Genesis Prize laureate's foundation gave $284K to J Street, NIF, Tides Foundation, and the Soros-backed Quincy Institute.
In June 2024, the Genesis Prize Foundation honored Barbra Streisand as its 10th anniversary laureate — unanimously chosen following nominations from tens of thousands of Jews around the world. The Genesis Prize, often called the "Jewish Nobel," celebrates "outstanding individuals who serve as a source of inspiration for the next generation of Jews worldwide." Previous laureates include Michael Bloomberg, Natalie Portman, and Michael Douglas.
Streisand is Jewish. Brooklyn-born, daughter of a Jewish schoolteacher, proudly identified her entire life. She is among the most visible Jews on earth.
Her foundation — the Streisand Foundation, which she has run as sole president since 1986 — sits on $30.5 million in assets. In the last five years, it has distributed $5.5 million across 403 grants to 222 organizations. Lifetime: more than $25 million to over 800 nonprofits. The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals. Grantmaking is by invitation only. Every grant is deliberate.
Among the deliberate grants: $55,000 to J Street. $20,000 to the New Israel Fund. $139,000 to the Tides Foundation. $70,000 to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Total: $284,000 to organizations working against the Jewish state — funded by the Genesis Prize laureate, by invitation, across multiple years.
Who Makes the Decisions at the Streisand Foundation — Board, Officers, and Governance Structure
The Streisand Foundation (EIN 13-2620702), Woodland Hills, California. FY2024: $4.8 million revenue. $2.0 million expenses. $30.5 million total assets. The foundation files IRS Form 990-PF annually as a private foundation. All grantee data in this article is drawn directly from those public filings.
Barbra Streisand — President (1986–present). Sole final authority on all grantmaking. Listed as the foundation's only compensated officer in early filings; current filings show no officer compensation.
Margery Tabankin — Treasurer/Secretary (1986–present). One of the foundation's key decision makers for 40 years. A progressive political strategist trained at Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago — the same community organizing model that produced generations of left-wing activists. Served as VISTA National Director under President Carter, making her the youngest person to lead the federal volunteer agency. Ran the Hollywood Women's Political Committee through the early 1990s, channeling entertainment-industry money into Democratic campaigns. Tabankin also holds a longstanding senior role at Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation — a $160 million philanthropic vehicle that has funded Bend the Arc ($1.2M), T'ruah ($650K), and other progressive Jewish organizations — and at Spielberg's Hearthland Foundation, which deployed $26.7 million in voter mobilization and racial justice grantmaking. This dual role makes Tabankin one of the most influential — and least scrutinized — grantmaking figures in Jewish philanthropy.
Francis Smith — Executive Director (2013–present). Also serves as a political advisor to the Democracy Alliance, the left-of-center donor network co-founded by George Soros and other progressive billionaires to coordinate political giving.
Jason Gould — Board Member (Streisand's son). Lester J. Knispel — Assistant Secretary.
No independent directors. No outside oversight. No advisory board. No public grantmaking criteria. The foundation's IRS filings list its application process as "by invitation only."
Streisand Foundation Gave $55,000 to J Street — the Organization Israel's Ambassador Called "a Cancer"
The Streisand Foundation gave $55,000 to the J Street Education Fund across three grants (2022–2024), according to its IRS Form 990-PF filings.
On May 19, 2026, Israel's Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter called J Street "a cancer within the Jewish community" at a National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism gathering at the Museum of the Bible in Washington.
"The worst thing about J Street is it's duplicitous."
"How can you be pro-Israel and advocate for an arms embargo on a state that's fighting a seven-front war against Iranian proxies?"
"They are like a cancer in the heart of the Jewish community."
Leiter called on supporters of Israel:
"You've got to create an atmosphere where there's going to be competition among candidates who say, 'I don't have anything to do with J Street,' and have competition among candidates who say, 'I'm proudly affiliated with AIPAC.'"
The ambassador went further:
"Don't be fooled by the fact that they appear to be Jewish. One senator told me that the sponsor is a Jew. The sponsor is not a Jew. The sponsor is a Communist, who may have Jewish pedigree."
What J Street Advocates for — With Streisand's Money: Ending $3.8 Billion in U.S. Military Aid to Israel
In April 2026, J Street published a formal policy memo calling for a "responsible and relatively rapid phase-out of all financial assistance, including for ballistic missile defense." The memo calls for ending $3.3 billion in annual Foreign Military Financing and $500 million in Department of Defense missile defense funding when the current $38 billion memorandum of understanding expires in 2028.
That means Iron Dome. David's Sling. Arrow. The systems that intercepted over 300 Iranian missiles and drones on April 13, 2024.
J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami called it "a fundamental reassessment of the U.S.-Israel security relationship," arguing that Israel, with a $45 billion defense budget, can afford to buy rather than receive subsidized weapons. The memo also endorses the Ceasefire Compliance Act, introduced by Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), which would restrict Israel's use of U.S.-supplied weapons if compliance benchmarks are not met.
J Street is now the mainstream Israel lobby among Democrats, endorsing more members of Congress than AIPAC. In April 2026, a record 27 Senate Democrats voted to restrict $660 million in weapons sales to Israel — at J Street's urging. The organization has endorsed candidates in over 100 congressional races.
Streisand's foundation funds them. $55,000 across three years. By invitation only.
Streisand Foundation Gave $20,000 to the New Israel Fund — Under Congressional Investigation for Illegal Electioneering, Banned by Birthright Israel
The Streisand Foundation gave $20,000 to the New Israel Fund across two grants (2023–2024).
On July 9, 2026, the House Judiciary and Ways and Means committees opened a formal investigation into the New Israel Fund.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) sent a letter to NIF alleging the organization violated its tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) charity "by providing millions of dollars in funding to groups that engaged in political campaign activities in the 2019 Israeli elections." Under U.S. law, 501(c)(3) charities are "absolutely prohibited" from directly or indirectly engaging in any political campaign for or against a candidate for elected office.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan:
"The law is the law. You're not supposed to be using this for electioneering activity. It looks like they were."
"I think it's driven to alter outcomes and to undermine the guy who was elected as prime minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu."
"Whenever we do these investigations, typically the only thing we get wrong at the front end is that it's always worse than we thought."
The committees cited specific grants: $356,000 from NIF to Zazim, an Israeli organization that bussed thousands of Bedouin voters to the polls as part of the opposition to Netanyahu. An additional $95,000 to Adalah, which provided legal representation to the Joint Arab List — the alliance of Arab parties that centered their 2019 campaign around ousting Netanyahu in favor of Benny Gantz. The investigation covers 10 Israeli nonprofits including Breaking the Silence, Standing Together, and Darkenu. Jordan ordered NIF to hand over all grant documents by July 23.
According to NGO Monitor, NIF has donated more than $300 million to Israeli nonprofits since its founding in 1979. Among its grantees: Adalah, Breaking the Silence, +972 Magazine, B'Tselem, Gisha, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — organizations primarily active in BDS and delegitimization campaigns. Breaking the Silence — NIF's largest recipient ($700,000+) — dispatches former soldiers on international tours accusing the IDF of war crimes. NIF-funded groups were featured centrally in the discredited Goldstone Report, which referenced B'Tselem more than 56 times, Adalah 38 times, and Breaking the Silence 27 times. Birthright Israel banned NIF.
I have written about NIF for more than a decade:
In The Hill (March 2015): "New Israel Fund is no friend of Israel."
In The Jewish Press (May 2015): "Those who fund The New Israel Fund cross all red lines."
In The Hill (February 2016): "NIF's money and support is at the center."
In the Algemeiner (August 2015): documenting NIF donor contradictions.
At JNS (December 2017): "The New Israel Fund is no friend."
Now it is 2026, NIF is under congressional investigation for illegal electioneering, and the Genesis Prize laureate is writing them checks.
Streisand Foundation Gave $139,000 to the Tides Foundation — Fiscal Sponsor of BDS Groups, Designated Terrorist Entities, and Anti-Israel Litigation
The Streisand Foundation gave $139,000 to the Tides Foundation across five years (2020–2024). The Tides Network has mobilized over $3 billion since its founding in 1976 and manages nearly 400 donor-advised funds. According to NGO Monitor's Tides profile, the foundation serves as fiscal sponsor and grant channel for some of the most active anti-Israel organizations in the United States:
Jewish Voice for Peace: $312K — the largest Jewish BDS organization in the U.S., which describes Israel as an "apartheid state" and has hosted events featuring members of designated terrorist organizations. IfNotNow: $358K — campaigns to end American Jewish support for Israel's "occupation." CODEPINK: $293K — organized protests at the U.S. Capitol and disrupted congressional hearings on Israel. Alliance for Global Justice: $3.5M — fiscal sponsor of Samidoun, designated a terrorist entity by the United States and Canada for its ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). National Lawyers Guild: $1.35M — has sent delegations to the Palestinian territories and called for BDS. Center for Constitutional Rights: $173K — filed a federal lawsuit accusing Israel of "genocide" in Gaza. New Israel Fund: $1.34M from Tides — the same NIF now under congressional investigation.
Several Tides recipients — including Bend the Arc ($1.2M from Spielberg's RPF) and T'ruah ($650K) — mobilized within days to defend Mahmoud Khalil after his March 2025 ICE detention, illustrating how the same progressive Jewish funding network activates across causes from Israel delegitimization to immigration enforcement opposition.
Streisand Foundation Gave $70,000 to the Soros-Backed Quincy Institute — the Think Tank Challenging U.S.-Israel Military Ties and Advocating Middle East Disengagement
The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft was founded in 2019 with seed funding from George Soros's Open Society Foundations ($500,000) and the Charles Koch Foundation ($500,000) — an unusual left-right alliance united by opposition to U.S. military engagement abroad. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which has separately funded BDS-aligned organizations, contributed $350,000. The institute's board chairman, Stephen Heintz, is president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which manages a $1.2 billion endowment.
Led by Trita Parsi — formerly president of the National Iranian American Council — Quincy advocates reduced U.S. military engagement in the Middle East, conditioning military aid to Israel, and what it calls "military restraint." The institute's researchers have argued for treating Israel like any other U.S. ally rather than maintaining the special security relationship that has defined bilateral ties since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Streisand gave $70,000 to the Quincy Institute across three grants (2021–2024).
Total: $284,000 to J Street, NIF, Tides, and Quincy — organizations that collectively advocate ending U.S. military aid to Israel, fund BDS campaigns, sponsor designated terrorist entities, and are under active congressional investigation.
Margery Tabankin: 40 Years as a Decision Maker at the Streisand Foundation and the Spielberg Philanthropy Network
Tabankin — trained by Alinsky, appointed by Carter, connected to Arafat — has served as Treasurer/Secretary of the Streisand Foundation since 1986. She simultaneously holds a senior role at Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation, which Olam has reported on in connection with Spielberg's $1.2 million in grants to Bend the Arc and the progressive Jewish network that helped elect Zohran Mamdani mayor of New York City.
Tabankin's position across both the Streisand and Spielberg foundations gives her unusual influence over the direction of progressive Jewish philanthropy in America. Together, the two foundations control more than $190 million in combined assets and have funded dozens of organizations active in progressive politics, voter mobilization, and — directly and indirectly — in campaigns to condition or end U.S. support for Israel.
The Genesis Prize Question: What Does Barbra Streisand's Philanthropy Mean for Jewish Continuity and Israel's Security?
The Genesis Prize celebrates Jews who inspire the next generation. In 2024, they chose Barbra Streisand. She accepted.
Her foundation funds J Street — which Israel's ambassador calls a cancer, and which advocates ending $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid. Her foundation funds the New Israel Fund — under congressional investigation for illegal electioneering in Israeli elections, banned by Birthright, and the largest funder of BDS-aligned NGOs in Israel. Her foundation funds the Tides Foundation — fiscal sponsor of Samidoun, a designated terrorist entity, and grant channel for Jewish Voice for Peace, CODEPINK, and the Alliance for Global Justice. Her foundation funds the Soros-backed Quincy Institute — the think tank working to dismantle the U.S.-Israel security relationship.
Every grant was made by invitation. Barbra Streisand approved every allocation. No independent director reviewed the decisions. No advisory board weighed in. The foundation has no public grantmaking criteria, no outside oversight, and no mechanism for accountability beyond the annual IRS filing.
What does it mean when a recipient of one of the Jewish world's most prominent honors uses her philanthropic fortune to support organizations fighting Israel's security, opposing its military alliances, and funding the campaigns to delegitimize the Jewish state?
Barbra Streisand knows what her foundation funds. She is the president. The grants carry her name.
Sources and Methodology
All grant amounts cited in this article are drawn from the Streisand Foundation's IRS Form 990-PF filings (EIN 13-2620702), which are public records. Filings are available at ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Grantmakers.io, and philanthropy.org. Tides Foundation and NIF grantee data is sourced from NGO Monitor's Tides profile and NGO Monitor's NIF profile. The Influence Watch profile provides additional context on the foundation's grantmaking history. Ambassador Leiter's remarks were reported by JNS on May 18, 2026. The NIF congressional investigation was reported by JNS on July 9, 2026. J Street's policy memo is published at jstreet.org. The Quincy Institute's founding and donor structure is documented by Influence Watch.