Schindler's List Money Helped Elect Zohran Mamdani

Steven Spielberg called it blood money.

That was his word, in 1994, for the profits from Schindler's List. He would not keep a dollar of it. He put $100 million into a foundation and named it after the gentiles who hid Jews from the Nazis. Thirty years later, according to that foundation's own tax filings, roughly $3 million of it went to a network of Jewish organizations that oppose the international definition of antisemitism, demand an arms embargo against Israel, and built the campaign that installed Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York City. The figures were first surfaced by Frontpage Magazine in December 2025, laid out in detail by Ronn Torossian at The Olam, and confirmed against the filings by the New York Sun, Israel National News, and Ynetnews.

This is not alleged. It is in the tax record.

The Righteous Persons Foundation gave $1.2 million to Bend the Arc, the largest domestic progressive Jewish advocacy group in the country. Bend the Arc publicly opposes the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the working definition adopted by the United States government, the European Union, and more than forty national governments. Its political arm, a 501(c)(4), is chaired by Alex Soros, who runs the Soros family's philanthropic agenda.

Then the rest of the network, from the same filings. T'ruah, roughly $690,000. Its chief executive has called Israel's operation against Hezbollah a war crime and accused Israel of deliberately starving Palestinian civilians. Jews United for Justice, roughly $925,000, another public opponent of the IHRA definition. The Jewish Social Justice Roundtable, roughly $250,000, the umbrella that coordinates messaging and legislative strategy across all of them.

The totals come from the foundation's own disclosures. Nothing here is inferred.

Now the outcome the money bought. In September 2025, Bend the Arc made the first mayoral endorsement in its history. Never before, in any city, in a quarter century. It endorsed Mamdani. The decision was made inside the 501(c)(4) political arm, the vehicle for campaign operations and independent expenditures, the one Alex Soros chairs. Bend the Arc then raised money for Mamdani, canvassed for him, and bought television advertising for him. In its own post-election message, the group took credit: it said it had helped shape the victory with its air game and its ground game.

Follow the sequence. Spielberg's foundation wrote the check to Bend the Arc. Bend the Arc, chaired at the political level by Soros, delivered the endorsement, the money, and the ground operation. Mamdani won in November and was inaugurated on New Year's Day 2026. Spielberg did not write a check to a candidate. He wrote a check to the organization that produced the candidate. That distinction is the entire architecture.

The pattern did not stop at the election. It runs straight into the budget. Mamdani's first executive budget delivered an 800 percent increase in "non-carceral" hate violence prevention funding, roughly $26 million routed through the city's hate-crimes office. The activist group that lobbied for that exact figure, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, now administers the money. We documented that closed loop in "The JFREJ Heist." The philanthropy elects the mayor, the mayor writes the budget, the activists cash the check. Same machine, two turns of the wheel.

The direction was set at the beginning, and it was set on purpose. On October 1, 1994, weeks after the Oscars, Spielberg and his board appointed Margery Tabankin as Executive Director. Her record was not a mystery to them. She had run VISTA under Jimmy Carter, then the Arca Foundation's progressive grantmaking, and in 1989 she traveled to the West Bank and met with Palestinian leadership. They reviewed that record and selected her to direct $100 million in Schindler's List profits. The foundation has no independent directors and no outside oversight. For three decades Tabankin's grantmaking strategy has been the board's grantmaking strategy, because that is how they built it.

The record on the founding intent is Spielberg's own. He said the money belonged to the Jewish community. He said it was meant to protect that community.

The check-writing record says something else. It says the money was deployed in the service of a network that wants the IHRA definition abolished, wants the Israeli military embargoed, and wanted a Palestinian advocate in Gracie Mansion. That network does not define antisemitism the way the community it claims to speak for does. Its working definition excludes anti-Zionism and the calls to eliminate the Jewish state that have driven the spike in hate incidents against Jews in New York. We traced how Mamdani and JFREJ weaponize the language of Jewish religion to sell an anti-ICE, pro-Palestinian agenda. The Spielberg money is the philanthropic tier of the same operation.

And on January 5, 2026, the first full week of the new mayor's term, Spielberg hosted Mamdani at his apartment on Central Park West. That dinner was reported by the New York Times and confirmed by Spielberg's spokeswoman and by City Hall.

The question is not whether Steven Spielberg has the right to fund whichever organizations he chooses. He does. The question is whether the money he called blood money, the money he said belonged to the Jewish community, was spent protecting that community or building the machine that campaigned against its stated interests. The filings answer it. Every dollar in this piece can be pulled from a public document. Someone should pull all of them, name every grant, and follow the rest of the money out to the end of the wire.

📬 Share, Comment, and Support Our Work

Share this. Restack it. Forward the email. That's the whole ask.

Support the work. The reporting linked above took weeks of tracing records, filings, and on-the-record statements. It doesn't happen on faith. If you find it useful, become a paid subscriber and help fund the next one.

Reporting first surfaced by Frontpage Magazine and laid out by Ronn Torossian, Publisher of The Olam (olam.business). Additional reporting from the New York Sun, Israel National News, Future of Jewish, JFeed, and Ynetnews. Grant totals are drawn from the Righteous Persons Foundation's public tax filings.