Local JCRC's Latest IRS Filing Shows 100% Increase in Revenue – and over $5 Million Spent On Pro-Israel "Program Activities". Why Isn't This Considered Lobbying?
A review of JCRC's Form 990 filings over two decades begs the question: Has the SF Bay Area JCRC always skirted IRS caps on lobbying expenditures? Is that why JCRC formed a new 501(c)4 in late 2024?
Editor's Note: Prior to publication, I learned that the multi-racial Islamic Center of North Marin had been violently attacked last Friday by a white Marinite, the second time in 18 months. The congregation is shaken by the assault, but once again dealing with the situation with grace and empathy. And once again, there are no hate crimes charges on the attack on the Islamic Center. This is an interesting contrast to a recent attack on a Novato church by a Christian, in which hate crimes charges were immediately added without cause.
It is difficult not to perceive an ongoing double standard given how many public "statements of concern" elected officials in Marin made about alleged antisemitism in the County, while repeated acts of actual physical violence against Muslims in Marin do not even merit mention by the same elected officials. I will continue to report the cases as they progress.
David Glick's Warning About the SF Bay Area JCRC
Before he passed away last October, the much-loved Marin County peace activist David Glick often emphasized that the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Relations Council (and elected officials who were part of its pro-Israel advocacy network called BANJO), needed to be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
David Glick was the grandson of one of the most respected rabbis of his era, Dr. Samuel Goldenson, and when David was talking about something difficult and serious, his words slowed and his voice grew hushed, drawing the listener in.
The JCRC, David repeatedly stressed to me, was complicit in Israel's genocide, it was lobbying for Israel's genocide. His words stuck, although it is fair to say that I did not need much convincing by that point: I had already seen enough of the "nonprofit" JCRC's pro-Israel lobbying and its targeting of Israel's critics – including a mini-mob that the JCRC whipped up to attack the nearly 80-year-old David Glick in June of 2024, video here.
I. Who's Afraid of The JCRC? Many Bay Area Reporters, It Turns Out!
The fearless journalist and photographer Jeffrey Blankfort, one of the few people to sue the ADL and force them into a settlement, once described the JCRC as "the ground troops for AIPAC." JVP's Seth Morrison adds that the larger network of JCRC's (there are over 120 JCRC's around the country, of which the Bay Area JCRC is one of the largest and most influential) are part of the broader Israel lobby, each assigned their own tasks. Morrison explains that this is part of a well-coordinated and well-funded effort in a constellation of groups mostly known by their acronyms, which include but are not limited to JPAC, CLJC, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the ADL, AIPAC, AJC, and the Jewish Federations of North America.
Correspondence I retrieved through CPRA shows that the JCRC has been far more active at the local level in lobbying for Israel than either the ADL or AIPAC, and a large part of that activity has included promotion of its offshoot, the Bay Area Network of Jewish Officials (BANJO). This has often involved repeated pressure campaigns for local electeds to sign on to anti-ceasefire letters, and an ongoing targeting of pro-Palestinian voices, with Asian and Muslim Californians taking the brunt of the JCRC’s attacks.
Despite that influence, lobbying by the JCRC and its equally pro-Israel BANJO group (Bay Area Network of Jewish Officials) have been allowed to operate largely under the radar, unexamined by even "independent" local media such as Mission Local and the Cityside papers, which have significant pro-Israel influence on their Boards and generous budgets.
Mission Local also has Joe Eskenazi as its principal editor. Eskenazi has scrubbed from his Mission Local bio his 8 years of work experience as a writer and editor for the pro-Israel Jewish Bulletin of Northern California (which is now rebranded as the pro-Israel jweekly.com.) Both iterations of the publication served as the house organ for the San Francisco Israel lobby, which has funded both generously.
In the absence of serious coverage of the JCRC's activities, particularly as the “nonprofit” was allowed to target Asian and Muslim activists and students throughout the Bay Area with impunity, much of my reporting over the last two years has necessarily focused on the ethical and legal violations by the local JCRC. I have also started to expose one of the JCRC's affiliated groups, the 175-year-old, taxpayer-endowed Jewish Family and Children's Services. (An index to some of that reporting is provided in the Notes section at the end of this article.)
II. A Challenge From Readers To Examine JCRC's Tax Filings Prompts A Review:
This past week, after some difficult conversations, a few readers challenged me to look into IRS restrictions on 501(c)3 lobbying, and how it might relate to the JCRC's activities.
I did so on Wednesday, and spent the next few days reviewing JCRC's IRS Form 990s going back to 2000, which are available for review on ProPublica. (Two filings in this 25-year period (2004 and 2006) are either missing or do not currently load properly on Propublica's site.)
This nearly 25-year document history covers part of the the 27-year-long leadership of the JCRC by Rabbi Doug Kahn, a brief leadership by Abby Porth, and the current leadership of the reactionary and much younger Tyler Gregory.
It's hard to imagine that some of the inflammatory descriptions of program activities submitted to the IRS in the JCRC's most recent Form 990 (tax year ending June 30, 2024) would ever have been submitted under the leadership of the more old-school Kahn. Gregory and Mintzer's Form 990 refers to those protesting Israel's genocide as "abhorrent" and in another passage denigrates their former partners in the Bay Area's Black community for being insufficiently responsive to the JCRC's post-October 7 trauma.
Much of the program activity descriptions constitute unusually, well, bitchy text for submission in an IRS filling. And yet it matches how Gregory, a former AIPAC lobbyist, and Mintzer, a former Regional Director with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), both speak in public appearances.
For the record, former JCRC Executive Director Doug Kahn remains stubbornly pro-Israel but he has finally conceded one small point: that Israel's retaliatory conduct against civilians has been been "disproportionate" and must end. No such turnaround on Israel has been issued from the rabid current JCRC leadership under Gregory and Mintzer. If anything, Gregory and Mintzer have doubled down on their pro-genocide position, which is bold considering the historical precedent of criminal charges for those who actively promote genocide.
Even After Selecting the IRS 501(h) Election, the JCRC Appears To Have Blown Through IRS Caps on Lobbying
The JCRC's own records indicate that the bulk of their activities have been partisan, pro-Israel lobbying, to an extent that appears to grossly violate IRS caps.
The JCRC routinely chooses the 501(h) election on their Form 990, which allows them a greater allowance for lobbying activities. Legal analyses from several law firms indicates that a 501(c)3 nonprofit with $17 million in revenues would still need to cap their lobbying expenditures at $1 million.
In the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, the JCRC's annual revenues increased over 100%, from $5 million for the tax year ending June 30, 2023 to $10.5 million for the tax year ending June 30, 2024. That $10.5 million is far less than the $17 million that would permit them to spend $1 million on lobbying.
Yet by the JCRC's own account (in Section II, items 4a, 4b, 4c and 4d) JCRC spent over $5 million ($5,361,897) on so-called "program services", most of which seem indistinguishable from partisan lobbying in support of Israel.
If the lobbying cap for a nonprofit with a full $17 million in revenues is $1 million, why was the JCRC, with just over half that amount in revenues, spending over $5 million on lobbying in 2023-24?
That most recent tax filing is not an outlier by any means – the Bay Area JCRC has routinely exceeded the cap on lobbying through activities that any reasonable person would recognize as pro-Israel lobbying.
Is it possible that the JCRC has avoided triggering an IRS audit not only through sheer political influence, or by relying on the narrowest definition of "lobbying", but by choosing not to report those de facto lobbying activities on the appropriate schedule for lobbying?
Instead, the JCRC claims multiple obviously pro-Israel lobbying activities under the category "Program Services". These activities have involved everything from anti-BDS programs, to the infamous JCRC junkets to Israel for elected officials and schoolteachers, to promoting pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian legislation such as AB 1468, which is now refashioned into the even more toxic AB 715.
(In reviewing the JCRC's 2015-2016 Form 990, I noticed the anti-BDS item in "program services", and in a subsequent search, I found a 2013 article by Alex Kane in Mondoweiss describing the San Francisco Bay Area as a kind of ground-zero for the anti-BDS movement. Per Mondoweiss, the principal actors in this anti-BDS endeavor were the Bay Area’s JCRC and an Israeli-government-linked think tank, the Reut Institute.)
The JCRC's August 2024 Formation of a 501(c)4 Doesn't "Cure" Prior Violations of Lobbying Expenditure Caps
I reached out multiple times to the JCRC last week with questions about their lobbying. The only response I received was an email from the JCRC's Director of Communications and Marketing, Jeremy Russell. In that email, Mr. Russell shared a year-old press release about the JCRC's formation of a new group, a 501(c)4 called Bay Area Jewish Action (BAJA). This 501(c)4 category would allow JCRC principals greater latitude in lobbying. (BAJA is considerably more opaque than the JCRC, but from what is publicly available, it appears to be engaged in the same lobbying activity that the JCRC has been involved in.)
But note that the JCRC's 501(c)4 (BAJA) was formed only after the most recent reported JCRC Form 990 period covering July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024. Thus, none of the JCRC's own reported increased lobbying activity would have been protected by the formation of the "BAJA" 501(c)4.
III. Ten Takeaways from the JCRC's Most Form 990 for Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 2024
1. "Sunsetting" the Literacy Program Due to Claimed "Insurmountable Budget Challenges" During JCRC's Most Profitable Year
JCRC filled out four categories under Statement of Program Service Accomplishments, Part III, 4a through 4d, totalling $5,361,897. All four of these either have significant Israel lobbying components or are straight-out lobbying by the JCRC's own descriptions.
Curiously, item 4d starts with a description of the Jewish Coalition for Literacy program (arguably the only non-lobbying component of their major program activities) which the JCRC "sunsetted" in May of 2024 due to "budget challenges that proved insurmountable."
But how can the JCRC claim that the budget challenge to the literacy program was "insurmountable" at the same time that JCRC revenues increased over 100%, to a record take of $10.5 million?
Was the JCRC simply too busy defending Israel's genocide to manage a simple literacy program, which had for decades been a measure of goodwill toward many Israel-skeptical minority communities? Or was it simply too hard to enlist literacy tutors because they objected to the JCRC's defiantly pro-Israel position at a time when many younger Americans are confronted with daily horrific images of Israel's slaughter in Gaza?
2. Eight Legislators' Luxury Trips to Israel – Clearly That Is Lobbying. But JCRC Is Calling It Program Activity.
Hidden in the same item as the "sunsetted" literacy program item, the JCRC included a brief reference to its Doug Kahn Israel trip program, a “Birthright”-style indoctrination-in-Israel program but for elected officials and community leaders. (I broke the story on many of these previously undisclosed/marginally reported trips here (Muratsuchi); here (Cader Thompson); here (Wong); and here (Carroll).
And then the JCRC boldly adds that, in February of 2024, several months into Israel's post-October 7 genocide, the JCRC paid for eight California legislators (including AD12 Assemblyman Damon Connolly) to take a luxury "four-day" tour of Israel.
(At least one of these trips, one taken by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, cost $15,808, which brings each day of that legislator’s trip to a stunning average of $3,500. What was that paying for?)
Note that in the JCRC's own description of this trip, the JCRC facilitated a meeting between California state legislators and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a known war criminal. Voters have a right to ask: Is a California legislator more or less likely to vote in favor of pro-Israel legislation after the JCRC obtains pictures of them shaking hands with an Israeli war criminal?
3. "Institute for Curriculum Services" Is Pro-Israel Lobbying
The same section also mentions the pro-Israel project "Institute for Curriculum Services" on which the JCRC spent over two million dollars ($2,076,490) in a 12-month period, and which brought in only $37,194 in revenue.
That pro-Israel nature of the ICS was exposed in a MintPress investigation linked here. Perhaps not coincidentally, in June of 2024, the Bay Area JCRC finally spun off the ICS into its own independent entity, reported here in eJewish Philanthropy.
4. JCRC "Community Relations" Programs To Fight Ceasefire Resolutions
JCRC also lists as a program activity "community relations", which during this period were primarily focused on supporting Israel, a point made in the JCRC's own description on the form 990.
This item incurred $1,694,823 in expenses with zero revenue.
In its description of this item, the JCRC outlines its "engagement" with more than 1,000 elected and school district officials (not a few of whom had previously accepted the JCRC's luxurious junkets to Israel.) But documents that I retrieved via CPRA indicate that the "engagement" with the electeds was to garner support for Israel – in other words, lobbying.
The JCRC goes on to detail in this item that they "fought inflammatory, anti-Israel resolutions as they came before Bay Area City Councils and other bodies."
But we remember the JCRC's conduct during this time, which also involved fighting anti-Zionist Jewish Californians who greatly desired a ceasefire, many of whom are reasonably in opposition to the apartheid state of Israel. In other words, the JCRC effort was to support Israel, not defend Jews.
5. "Community Relations" Included Overnight at Camp Newman (with the FBI and US Attorneys) for elected officials
The JCRC description also mentions an overnight event at Camp Newman they held for their elected slate (BANJO) who had just months earlier taken the all-expenses paid JCRC junket to Israel. But they decline to include that this overnight involved both the FBI and US Attorneys.
The JCRC goes to list engagement with more than 100 Jewish community organizations to coordinate strategy and training for "Israel advocacy." Much evidence of this training is a matter of recorded public record at city and town council meetings throughout the Bay Area, where the "trainees" regurgitated the JCRC's racist talking points in order to push back on valid and reasonable criticism of Israel's genocide.
6. "Community Relations": JCRC's WhatsApp Groups (featuring Concealed Weapons discussion that later had to be reported to police)
In the same item, the JCRC mentions their coordination of the WhatsApp groups for pro-Israel Jewish community members, but does not include the reality that, as JCRC BANJO Co-Chair Rachel Kertz was obliged to report to the San Rafael police chief, the pro-Israel WhatsApp group members in Marin discussed the need for "concealed weapon" permits. Their desire for concealed weapons was in response to a peaceful high school student walkout conducted by some of the sweetest, most earnest kids you’ll ever meet. That’s right, Kertz had to rat-fink her own gun-crazy pro-Israel cohort to protect the innocent teens protesting Israel’s genocide. That concealed carry demand is the level of paranoia that the JCRC's "community relations" stoked.
7. "Community Relations": Islamic Network Group and JCRC's Reachout to Asian Americans (The Majority of Whom Favor Palestinians)
The JCRC then lists their engagement with the Islamic Network Group, an Israel-friendly entity distrusted by most Arab and Muslim residents of the Bay Area.
JCRC further describes outreach to the Asian American community without noting available polling showing that the vast majority of Asian Americans side with Palestinians, and not Israel, a topic I reported in some detail two weeks ago after a meeting with Scott Wiener’s caucus consultant.
8. "Community Relations": The Black Community Demonstrated Insufficient Fidelity to Pro-Israel Community Post-October 7, Requiring "Repair":
As cited earlier, the JCRC description then mentions that the Bay Area's Black community was insufficiently responsive to the feelings of the pro-Israel JCRC's cohort post-October 7, a condition that required dumping old partners and "repair". What sort of incompetent leadership would include that on an IRS Form 990? How long is it going to take the JCRC to replace Tyler Gregory and Jonathan Mintzer with more responsible leadership?
9. Attacking Ethnic Studies – Again, It's Lobbying
Lastly, in this item the JCRC includes their interest in ethnic studies without mentioning that a large part of that activity involved attacking ethnic studies programs and teachers, as we have consistently witnessed JCRC members and leadership enact not only in local school districts, but in legislative hearings in Sacramento.
10. JCRC Emergency Fund to "Unite the Bay Area in Support of a Safe Israel" included hiring of unspecified "crisis communications firm" for unspecified amount
On the description of item 4(c), the JCRC states that spent $1,377,913 on "uniting the Bay Area in support of a Safe Israel." For this, they had to hire an outside crisis communications firm.
As I reported after obtaining correspondence via CPRA, much of this effort involved barraging Bay Area elected officials with phone calls and emails trying to enjoin them to sign an anti-ceasefire letter, which a significant number of officials agreed to do, particularly elected officials in Marin, Berkeley, and El Cerrito. To her credit, Marin County Supervisor Mary Sackett eventually dropped out as a signatory.
The JCRC then mentions their "constant communication with Bay Area police departments, mayors and district attorneys to educate them about the impact of events in the Middle East and the well-being of the Jewish community."
In fact, I am personally aware of that "constant communication with Bay Area police departments": The documents I retrieved via CPRA indicate that it was JCRC BANJO member Melissa Blaustein who demanded undercover and uniformed police violently and unlawfully remove me from a candidate forum in Sausalito in late 2024 for politely asking a question about the costs of war.
Conclusion: As the JCRC Is Emboldened, Its Opponents Are Sidelined
In discussions with Bay Area nonprofit leaders and their staff, there is a sense that Israel lobby groups like the JCRC can brazenly transgress the meaning of the IRS caps on lobbying without fear of being investigated, while less powerful groups have to stay far within the most careful boundaries. Pro-Palestinian groups have become so inured to the unequal treatment that they no longer seem to register how severe it is.
My challenge to those who have been targeted by the JCRC (a group which has included me and the late David Glick and too many others) is that you do not have to transgress any laws in order to challenge the JCRC’s naked violations. I’m not saying the JCRC isn’t retaliatory, but the collective risk of not taking them on is far greater.
The reality is that the pro-Israel, pro-genocide lobby that has operated at a surprising level out of the San Francisco Bay Area already helped usher in the latest Trump electoral victory. And this year Tyler Gregory’s JCRC publicly announced the group’s eagerness to work with the Trump administration to continue to target (mostly Asian) students at UC Berkeley merely for criticizing Israel's genocide.
Meanwhile, as Israel implements its final solution on the Palestinian people, the next generation of JCRC/BANJO members are currently in the process of seeking re-election or election to higher offices. Not one of them has acknowledged the harm they have done by promoting Israel's interests through their JCRC/BANJO activities. They have taken zero responsibility, and are entirely unaccountable for their role in supporting (and profiting from) Israel's genocide.
We in the Bay Area have a moral obligation to do everything that is reasonably and legally within our power both to challenge the JCRC and make sure JCRC’s BANJO members are not re-elected or elected to higher office. The fact that there is not even a complaint against the JCRC for decades of lobbying in apparent excess of the IRS restrictions is no longer excusable.
Notes:
For additional context, I provide links to some of my reporting on the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Family and Children’s Services:
1) the Marin County Office of Education's role in transferring $8.5 million in public state educational grants to the $87-million-in-assets Jewish Family and Children's Services for a deeply biased "Holocaust and Genocide" education program, reported here (and with a follow-up after the JFCS budget report was submitted to the County Office of Education, see Part B of article linked here that includes screenshots of JFCS financial report.)
2) the largely undisclosed (and often deliberately hidden) JCRC-paid, luxury junkets to Israel taken by dozens of California electeds, as well as a followup overnight for many of the "junketeers" with the FBI and US Attorneys at a Jewish summer camp in Santa Rosa (Camp Newman). You can find some of these articles archived here (Superintendent Caroll); and here (Councilmember Cader Thompson); and here (with video of Assemblyman Muratsuchi); and here (City Auditor Wong).
3) JCRC Jonathan Mintzer's role in whipping up a mini-mob of Marin County transplants in June 2024 that physically and verbally harassed the venerable peace activist David Glick, not far from his home, merely because he supported a ceasefire resolution. This incident contributed greatly to Glick's stress levels prior to his fatal heart attack on October 2, 2024.
4) JCRC/BANJO member Trish Munro's hijacking of the only in-person delegate polling site in all of AD-14, one of the most diverse and pro-ceasefire districts in California, and with a follow-up in Part II of this article on the JCRC/BANJO member’s additional maneuvering within the Alameda Democratic Central Committee.
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©2025 Eva Chrysanthe