Philanthropists critical of Nakba exhibit donated $4.8M to groups later sanctioned for funding illegal settlements, Israeli military

A family foundation that paused funding for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights because of an exhibit on the displacement of Palestinians has given more than $4.8 million to charities that were later sanctioned for sending funds to the Israeli military or illegal Israeli settlements, an IJF analysis has found.

In June, the Winnipeg human rights museum opened an exhibit titled “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present” exploring the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948.

Gail Asper, whose family was instrumental in establishing the museum, has criticized the Nakba exhibit for what she calls an omission of key facts about the conflict and inaccuracies that demonstrate bias on the part of the museum curators. Asper revealed in July her family foundation was pausing a planned donation of $50,000 to the museum and has called for a government assessment of the museum’s policies on how it selects and presents exhibits.

The Asper Foundation, founded in 1983 by the late Winnipeg media mogul Izzy Asper, has donated millions to Canadian charities throughout its history. And the list of the top recipients includes an organization that Canadian and international bodies have implicated in the displacement of Palestinians, and others tied to Israeli military projects and Israeli settler groups, according to charity tax filings and documents from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

Becca Steckle, research and policy analyst for the human rights group Just Peace Advocates, said that in light of the Asper Foundation’s donations to groups supporting Israeli settlements and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the claims of bias related to the Nakba exhibit are “incredibly ironic.”

“The Aspers have funded the ongoing displacement of the Palestinian people and have provided concrete support for the Israeli occupation in the millions of dollars,” Steckle said.

The Asper Foundation defended its donation history.

“The Asper Foundation makes funding decisions based on an organization’s status as a registered Canadian charity and its charitable activities at the time grants are approved,” said Jeffrey Morry, the charity’s director of strategy and programming.

“The foundation does not provide funding to organizations whose charitable status has been revoked by the Canada Revenue Agency,” Morry said.

Morry declined to comment on the groups mentioned in this story as well as questions about the foundation’s policies regarding funding organizations that support Israeli settlements or the Israeli military.

Steckle said that Asper-funded charities like the Jewish National Fund of Canada, the Ne’eman Foundation, Canadian Zionist Cultural Association and Canada Charity Partners were open about the kinds of projects they funded, and the details revealed in CRA audits likely weren’t a surprise to donors.

“That is not to say every single person knew, but those who were regularly giving would have known. And it is that reason they likely continued to give,” Steckle said.

In many cases, the ineligible projects that eventually caught the attention of the CRA were advertised by the charities on their websites.

The Asper Foundation donated more than $4 million to the Jewish National Fund of Canada (JNF) between 2005 and 2024, according to annual reports filed by the foundation. The Gail Asper Family Foundation has also given the JNF about $26,000.

The CRA notified JNF of its intent to revoke the organization’s charitable registration in 2019, citing multiple violations involving the use of charitable funds to support the armed forces of another country, the IDF, and to establish and maintain infrastructure in Israeli settlements within occupied Palestinian territory in contravention of Canadian policy and international law.

As early as 1989, the CRA had formally raised concerns about JNF’s activities. Many of the same issues were flagged again in a 2016 audit, according to a June 2024 letter sent by the tax agency to JNF.

JNF’s flagship project involved raising $15 million after the 1967 Six-Day War to build Ayalon-Canada Park on 3,200 hectares of land between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Palestinian villages of Beit-Nuba, Emmaus and Yalou were demolished to make way for the park, which was completed in 1984. In 1986, a UN Special Committee reported villagers were being denied the right of return to their land. In 2007, JNF invested $7 million to refurbish the park.

The CRA identified seven other JNF projects in the occupied territories, including the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the Givat Oz HaGaon settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied since the Six-Day War, which includes Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The CRA’s audit found nine JNF projects where “resources were used to conduct activities in support of the Israel Defense Forces,” such as funding infrastructure development on army, navy and air force bases.

JNF filed a legal appeal of the revocation, but officially ceased being a registered charity in August 2024. The organization is continuing to challenge the CRA’s revocation in court, arguing that the decision was “fatally tainted by bias.”

The use of funds to support the IDF was also raised in a CRA audit of the Ne’eman Foundation, which received approximately $392,000 from the Asper Foundation between 2019 and 2022, according to tax filings.

The now-defunct Canadian arm of the charity was established to flow funds to Israeli non-profits, according to a description on its website. Its status was also revoked in August 2024 after an audit revealed the Ne’eman Foundation provided “funds to a number of agents that provide support” to the IDF.

Other “non-charitable” activities flagged by auditors were payments to Elad Ir David, an organization that includes in its mission statement the aim of creating “a Jewish majority in Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem,” and Women in Green, an Israeli movement that promotes annexation and settlement of the West Bank.

In February 2026, the CRA revoked the status of the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association (CZCA), which described itself as “a Canadian charity supporting programs such as grocery vouchers for families in financial need, rehabilitation and recreational programs for bereaved families and youth, and scholarships for students who cannot afford to continue their education.”

Auditors said it appeared CZCA’s “main purpose” was to send funds to “non-qualified donees that directly support the IDF.” Among the issues raised by the CRA was the organization’s relationship with the Association for the Soldiers of Israel–Canada (ASI–Canada).

Billed as the “only non-profit organization in Canada authorized by the IDF to support Israel’s soldiers on active duty,” ASI–Canada shared the same address, phone number and several staff with CZCA, and the entirety of ASI–Canada’s staff payroll was supported and paid by CZCA, according to the CRA.

The Asper Foundation donated more than $287,000 to CZCA between 2013 and 2022.

In its revocation letter from February 2025, the CRA alleged that Canada Charity Partners had provided tax receipts for donations made to support the fundraising site IsraelGives. The CRA audit revealed several IsraelGives projects were intended to deliver supplies and equipment to IDF members.

The Asper Foundation donated $100,000 to Canada Charity Partners between 2019 and 2021.

Academic research by Miles Howe, a postdoctoral fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Criminology, has examined how money moves through Canada’s charitable sector to organizations in Israel.

Alongside the activities cited by the CRA as contravening Canadian policy or international law, Howe said that many charities named in this story also supported programs that would be recognized as legitimate charitable causes.

But for groups like CZCA, their purpose was more narrowly focused.

“If you don’t know what the CZCA is doing with your money, it’s not doing much more than funding the IDF,” Howe said.

“This is the great ruse of the industrial charitable sector in Canada,” Howe said. “[Organizations] like Canada Charity Partners, Ne’eman Foundation, CZCA … these are largely just conduits that exist in the landscape to do exactly this.”

Howe’s research has traced millions of dollars donated by Canadians to the Israeli settlements and support for the Israeli military. One charity, the Mizrachi Organization of Canada, sent more than $4 million in 2022 and 2023 to dozens of groups involved in settlement activity in the West Bank, according to his analysis of tax filings.

Within the last five years, Mizrachi Canada has also given more than $16,000 to the Regavim movement, an Israeli group recently sanctioned by the federal government for supporting extremist settler violence against Palestinians.

In July, Global Affairs Canada introduced the latest round of sanctions in response to escalating extremist settler violence it said is “further destabilizing the West Bank, driving the forced displacement of Palestinian communities and undermining the viability of a two-state solution.”

In 2023 and 2024, the Asper Foundation made four donations to Mizrachi Canada totalling $119,871.

A spokesperson for the CRA told the IJF that since Mizrachi Canada was registered as a charity in 1979, the agency “has not suspended or penalized the organization, nor has it revoked or annulled its registration as the result of an audit.”

Mizrachi Canada did not respond to a request for comment.

Brett McKay is an Edmonton-based reporter specializing in investigative and data-driven stories.