This selection includes relevant books, articles, magazines, and videos, outlining the Jewish National Fund's activities in the past century, and how they've impacted the landscape of Israel-Palestine.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you have recommendations for resources that should appear here, please contact us. |
Recommended Books
Erased from Space and Consciousness
Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948 Noga Kadman, foreword by Oren Yiftachel (2015) ![]() Hundreds of Palestinian villages were left empty across Israel when their residents became refugees after the 1948 war, their lands and property confiscated. Most of the villages were razed by the new State of Israel, but in dozens of others, communities of Jews were settled—many refugees in their own right. The state embarked on a systematic effort of renaming and remaking the landscape, and the Arab presence was all but erased from official maps and histories. Israelis are familiar with the ruins, terraces, and orchards that mark these sites today—almost half are located within tourist areas or national parks—but public descriptions rarely acknowledge that Arab communities existed there within living memory or describe how they came to be depopulated. Using official archives, kibbutz publications, and visits to the former village sites, Noga Kadman has reconstructed this history of erasure for all 418 depopulated villages.
Planted Flags: Trees, Land, and Law in Israel/Palestine
By Irus Braverman (2009) ![]() Planted Flags tells an extraordinary story about the mundane uses of law and landscape in the war between Israelis and Palestinians. The book is structured around the two dominant tree landscapes in Israel/Palestine: pine forests and olive groves. The pine tree, which is usually associated with the Zionist project of afforesting the Promised Land, is contrasted with the olive tree, which Palestinians identify as a symbol of their steadfast connection to the land. What is it that makes these seemingly innocuous, even natural, acts of planting, cultivating, and uprooting trees into acts of war? How is this war reflected, mediated, and, above all, reinforced through the polarization of the natural landscape into two juxtaposed landscapes? And what is the role of law in this story? Planted Flags explores these questions through an ethnographic study. By telling the story of trees through the narratives of military and government officials, architects, lawyers, Palestinian and Israeli farmers, and Jewish settlers, the seemingly static and mute landscape assumes life, expressing the cultural, economic, and legal dynamics that constantly shape and reshape it.
![]() For Oren Yiftachel, the notion of ethnocracy suggests a political regime that facilitates expansion and control by a dominant ethnicity in contested lands. It is neither democratic nor authoritarian, with rights and capabilities depending primarily on ethnic origin and geographic location. In Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine, he presents a new critical theory and comparative framework to account for the political geography of ethnocratic societies.
According to Yiftachel, the primary manifestation of ethnocracy in Israel/Palestine has been a concerted strategy by the state of "Judaization." Yiftachel's book argues that ethnic relations--both between Jews and Palestinians, and among ethno-classes within each nation--have been shaped by the diverse aspects of the Judaization project and by resistance to that dynamic. Special place is devoted to the analysis of ethnically mixed cities and to the impact of Jewish immigration and settlement on collective identities. Tracing the dynamics of territorial and ethnic conflicts between Jews and Palestinians, Yiftachel examines the consequences of settlement, land, development, and planning policies. He assesses Israel's recent partial liberalization and the emergence of what he deems a "creeping apartheid" whereby increasingly impregnable ethnic, geographic, and economic barriers develop between groups vying for recognition, power, and resources. The book ends with an exploration of future scenarios, including the introduction of new agendas, such as binationalism and multiculturalism. |
Propaganda and Zionist Education: The Jewish National Fund 1924 - 1947
By Yoram Bar Gal (2004) ![]() The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is the executive body established by the Zionist movement in 1902 to buy land in Palestine for the Jewish people. Very quickly, however, it became an international organization and soon had branches in many countries throughout the world. One of the tasks of these branches was to mediate between the central office in Jerusalem and the millions of Jews who donated money to buy land. The organization, which is still active throughout the Jewish world, concerned itself with 'the marketing of ideology': the dissemination of symbols, knowledge and ideas to the masses of the Jewish people, and converted them into money and real estate property. In the memories of much of world Jewry the JNF is linked with memories of their childhoods and the forming of their identities. The memory was, in fact, fashioned by the Propaganda Department of the JNF which worked through the mass communications media in the Jewish world and made its presence massively felt in the Jewish education networks in many countries. Among the most remembered items are 'the Blue Box', the flagship of the organization, and the stamps distributed to schools, which were miniature posters making political declarations. Up until today there has been virtually no research carried out on these aspects of Zionist propaganda which helped to fashion this collective memory and left its mark upon Jewish culture in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora.
Emptied Lands: A Legal Geography of Bedouin Rights in the Negev
By Alexandre Kedar, Ahmad Amara, Oren Yiftachel (2018) ![]() Emptied Lands investigates the protracted legal, planning, and territorial conflict between the settler Israeli state and indigenous Bedouin citizens over traditional lands in southern Israel/Palestine. The authors place this dispute in historical, legal, geographical, and international-comparative perspectives, providing the first legal geographic analysis of the "dead Negev doctrine" used by Israel to dispossess and forcefully displace Bedouin inhabitants in order to Judaize the region. The authors reveal that through manipulative use of Ottoman, British and Israeli laws, the state has constructed its own version ofterra nullius. Yet, the indigenous property and settlement system still functions, creating an ongoing resistance to the Jewish state.Emptied Lands critically examines several key land claims, court rulings, planning policies, and development strategies, offering alternative local, regional, and international routes for justice.
Recommended Audio
On this episode we try to explain the story of Purim, discuss our love for graggers, and successfully meet the show’s JewCon requirements. We talked with Tyler Levitan from Independent Jewish Voices about the Canadian Jewish News’ refusal to publish anti-Zionist perspectives, Sam tries to explain sports to David, and we issue a Shkoyach to anti-fascist activists in Montreal who shut down a Jewish Defence League event honouring a British fascist. For the interview, we’re joined by retired professor and longtime activist Ismail Zayid to talk about the JNF’s Canada Park and his over 40 years of work advocating for the right of return for displaced Palestinians.
OPIRG York’s PrOPIRGranda Radio speak with Sue Goldstein from Stop the Jewish National Fund Canada. Stop the JNF is an international campaign aimed at ending the role of the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael) (JNF-KKL) in the on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land, the theft of their property, the funding of historic and present day colonies, and the destruction of the natural environment. They discuss actions in Canada and the Toronto area.
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Recommended Videos
Canada Park - Park With No Peace
CBC - The Fifth Estate Produced By Neil Docherty Correspondent Trish Woods Broadcast October 21, 1991 A CBC Fifth Estate program, entitled "A Park with no Peace," about the JNF and Canada Park was broadcast on October 21, 1991. This program interviewed eyewitnesses and documented the war crimes committed by Israel and how the JNF was used to cover up those crimes. |
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Israel’s "New West Bank"
The Real News Network Produced / Reported by Lia Tarachansky Broadcast February 27, 2012 In recent years, the government has adopted the so-called Prawer Plan, reversing several earlier decisions to recognize unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev (Naqab) Desert. The new plan, explained by Association for Civil Rights in Israel lawyer Rawia Abu Rabia, will relocate 40,000 Bedouins in southern Israel for the establishment of 10 Jewish villages in their place. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky speaks with Haia Noach, Executive Director of the Forum for Co-existance in the Negev, and Salim Abu Kian, from Umm el Hiran, one of two villages (along with A Tir) slated for evacuation and destruction. |
Stop the JNF Campaign Plan-a-Tree in Palestine Delegation
IJAN Bay Area Published on Apr 5, 2013 In January 2013, a group of international activists form the Stop the JNF Campaign participated in a Plant-a-Tree in Palestine Delegation. The JNF has charitable status is 50 countries and in all 50 U.S. states. The Stop the JNF Campaign is working to revoke this charitable status as part of the ongoing resistance to the environmental destruction, land theft and home and village demolitions carried out in part by the JNF. The Stop the JNF Campaign is a partnership of the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), Stop the Wall - Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, Palestinian Farmers Union and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN). |
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Israeli Tree Campaign "Judaizes" Expropriated Land
The Real News Network Produced / Reported by Lia Tarachansky Broadcast December 26, 2011 The Jewish National Fund (JNF), that ownes 13% of Israeli lands, forbids the sale or lease of its lands to any but Jewish owners. Many are now joining a global campaign against this policy whose roots come from expropriated Palestinian land. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky looks at the history of JNF land acquisition from the land taken from 1948 refugees in the village of Ma’alul, 1967 refugees on whose land Canada Park was built, and the Bedouins of Al Araqib on whose land the JNF is attempting to build the Ambassador’s Forest. Tarachansky speaks to Gadi Algazi, of Tel Aviv University, Aziz Sayah Al-Turi from Al Araqib, Eitan Bronstein from Zochrot, and Haya Noah of the Forum for Co-existance in the Negev. |
Three Palestinian villages are buried under Canada Park
Produced / Reported by Peter Larson Interview of Haider Abu Ghosh Published Jan 2, 2015 In June 1967, as Israeli forces moved to take over the West Bank, they attacked three defenseless Palestinian farming villages. The villagers had to flee in the middle of the night. A month later, their villages were bulldozed, and with financial help from the Jewish National Fund of Canada, the area was landscaped into a public park. In this video, Haider Abu Ghosh, who was born in the village of Imwas, describes his memory of the events. He also expresses the hope that one day they will be allowed to return to live along side Jews “like normal people”. |
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JNF Honors Canadian PM Amidst Protests Against Bedouin Expulsion
The Real News Network Produced / Reported by Lia Tarachansky Broadcast December 2, 2013 On Sunday, December 1st, hundreds protested in Toronto, Canada. The demonstrators gathered in freezing weather outside the Metro Toronto Convention Center where thousands attended the JNF gala dinner for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper has been one of the most fervent supporters of Israel. Under his leadership, military and financial relations with Israel tightened. Meanwhile in Israel, a creative protest group created a parody of the Jewish National Fund, calling itself “The New JNF”, which vowed to stop erasing Palestinian history and displacing Bedouins in the Negev Desert. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to Noga Kadmon, an Israeli historian and the author of the renowned book Erased From Space And Consciousness. |
Travelling on Ruins
SocialTV Israel Broadcast December 15, 2013 Produced / Reported by Inbal Sinai Anchored by Maya Benita "Canada Park", otherwise referred to as "Ayalon Canada Park", is full of cyclists and hikers who enjoy the scenery and the weather, but few know the story of the three Palestinian villages that were demolished in 1967 on the land on which the park sits. |
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Memory of the Cactus
Al Haq Produced by Hanna Musleh Assistant Director Lillia Arasanova Director of Photography Hanna Abu Sa'dah Published December 21, 2010 A short documentary film that combines the cactus and the memories it stands for. The film addresses the story of the destruction of the Palestinian villages of Latroun in the Occupied West Bank and the forcible transfer of their civilian population in 1967. Over 40 years later, the Israeli occupation continues, and villagers remain displaced. The film follows two separate but parallel journeys. Aisha Um Najeh takes us down the painful road that Palestinians have been forcefully pushed down, separating them in time and place from the land they nurtured; while Israelis walk freely through that land, enjoying its fruits. The stems of the cactus, however, take a few of them to discover the reality of the crime committed. |
Ethnocracy: Who Owns the Land of Israel?
The Real News Network Produced / Reported by Lia Tarachansky Broadcast June 20, 2014 On Saturday, June 12th, 2014, Israeli forces demolished the Bedouin village of Al Araqib for the 70th time. The land the Bedouin village sits on was given to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) by the Israeli government, and the Bedouin were reclassified as “infiltrators” on lands they’ve registered as far back as the Ottoman Empire. In this second part in our series on Ethnocracy, a term coined by Israeli professor Oren Yiftachel to answer the question of whether Israel is a democracy, we look at who owns the land of the state of Israel and how it came to be so. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky also speaks to attorney Suhad Bishara and historian Noga Kadmon. |
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Recommended Articles
NEW! "The Next to Half-a-Century of the Odyssey of My Challenge Against the JNF"
By Uri Davis, March 2019 My first introduction to Canada Park was in the wake of the 1967 war as a second or third year BA Student of Philosophy and Arabic language and literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem commuting on weekends between my family home at Kefar Shemaryahu and my student accommodation at the Salesian Monastery in the Musrara Quarter of Jerusalem travelling by bus on the Jerusalem/Tel Aviv road. As the bus passed-by the Latrun semi-enclave I witnessed workers collecting stones and loading them on trucks. The workers were removing the stones of the 1967 ethnically cleansed and destroyed Palestinian-Arab village of ‘Imwas ... Click here to read more. Canada Park: Canadian Complicity in a War Crime
By Dr. Ismail Zayid Outlook, Sept-Oct. 2003 "Here is our house", says Ibrahim El-Sheikh, the 75-year-old mukhtar(village headman) of Imwas (Emmaus), pointing to the rubble of his homewhich stood there until June 1967, when Israel invaded and occupied Sinai, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. Thousands of villagers, from Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba-my own hometown-still cry remembering their homes that stood there until Israel erased them from the face of The Holy Land, when they were systematically dynamited and bulldozed. In Beit Nuba alone, 18 old or disabled men, who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes instantly, were buried under the rubble. No fighting took place in these villages when they were occupied in the early hours of June 6, 1967. The three villages were once pat of what was called the Latrun salient. Over 10,000 people lived there; they had schools, mosques, agricultural land and many centuries of history. It was in Imwas (Emmaus) where Christians believe that Jesus Christ first appeared after the Crucifixion. Click here to keep reading. The Jewish National Fund’s list of projects in the settlements
By Noam Sheizaf, +972 Magazine, May 4, 2014 On its website, The Jewish National Fund (JNF-KKL) presents itself as an environmental friendly non-governmental organization, with deep roots in Zionist history. The JNF often leads supporters and donors to believe that it does not fund projects in the occupied territories, which are highly controversial even among Zionists. In the past, the JNF used sub-contractors for projects across the Green Line, including ones that demanded the evacuation of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. However, a 2012 document obtained by investigative journalist Raviv Drucker reveals a list of projects in the settlements funded by the Jewish National Fund. In some cases, the JNF even insists on public credit for the projects. Click here to keep reading. ![]() Moving Forward is a collection of articles all related to the Jewish National Fund's activities in the past century. It was released to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the Arabic word for ‘catastrophe.’ The Nakba refers to the expulsion and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland during Israel’s creation (1947-1949).
In this issue, the authors lay out the historical record of those years to show that the Nakba was the result of a deliberate policy of mass expulsion, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing—a strategy designed to ensure that the Palestinians who had lived on the land for generations would be barred from ever returning. We also zero in on the fundamental role played by the 117-year-old international organization, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), in facilitating that dispossession. Click here to keep reading The JNF Is Helping The Israeli Government Steal A Palestinian Family’s House
By Seth Morrison, The Forward, February 6, 2018 In late 2011, I publically resigned from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in order to expose and protest the JNF’s efforts to use Israel’s arcane absentee property law to steal the Sumarin family home in Jerusalem along with many other Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories. Sadly, I just learned that the JNF (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael in Israel) is trying again to evict the Sumarin family after multiple rounds of legal efforts to take the property. Back in 2011, after a tremendous public outcry which I am proud to have been a part of, the JNF/KKL agreed to delay the eviction of the Sumarin family, and the case has bounced back and forth ever since. Thanks to the deep legal pockets of JNF/KKL, backed by the US JNF, this family has spent 26 years in legal limbo. In spite of vehement denials, the US JNF, legally a separate entity from JNF/KKL in Israel, is complicit in these land thefts. On its website JNF proclaims that “JNF prides itself on honoring the pioneers of the past and celebrating their spirit by continuing the pioneering tradition in the areas of technology, environmental progress, community development, water renewal and building the land of Israel for many years to come.” Of course, they neglect to say that the 440+ communities it supports directly or indirectly are segregated and open to Jews only. It also does not say that funds raised by the JNF US to “buy trees” and support other programs are often sent directly to the JNF/KKL, thus enabling programs in Israel including those in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem — including the funds used to drag the Sumarin family through the courts for decades. Click here to read more |
Canada Plays A Part In Sustaining Israel's Military Occupation
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Sister campaigns
International Campaign to Stop the JNF
Stop the JNF is an international campaign aimed at ending the role of the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael) (JNF-KKL) in: the on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land; the theft of their property; the funding of historic and present day colonies; and the destruction of the natural environment. This site includes details of campaigns in 8 countries including: Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Click here to visit the international campaign website. |
What's Behind the Jewish National Fund?
Australian Jewish Democratic Society This campaign was initiated by members of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS), and intends to raise awareness in Australia about the JNF is doing with the tax-deductible funds it receives. The Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) is a progressive voice among Jews and a Jewish voice among progressives. We aim to provide a platform for discussion and debate on issues affecting contemporary Jewish life. Click here to visit the campaign website |