergency medical care.[17] The coverage described a legislative proposal and competing claims, not an enacted law.[17]

When the Biden administration announced West Bank-related sanctions in February 2024, Jay Marcus told the Times of Israel he expected no effect on CFI: "CFI has always been very careful to follow American laws 100%."[8] CFI was not itself sanctioned or named in the Treasury Department's action.[8]

A 2012 Brandeis University study of American Jewish philanthropy, The New Philanthropy, by Eric Fleisch and Theodore Sasson, examined 2007 giving using IRS Form 990s and reported approximately $6 million in CFI revenue for that year.[13] Because the researchers lacked information about how the fund's donations were distributed, they arbitrarily assigned half of that revenue to a "Settlements" category—a methodology the authors themselves acknowledged as an approximation, noting that their politically labeled categories could yield different results under alternative classifications.[13]