An American nonprofit founded in 2023 has raised, according to its founder, at least $35 million from donors. Their identities remain unknown, according to an investigation published by The Olam based on IRS Form 990 filings. The organization, the America Israel Democracy Coalition, says it is now deploying that money to fly up to 70,000 Israeli citizens living abroad back to Israel for the October 27 election.
AID Coalition was incorporated in 2023 as a 501(c)(3) public charity, registered to founder Jonathan Barsade's private home in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Its IRS Form 990 data, shows $3.06 million in grants distributed in 2023, its first year. In 2024, that figure jumped to $20.41 million. In both years, the entire sum went to a single unnamed grantee. Barsade told theJerusalem Post in April 2025 that AID Coalition had invested "almost $35 million" across "more than 100 social projects," including aid to families displaced after October 7th. There is a gap between the IRS total ($23.5 million) and Barsade's figure ($35 million) which has not been explained, but neither figure tells us whose money it was.
For context: $20.4 million in annual grants from a charity registered to a private home exceeds the annual grantmaking of most established single-issue American Jewish organizations. When I wrote about the proposed Knesset bill taxing foreign political NGOs, the core argument was that foreign money flowing into Israeli political life should not be allowed to operate in the dark.
Why Can't the Public Know Who Donated the Money?
Because U.S. law allows it. Every 501(c)(3) files Schedule B with the IRS, listing all donors who gave $5,000 or more. The IRS keeps that document. The public version is redacted. When eJewishPhilanthropy asked AID Coalition directly to identify its funders in August 2026, the organization declined. It said only that the money came from "a mix of Israeli, American and international donors." And that is perfectly legal.
AID Coalition's donation page also solicits contributions through Donor Advised Funds, the standard American philanthropic vehicle for donors who want to give anonymously. A search of publicly available 990 filings from major DAF sponsors and foundations turned up no grants to "America Israel Democracy Coalition."
Are Protest Movement Veteran and Naval Officers Running an Election Operation?
Three officers appear on AID Coalition's IRS filings. Jonathan Barsade holds all three positions simultaneously: president, treasurer, and secretary. He sold his tax-compliance software company Exactor to Intuit and co-founded AID Coalition in the summer of 2023, during Israel's judicial overhaul battle. Haaretz, in its first English-language article about the organization in September 2023, described it as a nonprofit created specifically to raise funds for Israel's "pro-democracy" movement. Batell Blaish-Sultanik, the CEO, is a former IDF naval officer who signed the Brothers in Arms reservist letter threatening to refuse reserve duty over the judicial overhaul. Ora Peled Nakash, a director, is described on AID Coalition's own website as "a leading member of the Protest Movement in Israel."
AID Coalition ran a 190-candidate slate in the 2025 World Zionist Congress elections, winning three delegates. On that slate: Jeremy Levin, former CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, who endorsed Kamala Harris in October 2024 and urged Israelis abroad to fly home and vote. One slate member, Tali Reiner Brodetzki, told eJewishPhilanthropy she is "flying home to vote for the first time, specifically to oust the current coalition." That is an explicit declaration of political intent from someone on the organization's slate.
What Does the Fly & Vote Operation Look Like?
Israel has no absentee ballots, as opposed to the USA. Voters must be physically in the country to vote, except for diplomats and the like. According to Haaretz(August 16, 2026), more than 25,000 Israelis abroad have registered for Fly & Vote. Several thousand have paid a $75 commitment deposit. AID Coalition's target is 50,000 to 70,000 participants. The logistics include voter-eligibility verification, airline and charter coordination, travel-agency partnerships, volunteer networks staffed by former Israel Airports Authority officials, a legal hotline on Election Day, and 20 paid staff.
Speaking at the Calcalist and Bank Leumi Mind the Tech conference in May 2026, Barsade said charter flights would be arranged if commercial airline capacity proved insufficient. TheMarkerran a feature on July 15 under the headline: "Bringing 70,000 Israelis from abroad to elections: The initiative that frightens the government." AID Coalition says it does not subsidize travel costs. The Likud party disagrees. Attorney Ilan Bombach's August 17 warning letter alleges the operation subsidizes flights for voters and constitutes election bribery under Israeli law (Ynet, Jerusalem Post).
What should be asked is if the voters they are soliciting are academics and those from technology companies or also Orthodox and non-academic Israelis.
The Questions That Remain
This is a story about $35 million raised by a nonprofit that seems to have emerged from a protest movement against Israel's democratically elected government, run by people who publicly opposed that government, distributed through unnamed recipients, and now deployed to move tens of thousands of voters into the country for an election.
I have written often about American Jewish organizations that fund the opponents of the Jewish state while hiding behind the language of philanthropy. AID Coalition seems to follow the same pattern: large sums, sealed donor lists, and political aims dressed in the language of nonpartisanship. The IRS filings show the money. They do not show who provided it, who received it, or what political outcome it was designed to produce.
An Israel Democracy Institute poll found that 70% of Israelis believe the integrity of the 2026 election is in danger. When $35 million in anonymous money may move 70,000 voters, that is a different kind of integrity at stake. Investigative journalist and Makor Rishon editor Kalman Liebeskind wrote a Hebrew article on AID Coalition protesting the entire idea that those living abroad should be encouraged to vote while those living in Israel have to live with the results.
Ronn Torossian is an entrepreneur, philanthropist and longterm contributor to Arutz 7. Torossian is publisher of Olam.Business, a publication on the global Jewish economy.