Several Israel Heritage Foundation leaders leave to join new pro-Israel nonprofit in Florida

Glen Stellmacher

Mar 11, 2026

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After Prism’s investigations last year into a New York-based pro-Israel nonprofit, a new organization emerged in Florida that is helmed by much of the same leadership and appears to engage in similar work. 

The Israel Justice Organization (IJO), founded in March 2025, comes as the Israel Heritage Foundation (IHF) has placed its website “under construction.” The IHF continues to operate an X account, recently posting about the New York police officers who were hit with snowballs while they responded to a 911 call about a snowball fight and calling Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “a hero” after the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran. However, the IHF has deleted its YouTube page, which previously showed full video recordings of its events.  

These videos were a key piece of Prism’s March 27 report on a 2024 IHF event in New York City during the genocide in Gaza. During a speech at the event, Prism reported, a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Board of Trustees who also serves as the chair of Israel Bonds New York said, “Maybe we need to kill more civilians.”

The same day Prism published the story, IJO was founded as a new 501(c)(3), according to Florida corporate filings reviewed by Prism. 

On Sept. 17, Prism published another investigation showing that the IHF had close ties to top officials in the Trump administration, the Trump election campaign, and the Israeli government. A day after that article was published, the IJO amended its original incorporation filing to add new members to its leadership, including several who served with the IHF. 

The IJO’s focus appears to be more geared toward addressing alleged antisemitism.

Tariq Kenney-Shawa, U.S. policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a global network of Palestinian policy analysts, told Prism in an email, “What I’m seeing as the difference between the IHF stated mission and that of this IJO is a wider shift toward ever more anti-democratic influencing by Israel supporters in the face of growing anti-Israel sentiment.”

According to Florida corporate filings and the IJO’s new website, the group’s leadership includes Board Member Jonathan Burkan, who was the honorary chair for the IHF; Honorary President Jerry Wartski, who served the same role at the IHF; Board Member Vladimir Jaffe, who was vice chair at the IHF; Chair Joseph Frager, who was IHF’s executive vice president; and President Farley Weiss, who was IHF chair.

Corporate filings reviewed by Prism also show that the IHF had previously tried to register a Florida entity at the same exact address listed as the IJO’s address in Florida, listing Weiss as the registered agent. 

“We decided to do our own 501 C3 and leave [the] Israel Heritage Foundation,” Weiss told Prism in an email. “This is a new separate organization and we have no involvement anymore with Israel Heritage.”

Weiss said several people previously involved with IHF joined IJO. “We do not keep track of what is currently happening with IHF. We do not want to discuss the reasons for our leaving IHF or the prior Prism articles on it,” Weiss wrote. 

In addition to the IJO and IHF, Weiss and Frager have founded or served in leadership roles—together or separately—for several other pro-Israel advocacy groups over the years, including some that are now defunct. These include the International Committee for the Land of Israel, American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, National Council of Young Israel, Israel Advocacy Commission for the Rabbinical Alliance of America, and Chovevei Zion. 

“Influence executive actions”

The IJO’s objective, according to its website, is to “influence executive actions and to help pass laws and enforce previous passed laws to support Israel and protect American Jews” and “to help promote pro Israel policies by connecting with members of the Administration and Congress.”

The IJO website also lists two categories of goals: The first includes goals to “dramatically improve policies toward Israel,” help guide congressional staff in “creating significant consequences for antisemitic conduct,” and educate U.S. leaders on antisemitism and how to combat it. The second category focuses on increasing “support for Israel within the Christian community” through trips to Israel and meetings with its leaders in order to provide “a clearer understand [sic] of the importance of Israel to America and America to Israel.”

The path to get there, the IJO states, is through meetings with policymakers and lawmakers in both parties, as well as op-eds and speeches.

“IJO is different [than the IHF] in that it is dealing more with fighting antisemitism and supporting the U.S. Israel relationship and building relationships with the non-Jewish community,” Weiss told Prism. “We believe there is a crisis with the rise of antisemitism in America and feel the need to be more proactive to protect American Jews.”

The IJO’s website states that it would like to see the federal adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition for antisemitism via executive order “to bolster support for Israel.”

The IHRA definition has been criticized by Palestinians, civil liberties advocates, Jewish organizations, and even the attorney who drafted it for being too broad and at risk of categorizing criticism of Israel as antisemitism.  

Weiss told Prism that attempts to attack the IHRA definition have “led to the massive rise of antisemitism under the guise of antizionism.”

Kenney-Shawa saw the IJO’s tactics differently.

“IJO’s focus on ‘combating anti-semitism’ is interesting because what it seemingly means is shutting down open conversation and debate because they recognize that they’ve lost the argument,” Kenney-Shawa said. “This is what we’ve been seeing a lot of lately and what we will continue seeing more of. In other words, they recognize they’ve lost the narrative argument, they’re losing a lot of U.S. public opinion, so they’re leaning into efforts to chill the debate space itself.”

Weiss rejected the idea that IJO was pushing for restricting freedom of expression. “Attempting to stop harassment and attacks on Jews has nothing to do with limiting free speech. It has everything to do with protecting the freedom of speech of Jews and those who support Israel,” he said. 

“All we can do is use our free speech to attack those expressing antisemitism because we know Jewish history and the repercussions for remaining silent,” Weiss said in a follow-up email.

He said he had watched a video interview posted to YouTube in which Prism’s reporter used the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza. Weiss claimed that using such language was “false and antisemitic.”

“It is outrageous that you would use that term,” Weiss wrote, noting that the term was coined by Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. In April 2024, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security declared that Israel was committing genocide across Palestine. In September 2025, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner issued a report that found Israel had committed a genocide in Gaza. These findings were echoed in reports and statements issued by Amnesty International, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, and many other international aid and humanitarian organizations and scholars.

Weiss questioned this reporter’s beliefs about Israel. “I may do an article on you depending upon what you write about us. You have free speech to write about us and we have free speech to write about you if we decide to do so,” Weiss said. He also threatened to sue Prism for defamation.

IJO’s pro-Israel event

According to the IJO’s website, the organization hosted one event in Manhattan in December, which bore many of the same hallmarks of IHF events. The private dinner, with an exclusive guest list, was hosted at UN Plaza Grill in Trump Tower, shot by the same photographer, and exclusively covered by the same far-right Israeli settler media outlet Arutz Sheva. 

Several people who have attended past IHF events also attended the IJO dinner, Prism found in its review of photographs published by Arutz Sheva. 

According to the IJO’s website, the dinner was put on to honor Fox News host Brian Kilmeade “to highlight his steadfast support for the only Jewish state.”

Weiss told Prism that Kilmeade received an honorarium, but no one else was paid to speak at the event. “He was paid because we felt our supporters would like to hear what he had to say and have admired his statements on Fox News,” Weiss said.

Fox News and Kilmeade did not respond to multiple requests for comment via email and Instagram message.

Kilmeade recently received wide public rebuke after calling for the killing of unhoused people during a live broadcast of “Fox & Friends.” He later apologized for his comments. 

In his speech at the IJO dinner, the video recording of which was published by Arutz Sheva, Kilmeade said he’s always wondered “why are people always criticizing Israel? It was one of the biggest mysteries for me. And it became pretty clear going back to sports. People resent winners.” 

Kilmeade suggested that pro-Palestine protests in New York were organized and coordinated with armed Palestinian resistance groups like Hamas because they have printed signs, “they have sit-ins, they’re taking over buildings, they know what to chant, they have attorneys.”

“There is a coordination between all of this—the socialists, the communists, the antisemitism, the extremists, all there to take America down,” Kilmeade said. “We have one president here to stop it. … Couldn’t care less if you want to call him racist, anti-, pro-American, whatever you want to say, he’s out for this country.”

Israeli military reserve Brig. Gen. Effi Eitam also gave a short speech.

New York-based pro-Israel social media influencer Debra Schwartzben spoke as well, sharing that she had just returned from Israel “on a delegation with the [Israeli] Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Schwartzben said that the era of Hasbara is over, referring to Israel’s use of public relations efforts and communications.  

Citing biblical verse, she argued that Hashem, used in Judaism to refer to God, says, “‘I have given you this land, to occupy it.’ Hashem does not tell us to ask for permission, Hashem does not tell us to run PR strategies, he says, ‘Possess in it, dwell in it, build in it, and protect it.’”

Schwartzben didn’t respond to Prism’s request for comment, which her agent said he forwarded. 

Deflecting from any legal justification for occupation didn’t surprise Kenney-Shawa of Al-Shabaka. 

“More and more of these initiatives are abandoning or putting less emphasis on making the liberal case for Israel and are putting more focus on the behind-the-scenes political outreach to religious Christian Zionist communities, seeing them as more reliable and durable partners,” Kenney-Shawa said. “That move comes from their recognition that it’ll be difficult to turn public opinion back in their favor, and that they will have to depend more on lobbying and evangelical/Christian Zionist communities to maintain government support for Israel.”

U.S. and Israeli government connections

Documents and videos posted by the IJO also shine a light onto some of its leaders’ long histories of advocating for Israel and their relationships with Israeli and U.S. officials.

New details concerning Weiss’ personal correspondence with top Israeli government officials have also been posted to the IJO’s website. Weiss’ personal website has also published letters. Taken together, they openly detail decades of work to advance pro-Israel and right-wing Israeli Likud party interests.

Weiss’ letters document correspondence advocating for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard from prison in 1993 and 1996. 

“I was involved with efforts for Pollard’s release because it was an injustice,” Weiss told Prism. “Many non profits were involved with efforts to end the injustice to Pollard and his release was supported by George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, James Woolsey, Senator John McCain and many others.”

Pollard later participated in an August 2023 IHF event featuring Mike Huckabee, before he became U.S. ambassador to Israel in 2025, according to Arutz Sheva’s coverage. Media reports later revealed that Huckabee had a private meeting with Pollard last July. 

“I am not aware of Pollard being at an IHF event or meeting Huckabee at such an event. To my knowledge they met on their own,” Weiss told Prism.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem told Prism, “The Ambassador has meetings each day with numerous people and as a matter of general policy we don’t comment as to the content of conversations.”

A photograph of Hegseth with Frager, the IJO chair, and Burkan, a board member, at the Pentagon is also on IJO’s website. The picture is not dated. Weiss did not provide a date to Prism, but said “Dr. Frager is friends with Secretary Hegseth.”. 

The Pentagon and Frager did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Other Weiss letters show correspondence with a Likud party adviser in 1995, then-Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert in 1997, then-Israeli Minister of Justice Tzachi Hanegbi in 1997, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in 1998 and 1999, and Uzi Landau, then a minister in the prime minister’s office, in 2004.

In 2012, Landau wrote that Weiss had “advanced the ties between the US and Israel.”