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Israel is not going anywhere. But the honesty of her defenders is another matter. Hen Mazzig’s To Be Honest, Inc., a nonprofit wrapped in the language of pro-Israel advocacy, was bankrolled at its birth by the Tides Foundation, the progressive megadonor network that has funneled millions into left-wing activism. What began as a project to “fight antisemitism” quickly became something else: a vehicle for recasting Zionism in the image of the American left.
Tides is no ordinary charity. It is the great laundromat of progressive politics, a donor-advised fund that lets wealthy benefactors funnel millions to activist groups while obscuring their fingerprints. That Tides gave over $100,000 to To Be Honest in 2019, essentially bankrolling its launch, means Mazzig’s operation was not born in the house of Zionist philanthropy but in the cathedral of progressive politics.
The historical pro-Israel organizations were originally built on a simple premise: Israel’s legitimacy and security are non-negotiable. They sought bipartisan coalitions, often leaning on patriotic themes, military cooperation, and democratic kinship. Their message was forthright, sometimes blunt: Israel is an embattled ally and we must stand by her.
By contrast, TLVi cloaks itself in the fashionable garb of intersectionality. Its flagship program, “Jews Talk Justice,” convenes influencers not to speak of Israel as a nation under siege but to fold Jewish identity into the broader symphony of progressive victimhood: LGBTQ, BIPOC, indigenous, immigrant. The mission statement is telling. It pledges to combat hatred toward Jews and Israel, but also to defend “all groups who are targets of extremism.” This carefully constructed phrasing reassures leftist donors that their money is not going to a parochial cause but to a universalist crusade.
Why dwell on the Tides Foundation? Because in the world of ideas, patronage shapes purpose. Tides is not neutral money. It is ideological capital. Its donor pool has consistently funded causes that oppose Israel’s policies, champion BDS-aligned narratives, and see Zionism as Western colonialism. Yet it would be unfair to say all of TLVi’s backers are hostile to Israel. Some surely love Israel and donate out of genuine concern for her security. Others simply fold Jewish advocacy into a wider social justice portfolio. But once funneled through the Tides framework, all of it ends up underwriting the same project: a rebranded Israel, repackaged for progressive sensibilities.
The very act of taking Tides’ seed money creates a dependency of legitimacy. To continue attracting such donors, TLVi must present Israel not as Israel actually is—a flawed but essential nation defending itself in an amoral world—but as Israel reimagined in the progressive imagination: the pride parade of the Middle East, the diverse democracy of indigenous Jews of color, the social-justice project that can be squared with the catechism of the left.
This progressive tilt is not theoretical. Mazzig himself has openly embraced causes central to the American left. At the height of the 2020 racial unrest, he defended Black Lives Matter even as its leaders smeared Israel as an apartheid state. “If you want to change BLM’s Israel agenda, you need to show up for them,” he wrote. “Because by showing up for racial justice, we are actually showing up for ourselves.” To admirers, this was savvy coalition-building. To critics, it was capitulation: endorsing a movement that demonized Israel in the hope that by flattering it Israel might one day be spared its venom.
The peril is obvious. When you universalize your mission, you risk diluting it into meaninglessness. If every victimhood is your cause, then Israel becomes just another oppressed identity jostling for attention in the crowded bazaar of grievance. The Holocaust is reduced to a metaphor for intersectionality. The Jewish state becomes a pawn in the great progressive morality play. Israel is not just another minority cause. It is the political embodiment of the Jewish people’s survival instinct, the literal redoubt against extinction. To fold it into the progressive tapestry is not strategy. It is surrender.
The irony is almost comic: the nonprofit is called “To Be Honest.” And yet the question that hovers over its existence is precisely this: are we being honest? Honest about its funding, honest about its ideological commitments, honest about whether its universalist rhetoric is a tactic or a creed. The 2023 IRS filings show nearly $2 million in contributions, no staff salaries, and over $350,000 spent on consultants. This suggests an outfit functioning less as a grassroots movement than as a media marketing agency, outsourcing its activism to contractors who craft narratives palatable to progressive audiences. The honesty problem deepens when we recall Mazzig’s past: revelations that he had received undisclosed payments from Israel’s government advertising agency while presenting himself as an independent activist on U.S. campuses. The pattern is unmistakable. Polish the brand, obscure the sponsor.
The story of Hen Mazzig and To Be Honest is not merely about one nonprofit. It is a case study in how progressive philanthropy has learned to rebrand pro-Israel advocacy into a vessel for its own politics. Some donors may love Israel. Others may not care much either way. But all, through this framework, are ultimately underwriting a version of Zionism reimagined to satisfy progressive tastes.
Mazzig’s endorsement of Black Lives Matter was not an outlier. It was the model. It showed exactly how pro-Israel activism could be bent into a tributary of leftist politics. And that is the central dishonesty of To Be Honest. It does not defend Israel on her own terms. It defends her only as long as doing so serves the larger progressive agenda.
Israel does not need defenders who dilute her cause into hashtags and identity politics. It does not need advocates who treat the Jewish state as a pawn in America’s culture wars. What Israel needs are champions unafraid to say that its survival is not conditional on progressive approval but a moral imperative in its own right. Anything less is not advocacy. It is exploitation.
Hen Mazzig is also the founder of the Tel Aviv Institute, which flagrantly stole my work and refused to credit me in 2023.
It was such indisputable theft, they actually admitted to it privately in a message to me and then deleted the post.
I told them that I was happy for them to keep the educational post up if they credited me, but they declined because I hadn’t been “vetted.”
I asked repeatedly to be considered to be a contributor because of the scope and contents of my writing at the time, and despite being queer and Jewish and previously very leftist, it was clear I was not adequately “progressive” and risked tarnishing their perfect leftist image.
I am apparently not the only one this happened to.
I didn't know he had backed BLM but have been distressed by many of his recent posts. Now I know why. Thanks for shedding light on this guy.