


Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, Google founder Eric Schmidt, and the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation are among the Democratic heavyweights bankrolling the anti-Israel charity of activist Kamau Franklin, who called Elias Rodriguez’s alleged assassination of two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., a "morally righteous" act.
Franklin runs Community Movement Builders, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that promotes "liberation" ideology for black Americans, Palestinians, and other groups. The organization embraces radical rhetoric in support of those causes, referring to police as "pigs" and calling the state of Israel "the result of a war crime."
Last week, Franklin signed an open letter defending Rodriguez’s assassination of Israeli diplomats Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky at the Capital Jewish Museum. The letter, which Franklin touted on his social media feeds, called Rodriguez’s actions "fully justified," "eminently defensible," and "morally righteous." And in a thinly veiled threat, the letter says Rodriguez’s shooting will "teach a lesson and set an example" for supporters of Israel. Community Movement Builders, which Franklin formed in 2015, also expressed support on social media for Unity of Fields, an anti-Israel organization that published the open letter.
The group’s radical rhetoric could raise concerns for its roster of deep-pocketed donors, while showing that violent, anti-Israel sentiments are closer to the Democratic Party mainstream than they would like to admit. Of the $2.9 million that Community Movement Builders raised in 2023, the most recent year for which tax information is available, nearly $2 million came through large donations from the charities of several Democratic donors, liberal philanthropies, and groups in the Arabella network, a Democratic dark money juggernaut.
Jobs, who owns The Atlantic magazine, gave $1 million in 2022 and 2023 to Community Movement Builders through her Waverley Street Foundation charity, according to tax filings. The Schmidt Family Foundation contributed $540,000 from 2021 to 2023, tax forms show.
Jobs gave nearly $1 million in support of Kamala Harris, her longtime friend, and more than $400,000 to the DNC last year. Schmidt gave more than $3 million in support of Harris and Joe Biden in 2024, and his wife Wendy, an executive at the Schmidt Family Foundation, gave $9 million to Democrats.
The Heising-Simons Foundation, funded by prominent Democratic donors Mark Heising and Liz Simons, gave $100,000 to Community Movement Builders. The Tides Foundation, supported heavily by Soros, gave around $100,000 to Community Movement Builders for "equity" programs, tax records show.
Franklin also serves as treasurer for the Black Voters Matter Action Fund PAC, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Soros has contributed $2.4 million to the PAC, which spent heavily in support of Harris and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.). New Georgia Project, an organization by Warnock and professional Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, gave $50,000 to Community Movement Builders in 2021.
The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, which awards many grants to fight against anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, donated $60,000 to Community Movement Builders in 2022 and 2023.
Franklin and Community Movement Builders have embraced anti-Israel causes, while also promoting anti-Semitic rhetoric. In November 2023, the group referred to "the illegal occupation of Palestine by the so called ‘i$raeli’ occupation entity," promoting a common anti-Semitic trope about Jews and money. In January 2020, Community Movement Builders published a statement against the Trump administration’s assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, crediting him with "strengthening" the terrorist group Hezbollah in order to "effectively thwart and check the Israeli army."
"Israel is the result of a war crime," Community Movement Builders stated in a March 22, 2024, social media post.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the day Hamas fighters slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, Community Movement Builders organized a rally in Atlanta in "solidarity with the Palestinian struggle." The group held rallies later that month with the Party of Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition. Rodriguez, a Chicago native, identified as a member of both of those groups in the past.
Franklin and Community Movement Builders are also heavily active in the anti-police movement. The group has referred to Atlanta police officers as "pigs" in dozens of social media posts.
"Black / Afrikan Atlantans are already dealing with killer pigs as it is," the groups wrote last year.
And it supports black separatists like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur, both convicted of murdering police officers.
Community Movement Builders promotes "Liberated Zones Theory," which will mobilize "the masses" to "embrace the unity and resistance struggles of African people at home and abroad." One demand is to allow "Black/Afrikan people in Black/Afrikan communities collectively control where, how and with whom resources are invested in our communities."
The group claims the public school system "serves as a propaganda machine for the capitalist, imperialist state," and calls for them to teach "the true histories of Afrikan and Indigenous people and Amerikkka’s historical and current global genocide."
Franklin and Community Movement Builders did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the charities of Jobs and Schmidt.