Where Schindler's List Money Went

Steven Spielberg established the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994 with $100 million in profits from Schindler's List, calling the money “blood money” that needed to be “put back into the Jewish community.” Thirty years later, $2.4 million of it has gone to Jewish organizations that oppose the international definition of antisemitism, demand an arms embargo against Israel, and helped elect the most anti-Israel mayor in New York City history.

In the fall of 1994, fresh off the Best Picture and Best Director wins for Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg made a vow.

He told his mentor Sid Sheinberg that he could not accept a dollar of the film's profits personally. “It was blood money,” Spielberg said, “and needed to be put back into the Jewish community.” He committed $53 million to launch what he called the Righteous Persons Foundation — named, with intention, after the gentile rescuers of Holocaust survivors. He added profits from Munich in 2006 and Lincoln afterward. To date, Steven Spielberg's charity has paid out more than $160 million in grants.

Most of that money, particularly in the early decades, went where it was supposed to go. Holocaust education. Survivor support. Yiddish cultural preservation. The Center for Jewish History. The USC Shoah Foundation — which Spielberg himself founded in 1994 and which received a separate $30 million endowment grant from RPF in late 2024 to continue collecting Holocaust survivor testimony.

That is the story of the Righteous Persons Foundation that everyone knows.

The other story is what has happened to Steven Spielberg's charity in the post-2020 era, when its grantmaking quietly pivoted into the infrastructure of the American Jewish progressive left — and, in effect, into pro-Palestinian political advocacy. That story is now five months old in the right-of-center Jewish press, and the mainstream Jewish trade press has refused to touch it. It is, by any reasonable standard of Jewish institutional accountability, the biggest unexamined Jewish philanthropy story of the post–October 7 era.

I report it here in full.

Steven Spielberg's Charity: Where the Righteous Persons Foundation Money Went After 2020

According to the foundation's published financial disclosures, surfaced first in Frontpage Magazine in late December 2025 and subsequently reported by the New York Sun, JFeed, Israel National News, Future of Jewish, and Ynetnews, the Righteous Persons Foundation has directed roughly $2.4 million since 2020 to three progressive Jewish advocacy organizations whose public positions on Israel are sharply at odds with the foundation's founding mission.

Bend the Arc — $1.2 million. Founded in 1999 as the Progressive Jewish Alliance and rebranded under its current name in 2012, Bend the Arc is now the largest domestic-focused progressive Jewish advocacy organization in the United States. The group publicly opposes the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — the working definition adopted by the United States government, the European Union, and more than forty national governments, which classifies certain forms of anti-Zionism as antisemitism. Bend the Arc has argued that the IHRA definition is used to suppress Palestinian advocacy. Its senior strategy officer, Dove Kent, previously co-founded an organization providing “coaching, training, culture and infrastructure support” to IfNotNow, the anti-Zionist protest group that occupies AIPAC offices and disrupts Jewish federations.

T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights — approximately $650,000. T'ruah has organized street blockades protesting Israel's military campaign in Gaza. Its chief executive, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, has accused Israel of “deliberately starving” Palestinian civilians and called Israel's September 2024 pager operation against Hezbollah operatives a “war crime.” Jacobs has also publicly blasted “American Jews” for discussing October 7 and the hostages “without once mentioning the unbearable death toll among Palestinians,” attributing the silence to fear of “wealthy Jewish donors.”

Jews United for Justice — approximately $900,000. The group has signed letters arguing that Jewish institutions worldwide should be “held accountable” for what it characterizes as Palestinian oppression. It is also a public opponent of the IHRA definition.

A further quarter-million dollars has flowed from RPF to the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, the umbrella coalition for Bend the Arc, T'ruah, and adjacent groups including the New York Jewish Agenda.

The totals come from the foundation's own filings. Nothing here is alleged. Everything is in the tax record.

How Steven Spielberg's Charity Money Helped Elect Zohran Mamdani

The American Jewish philanthropic ecosystem is large enough that $2.4 million in any single direction is, in raw dollar terms, not the headline. The headline is what the money enabled.

In September 2025, Bend the Arc made an announcement that broke a quarter-century of organizational practice. The group — which had never previously endorsed in a mayoral race anywhere in the United States — gave its first-ever mayoral endorsement to Zohran Mamdani, the New York State Assemblyman from Queens running for Mayor of New York City.

Mamdani is the founder of a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College. He is a public supporter of the BDS movement. He has refused, on multiple occasions and in multiple forums, to affirm Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. He held a hunger strike at the White House in November 2023, six weeks after October 7, demanding President Biden cut military aid to Israel. He introduced legislation in Albany — the “Not on Our Dime Act” — to bar New York charitable organizations from supporting Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

He won the November 2025 election. He was inaugurated on New Year's Day 2026. He is now the Mayor of New York City — the city with the largest Jewish population outside the State of Israel.

Bend the Arc raised money for him. Bend the Arc canvassed for him. Bend the Arc bought television advertising for him. In its own post-election communications, the organization claimed credit for shaping the result: “With support from people like you, Bend the Arc helped shape this monumental victory with our air game and ground game.”

The money that paid for Bend the Arc's air game and ground game came from a portfolio that includes — substantially, repeatedly, on the public record — the Righteous Persons Foundation. Steven Spielberg's charity did not write a check to Mamdani. It wrote checks to the organization that delivered him.

Steven Spielberg Meets Mayor Mamdani at Central Park West

On Monday, January 5, 2026 — the first day of Mamdani's first full week as Mayor of New York City — Steven Spielberg hosted the new mayor at the director's apartment on Central Park West.

The meeting was first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by Mamdani's City Hall and by Spielberg's spokeswoman, Terry Press. Spielberg's wife Kate Capshaw, their son Theo Spielberg, and Theo's wife were present. Mamdani brought his advisor Morris Katz. The Hollywood Reporter, citing sources familiar with the encounter, reported that the meeting was arranged not by Mamdani or by Spielberg directly but by an unnamed third party who “wanted the mayor and director to meet” with Spielberg now a full-time New York City resident.

The timing of Spielberg's relocation to New York is, on its own, worth pausing over. The director moved his primary residence to Manhattan in late 2025 — the same months in which wealthy New York residents earning above $1 million annually were openly threatening to leave the city in response to Mamdani's proposed two-percentage-point income tax hike on high earners. Spielberg moved in the opposite direction of the migration. He arrived in time to host the new mayor on his first week in office.

There was, the Times reported, no formal agenda. There was also, the Times reported, no shortage of potential topics. Mamdani grew up on the film sets of his mother, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mira Nair. He understands the unwritten rules of Hollywood as a native speaker. Spielberg understands them as the man who wrote most of them.

Spielberg did not contribute to Mamdani's campaign. The campaign filings are clean. There is no direct check. There is only the indirect line — the foundation, the grantees, the air game, the ground game, the endorsement, the win.

And then a private dinner in a Central Park West apartment on the first Monday of the new administration.

What Steven Spielberg Says in Public About Antisemitism and Israel

In December 2023, eight weeks after October 7, Spielberg broke his public silence on the attacks. “I never imagined I would see such unspeakable barbarity against Jews in my lifetime,” he said in a statement issued through the USC Shoah Foundation, announcing the Countering Antisemitism Through Testimony initiative — an effort to collect October 7 survivor accounts alongside Holocaust survivor accounts within the foundation's permanent archive.

In March 2024, accepting an honor from the University of Southern California for his work with the Shoah Foundation, he went further: “I am increasingly alarmed that we may be condemned to repeat history, to once again have to fight for the very right to be Jewish.” He warned about “the machinery of extremism” on American college campuses. He called the work of the Shoah Foundation “crucial because stopping the rise of antisemitism and hate of any kind is critical to the health of our democratic republic.”

In the same speech, he added the line that has become his signature post–October 7 formulation: “We can rage against the heinous acts committed by the terrorists of October 7th and also decry the killing of innocent women and children in Gaza.”

There is no contradiction inside the speech itself. There is a contradiction between the speech and the foundation's grant ledger. The same year Spielberg warned American audiences about the machinery of extremism on college campuses, his foundation was the documented funder of organizations whose senior staff had built infrastructure for the campus protest movements driving exactly that machinery. The same year he invoked the IHRA definition's implicit framework — that antisemitism includes the targeted singling out of Israel — his foundation was the documented funder of organizations actively campaigning against the IHRA definition.

A man may believe two things at once. A foundation cannot fund two opposite missions at once without choosing one over the other in the cumulative effect. Two and a half million dollars is a choice. Two and a half million dollars across five years is a sustained, repeated, deliberate choice.

Why the Trade Press Won't Report on Spielberg's Pro-Palestinian Grantmaking

The story has been on the public record since December 29, 2025. Frontpage Magazine reported it first. The New York Sun — under the byline of its editorial board — followed within twenty-four hours. JFeed picked it up in Israel. Israel National News ran two pieces. Future of Jewish analyzed it. Ynetnews in January 2026 connected the foundation's grants to Mamdani's election and to the Spielberg apartment meeting. The Spielberg-Mamdani meeting itself was reported in the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter.

It has not been reported in Variety. Not in the Hollywood Reporter's analytical coverage of Spielberg the philanthropist, only in its straight news report of the meeting. Not in JTA. Not in the Forward. Not in Tablet. Not in Commentary. Not in the Atlantic. Not in the New York Times op-ed pages, which carried four separate columns on Jewish philanthropy and Israel during the same five-month window.

The Spielberg name is one of the most valuable in American philanthropy. His foundation's annual disbursements move careers and organizations. The trade press that depends on his goodwill has, by every visible measure, decided that this story is not the story to break.

I report it because somebody has to.

Is Steven Spielberg Pro-Palestinian? The Question His Charity Ledger Puts on the Table

Steven Spielberg is the most decorated Jewish filmmaker in American history. He founded the Shoah Foundation, the single most important institution preserving Holocaust testimony for the next century. He has made the most-watched feature film about the Holocaust ever produced. He has spoken with personal eloquence about the rise of antisemitism. He has earmarked tens of millions of dollars from his films toward the preservation of Jewish memory.

He also wrote, through his personal foundation, $1.2 million in checks to the organization that delivered Zohran Mamdani to City Hall — and then hosted Mamdani at his Central Park West apartment the first week the new mayor took office.

Both things are true. Both things are documented. Both things are now part of the public Jewish record.

The question I put on the table is not whether Steven Spielberg has the right to fund whichever American Jewish organizations he chooses. He plainly does. The question is whether Schindler's List money — the money he himself called blood money in 1994, the money he said belonged to the Jewish community — is being deployed today in the service of the community that the foundation was created to protect.

The check writing record says it is being deployed in the service of the community that wants the IHRA definition of antisemitism abolished, the Israeli military embargoed, Israeli charitable contributions criminalized in New York, and a BDS founder installed in Gracie Mansion.

That is a defensible philanthropic posture. It is not the posture Steven Spielberg announced when he founded the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994.

It deserves, at minimum, an explanation. Until one is offered, the trail of receipts speaks for itself.

Steven Spielberg's Charity and Israel: The Questions People Are Asking

What is Steven Spielberg's charity?
Steven Spielberg's primary charity is the Righteous Persons Foundation, launched in 1994 with $100 million in profits from Schindler's List. The foundation has paid out more than $160 million in grants and is separate from the USC Shoah Foundation, which Spielberg also founded in 1994 to collect Holocaust survivor testimony.

How much has Spielberg's charity given to anti-Israel groups?
Roughly $2.4 million since 2020, according to the foundation's own tax filings. Recipients include Bend the Arc ($1.2 million), Jews United for Justice (approximately $900,000), and T'ruah ($650,000) — all three publicly oppose the IHRA definition of antisemitism and are aligned with anti-Israel positions on the war in Gaza.

Is Steven Spielberg pro-Palestinian?
Spielberg has not publicly endorsed the Palestinian cause. In public speeches he has condemned the October 7 attacks and warned about rising antisemitism. His foundation's grant ledger, however, funds organizations whose staff and public positions are aligned with pro-Palestinian political advocacy in the United States, including opposition to Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

Did Steven Spielberg support Zohran Mamdani?
Not directly. Spielberg did not contribute to Mamdani's campaign. But Spielberg's foundation gave $1.2 million to Bend the Arc, the Jewish advocacy group that delivered Mamdani's first-ever mayoral endorsement and ran independent ground and air campaigns for him. Spielberg hosted Mamdani at his Central Park West apartment on January 5, 2026, the mayor's first full week in office.

What is the Righteous Persons Foundation?
The Righteous Persons Foundation is Steven Spielberg's personal philanthropic foundation, funded with profits from Schindler's List, Munich, and Lincoln. It is named after the gentile rescuers of Holocaust survivors. It has funded Holocaust education, survivor support, Yiddish cultural preservation, and, since 2020, a group of progressive Jewish advocacy organizations that oppose the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Where did Schindler's List profits actually go?
The $100 million in Schindler's List profits went into the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994. For most of the foundation's history, the grants supported Holocaust memory institutions. Since 2020, a growing share has gone to progressive Jewish organizations engaged in anti-Israel political advocacy and, in 2025, to the Bend the Arc campaign that helped elect Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York.