A recent access (ATIP) request from the Canada Revenue Agency revealed that Israel received the highest amount of charitable donations from Canadian charities of any country.
On average over the last five years, over 11 percent of the funds donated to other countries by Canadian charities went to Israel, a county that has a GDP per capita equivalent or higher than Canada.
During these years, Israel either ranked as the country receiving the most or second most charitable Canadian funds. Over 200 charities in Canada each year from 2018 to 2021 reported sending money to Israel.
Israel
| Year | Amount (Canadian dollars) | Number of Charities Sending Money | Ranking |
| 2018 | $ 228,069,162 | 228 | 1 |
| 2019 | $ 333,426,311 | 220 | 1 |
| 2020 | $ 320,949,573 | 206 | 2 |
| 2021 | $ 231,874,578 | 203 | 2 |
| 2022 | $ 69,329,188* | 118 | 9 |
| TOTAL | $1,183,648,812** |
This information is from an ATIP request received in late September 2023.
*An separate ATIP received in late November 2023, showed $132M reported from about 140 Canadian charities in 2022. A subsequent ATIP in early 2024, indicated many late filings for 2023, resulting in $237.5 M from close to 200 Canadian charities.
**with updated 2022 information, over $1.3 billion in last five years.
See details of total donations to other countries.
In 2022, according to this late September 2023 ATIP request, the amount of donations reported being provided by Canadian charities to Israel dropped significantly—from over $230 M in 2021 to $69M in 2022.
The number of charities reporting sending money to Israel dropped from over 200 to 118 charities.
Further research shows that several charities providing money to Israel in past years have not had their 2022 filing posted by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
This could be because these organizations did not file in 2022 or because they are still in process at CRA.
However, CRA assured Just Peace Advocates that 79 percent of the 2022 returns had been processed at the end of September 2023 when this information was provided by the CRA.
The CRA Director General responsible for charities, Khare Sharmilla, indicated that even if a charity is under investigation their processed filing information would be included on the public CRA data.
Thus, even allowing for 20 (or even 30 percent) of files still in process, there would be a decrease of about $150 million of charity funds reported in 2022 than was reported in 2021, with 2021 being $100+M less than in the preceding several years.
This decrease included about 100 less charities reporting sending charitable donations to Israel that in previous years.
UPDATE: a later ATIP request received near end of November 2023, showed $132 M sent to Israeli from about 140 charities. This is still a significant drop for 2021, with about $100M less being sent, and $190M less than in 2020, with about 40 less charities reporting sending money to Israel.
There seems to be several possible reasons for this, including charities that did not file in 2022, charities that have been revoked by CRA, and charities that are not reporting money that is going to Israel (e.g. failing to code to Israel).
Late or No Filing
In October 2023, Just Peace Advocates identified a dozen charities that sent money to Israel that seemed to not have filed their 2022 CRA return based on public data. This would appear to make up more than $35M drop in the funds reported as being sent from Canadian charities to Israel. These charities are from among those that Blumberg identified as among the Canadian charities making the largest donations outside Canada. Based on the ATIP provided by the CRA there would appear to be another 80 or more Canadian charities that did not report providing money to Israel in 2022, but there may be other reasons for the decrease in reported Canadian tax receipted charitable funds going to Israel.
Update: a separate ATIP request received in late November 2023, showed that $132 M had been sent by about 140 charities to Israel in 2022.
When the details were checked on December 1, 2023 for the dozen organizations that had not filed their returns earlier, all but two had filed their tax returns. These dozen along with another ten or so charities resulted in the change between the receipt of the two ATIPs.
As a result, it would seem about 60 less charities sent money to Israeli in 2022, with a drop of about $100M from 2021, and about $190M from 2020.
Charities Not indicating the country where the funds are going.
Some organizations do not include in their CRA filing the country to which they provided funds. This has been an issue flagged during earlier requests to CRA to investigate Canadian charities in regard to those charities supporting the Israeli military and settler organizations. However, there are several that are worth specifically considering in light of the significant decrease in funds going to Israel in 2022.
One is Ne’eman Foundation Canada who reported providing $3.9 M to Israel in 2021. In 2021 Ne’eman provided specific details of the Israeli recipients. However, in 2022, Ne’eman only listed the entities not the country associated with the recipient. Thus, it would seem that Ne’eman provided around $4.5M to specific entities that would appear to be in Israel, but the country identification was not provided for any of the recipients. Interestingly, in January 2023, just prior to the 2022 filing deadline, a request was made by Khaled Mouammar and Rabbi David Mivasair to the CRA to investigate Ne’eman Foundation of Canada, noting subsidized charitable tax funds were being provided to a number of illegal settler, as well as organizations supporting the Israeli military, including the undercover assassination unit, Duvdevan, as well as organizations for lone soldiers including Michael Levin Base (Base for Lone Soldiers), Brothers for Life, and Reservists on Duty. Most of the organizations identified in 2021 as receiving donations continued to receive funds from Ne’eman in 2022 with the organization and amount provided listed but no indication of the country where the receipt was located.
The Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada (JHFC) also failed to identify country codes for the recipients of their funding in 2022. Founded in 1976, JHFC was a sleeper charity in 2018, with no revenue or expenses or CRA financial filing, but by 2022, JHFC was one of the largest ten charities in Canada with almost $90M of revenue.
Tracking three burner charities (Gates of Mercy, Beth Oloth, and the Jewish Heritage Foundation), academics Miles Howe and Paul Sylvestre in November 2022, used data over two decades to outline “a relationship of activity and dormancy, wherein once an active burner charity has its charitable status revoked a subsequent burner charity is activated in its place.” In this case the charity status of Gates of Mercy and Beth Oloth were revoked by Canada Revenue Agency, and the sleeper charity, JHFC having as Howe and Sylvestre demonstrated had “operated in conjunction with each other, such that CRA interventions did little to interrupt the flow of hundreds of millions in untaxed funds being transferred to foreign agents with questionable direction and control.”
In 2020, JHFC did provide the country code for their donations, although in 2021 a few were missing. However in 2022, no country codes are showing on CRA public data, although reference was made that money does go to Israel. However, beyond this, only $39.5M of the total $70.9 funds sent outside Canada by JHFC in 2022 were attributed to a particular recipient, leaving a gap of $30M in reporting. Based on this, and a review of the information publicly available from CRA, it would be expected that most of the $70M sent outside Canada is going to Israel based entities. This would not appear in the total amounts reported by CRA as going to Israel.
In August 2023, a request was made of CRA to investigate the JHFC regarding the gap of $30M in reporting as well as what appear to be donations to entities supporting illegal Israeli settlements and the Israeli military.
It would seem that based on these two organizations alone that over $50M that continued to flow to Israel in 2022 was not coded as such, with perhaps another $30 M additional beyond what had gone in 2021 not being reported as going to Israel for aggregate possibility.
Revoked Charities
There was information written in mainstream media about the revocation of Beth Oloth and Gates of Mercy in 2019, however, interestingly it seems that a number of other Canadian charities sending money to Israel have been revoked since 2020. CRA found that Beth Oloth failed to be constituted exclusively for charitable purposes due to non-charitable/broad purposes and unstated purposes; failed to devote resources to charitable activities carried due to lack of direction and control over the use of resources/resourcing non-qualified donees and conduct of non-charitable activities, along with several other record keeping and accountability issues. CRA did not post the details about reasons for Gates of Mercy revocation. However, CRA data does show that Gates of Mercy only reported the country, but no information about who received the money for about $500 K of annual donations of $8M to $10M, and that money was not showing going to Israel. Also donations from Gates of Mercy were made to Beth Oloth and to Kupas Hachesed Meroth which several years later also had its charity status revoked.
Since 2021, ten other charities providing funds to Israel have been revoked by CRA, as well as several charities providing funds to other charities providing funds to Israel and two other charities penalized by the CRA. It is possible there are more, but based on review of CRA public data there have been at least a dozen charities revoked in the last five years there have been at least a dozen charities revoked that were providing funds to Israel, most often related to lack of direction and control over their funds.
Read more about the charities revoked and penalized over the last five years.
Pro-Israel Funds to the USA
The USA received the second most charity-funds according to the ATIP, with close to a billion dollars being sent to the USA from Canada over the last five years. Depending on the year, from 2018 to 2021, either Israel or the USA jockeyed for most charitable funds from Canada.
Together Israel and the USA made up close to 20 percent of Canadian charitable donations to other countries over the last five years. In some cases, money appears to go to the USA and then may be provided by the receiving organizations to other countries including Israel. Thus, it is expected the amount of Canadian charitable dollars going to Israel is higher than that which is directly reported. Without further analysis it is not possible to know the amount, but certainly as Charity Intelligence Canada pointed out regarding the Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada that close to $30M was sent in 2020 to two US organizations, with $14.7m to Congregation Zichron Yoel Hirsch (US), and $12.9m to Congregation Zichron Yosef Mordechai (US).
In the case of several charities the CRA has been asked to investigate if the donations to US based entities, including in some cases individuals, meets the CRA rules.
Total Charitable donations to the USA
| Year | Amount (Canadian dollars) | Number of Charities Sending Money | Ranking |
| 2018 | $217,580,207 | 597 | 2 |
| 2019 | $272,992,416 | 559 | 1 |
| 2020 | $211,450,896 | 539 | 3 |
| 2021 | $241.528,618 | 511 | 1 |
| 2022 | $140,225,060 | 338 | 2 |
| Total | $842,248,579 |
Country Not Reported
| Year | Amount (Canadian dollars) | Number of Charities Sending Money |
| 2018 | $282,751,779 | 152 |
| 2019 | $133,673,213 | 91 |
| 2020 | $164,545,921 | 83 |
| 2021 | $353,915,335 | 85 |
| 2022 | $222,197,986 | 54 |
| Total | $1,157,084,234 |
The CRA has been asked to investigate several charities providing money to Israel that have not included the country in their listing. For example, as mentioned above, CRA data shows that the Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, while indicating the country for donations in its 2021 filing, did not in 2022 list the countries for any of the over $70 M it donated outside Canada. However, based on the listing of organizations, a number of organizations are based in Israel and had been listed as such in previous years filing. Concerns with lack of transparency of this organization have also been raised by Charity Intelligence Canada.
Summary
It would seem that less charitable funds are being reported sent to Israel in 2022, with the amount decreasing since 2020. Some amount seem to be a result of late filing, but also a result of the funds not being coded as sent to Israel. Also, it would appear based on the charities revoked, that compared to considering charities revoked previous to 2019, that there has been more concerted efforts by CRA to look at charities that have failed to demonstrate that they have the transparency and due diligence in place that is required, and that charities that are serving as conduits to other charities in the flow of funds are also being considered as part of the CRA investigations. However, it also would seem that the funds making there way out of Canada to Israel and other locations are not necessarily reported, as some organizations do not accurately code the information and rather show the country as not reported. We would encourage the CRA to look at those charities not reporting the country that money is being sent to as part of its review process.
