Boston City Councilor Wu's Israeli American Council Connection?

According to Wu Committee financial disclosure forms, on Jan. 25, 2021, Councilor Wu’s campaign committee accepted $1,000 campaign contributions from each of the two Ruderman Family Foundation executives, Jay Ruderman and Shira Ruderman, who were honored at a March 21, 2019 event held by the Israeli American Council Boston (a group that opposes the BDS campaign) at the Royale Boston on 2979 Tremont Street.

Less than 3 months before making his $1,000 campaign contribution in 2021 to the Wu Committee, Israeli American Council Boston's March 2019 honoree, Jay Ruderman, had also interviewed 2021 mayoral candidate Wu in a “special episode” of the Ruderman Family Foundation-produced “All Inclusive Podcast” show on Nov. 17, 2020—which was titled “Boston City Councilwoman and Rising Star Michelle Wu.” In addition, a third Ruderman Family Foundation executive, Brookline, MA’s Sharon Shapiro, also gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to the Wu Committee on Jan. 25, 2021.

According to a press release that The Senate of the University of Haifa issued on June 2, 2015 (when it gave honorary degrees to Shira Ruderman and Jay Ruderman), the Ruderman Family Foundation then operated “through its two branches in Israel and Boston;” and Jay Ruderman “began his legal career as Assistant District Attorney in Essex District, Massachusetts,” joined AIPAC (a group which opposes the BDS campaign) in 2001 and, as AIPAC’s Deputy Director in New England “significantly expanded the organization’s activities.” He then moved with his family to the Holy Land in 2005 and enlisted in the Israeli military, before eventually moving back to the USA, later in the 21st-century.

Coincidentally, according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2014, between Jan. 1, 2014 and Dec. 31, 2014, the Ruderman Family Foundation gave a $200,000 grant to the American Society of the University of Haifa—in the year before the Senate of the University of Haifa awarded the honorary degrees to Ruderman Family Foundation President Jay Ruderman and Ruderman Family Foundation CEO Shira Ruderman in June 2015.

And, also coincidentally, in March 2017, Wu Committee Contributor Shira Ruderman also represented the Ruderman Family Foundation at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., according to a March 26, 2017 tweet by Jay Ruderman (who has also been a committee member of The Jewish Agency for Israel in recent years).

The Israeli American Council, which honored Shira Ruderman and Jay Ruderman at the March 21, 2019 Boston event, was also given a $3,000 grant in 2014 and a $25,000 grant in 2018 by the Ruderman Family Foundation, according to the foundation’s Form 990 financial filings for 2014 and 2018. And “support for the Boston Media Room” of the Israeli American Council Boston “is provided by the Ruderman Family Foundation,” according to the Israeli American Council Boston website.

The Israeli American Council Boston website also describes the purpose of the “Boston Media Room,” that the Ruderman Family Foundation supports, in the following way:

“…The Media Room brings together Israeli-Americans, Jewish Americans and Israelis to form a cutting-edge pro-Israel community that utilizes social media platforms and online technologies to positively influence international opinion towards the State of Israel.”

According to the Israeli American Council’s website, the “Israeli-American Council (IAC) is the largest Israeli-American organization in the United States.” And the Israeli American Council Boston’s website indicates that the organization, whose “Boston Media Room" the Ruderman Family Foundation supports, was involved in “organizing the rallies at the Boston Common and City Hall Plaza attended by thousands to support Israel during 2014 `Operation Protective Edge.'”

Yet, as a result of the Israeli military’s July 8 to Aug. 26, 2014 “Operation Protective Edge”--in which “some 6,000 air strikes were launched” on the people of Gaza by the U.S. government-funded Israeli war machine—“over 2,250 Palestinians were killed, 500 of whom were children, and 11,000 were wounded;” while “the Israeli death toll was 67 soldiers and 6 civilians by the time of the ceasefire,” according to a July 8, 2019 International Middle East Media Center website article.

In addition, according to the same article, the Israeli military’s 2014 “bombardment” of Gaza “displaced some 500,000 people” and destroyed “at least 20,000 buildings” in Gaza. So, not surprisingly, “the UN affirmed in 2015 that Israel committed war crimes during” the Israeli military’s "Operation Protective Edge" offensive in 2014 “due to its targeting of civilian areas."

And also, not surprisingly, most Boston residents—unlike the Israeli American Council Boston group—opposed the Israeli war machine’s “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014; and increased support for the City of Boston formally endorsing the BDS campaign developed in the Greater Boston area. (Even before the Israeli military again bombarded civilian areas of Gaza, during the 2021 Boston mayoral campaign, in May 2021—a bombardment which killed 254 Palestinians, including 66 children, 39 women and 17 elderly, and injured 1,948, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health; and displaced about 120,000 Palestinians from their homes within the Gaza Strip, according to a June 3, 2021 article that was posted on ReliefWeb’s website).

Yet, in a video that was posted on the Ruderman Family Foundation’s `Ruderman Israel-American Jewish Relations” youtube channel on Jan. 30, 2019, Wu Committee financial contributor Jay Ruderman indicated that he then still opposed the BDS campaign which U.S. anti-war groups (including Jewish Voice For Peace) have endorsed.

( Note: In a Sept. 17, 2021 email to the Michelle For Boston campaign committee, this writer asked if Councilor Wu will agree to formally endorse in 2022 the U.S. peace movement’s and Palestinian solidarity movement’s Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions [BDS] campaign—if Councilor Wu is elected mayor of Boston in the November 2021 municipal election? But, as of Sept. 21, 2021, the Michelle For Boston campaign committee has not provided this writer with any brief reply by email).