Jewish abortion fund forms in response to disagreements over Gaza
Red Tent Fund is a Jewish-run organization that helps women get abortions. It started because other funds within the movement used their platforms to promote viewpoints that criticized Israel.
As the debate over the war in Gaza has split apart the reproductive rights movement and much of liberalism, many Jews in it have sought to focus their work primarily on expanding abortion access.
That’s what led to the establishment of the Red Tent Fund about a year ago. It is the first Jewish direct service abortion fund in the U.S.
It operates using the block grant model, partnering with 10 clinics nationwide to provide immediate financial support for abortion seekers. Since its launch in June 2024, the fund has supported 492 women, primarily people of color. The fund focuses on aligning abortion funding with Jewish values, such as justice and bodily autonomy. Allison Tombros Korman, the founder, spoke to me about their mission and operation.
“We don't take positions on anything outside of of that lane, and we really just put our head down and our head down and focus on funding abortion,” Tombros Korman said.
In covering the abortion rights movement in the last few years, I’ve seen several moments where the situation in the Middle East led to disagreements and controversy over what the appropriate role abortion funds and organizations should have.
In an October 2023 newsletter, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice framed the war as a perpetuation of a colonialist narrative. A week later, the organization issued an apology for its use of the word colonialism.
At the Democratic National Convention, there was a protest outside that included abortion rights organizations speaking about Palestinians. Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws, a national coalition of reproductive justice and LGBTQ organizations, arranged the speakers, including a union activist, a professor, a rabbi, a lawyer, and an individual who participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests.
The protestors began the event by singing a song that emphasized bodily autonomy. Throughout the rally, signs and shouts characterized the Israeli-Hamas war as “reproductive genocide.”
There were also calls to liberate Israel from the river to the sea, which many Jews have taken to mean ethnically cleansing the area of their population so that the land is returned to Palestinians. They’ve equated Zionism with imperialism and colonialism. This is the major point of disagreement among Jews who support a philosophy of Zionism and those who vilify them for holding that view.
To understand why Jews find that offensive, it’s helpful to understand what the Zionist philosophy is. It means that you believe that Jews should have a country of their own and that Israel should exist. Most Jews in America and elsewhere hold that view. It has nothing to do with imperialism, and it’s misrepresenting it to describe it otherwise.
That doesn’t mean that most Jews believe you can’t criticize conservatives within their country. They want it framed in a way that acknowledges Israel’s right to self-determination while providing nuanced analysis and context in an argument for a two-state solution.
Recently, the DC Abortion Fund came under scrutiny after posting about the situation in Gaza from a pro-Palestinian stance. They also signed onto a letter called “Reproductive Justice Includes Palestinian Liberation.”
Jews such as Guila Franklin Siegel wrote editorials denouncing them for it, saying it wasn’t appropriate for abortion funds to stake out positions on an issue she felt was unrelated to their primary mission, particularly when there are so many perils women face in the reproductive landscape.
“To infuse the reproductive choice movement with an issue that is so divisive and that marginalizes people who have been at the forefront of this movement for decades and decades seems, at best, counterproductive, and at worst, self-destructive,” Franklin Siegel said.
No one from the DC Abortion Fund responded to an email I sent them regarding the decision to express these views on social media.
I know that this newsletter came at it from a strongly Jewish perspective. That’s not to discount critics of Israel or Benjamin Netanyahu. I welcome all views in this publication. If anyone would like to share their viewpoint, I’m willing to consider it for publication.