FCL-Closed Democracy Center’s Freedom House-ADL-Pritzker Links (1)

Most U.S. antiwar Movement organizers who live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Somerville and Boston do not believe that the Cambridge-based Foundation for Civic Leadership [FCL] should have undemocratically decided to close down Cambridge’s Democracy Center building at 45 Mount Auburn Street in July 2024.

So, as Elyse C. Goncalves observed in a July 2, 2024 Harvard Crimson article, in early July 2024, “roughly 30 people” temporarily occupied “the Democracy Center” to protest the center’s closure; and “to stop the Foundation for Civic Leadership, the center’s financial supporter, from closing the center,” which has, historically, been “a meeting place for local progressive organizers and activists,” in Cambridge. According to the same article:

“Since announcing the closure, the FCL has been met with fervent — and often tearful — opposition from local organizers, who say the space is crucial for their work…. The occupation came... just over a week after nearly 100 people staged a rally in opposition to the closure.

“Protesters rallied in front of the center…as organizers led them in chants including `shutting down the DC, that’s not what democracy looks like’ and `ho ho, hey hey, the DC is here to stay.’…Around 10 a.m., the group filed into the building, donning masks and handing their phones to organizers, a measure they said would keep participants anonymous…”

One reason the Foundation for Civic Leadership [FCL] may have decided to shut down a Democracy Center building in Cambridge in which U.S. antiwar Movement and Palestine Solidarity Movement organizers have, historically, held meetings over the last few decades is that FCL’s president--a co-founder and principal of the Blue Haven Initiative investment firm named Ian Simmons--also sits on The Freedom House Board of Trustees.

And since May 2023, the FCL-linked Freedom House Board of Trustees has included a board member of an organization, the Anti-Defamation League [ADL], which endorsed the U.S. government-armed IDF’s post-Oct. 7, 2023 military attack on people in Gaza.

A press release posted on the Freedom House website on May 4, 2023, titled “Freedom House Welcomes New Trustee, Dr. Sharon S. Nazarian”, for example, contained the following biographical information about one of Foundation for Civic Leadership [FCL] President Simmons’s colleagues on the Freedom House Board of Trustees:

“…Dr. Nazarian is president of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation and member of Nazarian Enterprises, a family investment office with holdings across a broad spectrum of industries. Previously, she served as senior vice president of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)…Dr. Nazarian is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and now serves on the national board of directors of ADL. Her dedication…is evident through her position as the Chair of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies Advisory Board and the Board of Governors of University of Haifa.”

Freedom House Trustee and FCL President Simmons’s wife and Blue Haven Initiative investment firm co-founder, Liesel Pritzker Simmons, is an heiress to the Hyatt hotels fortune, who is also related to Chicago Billionaire Penny Pritzker. And Penny Pritzker is the chair of PSP Partners and its affiliates, Pritzker Realty Group, PSP Capital and PSP Growth who, in recent years, has been the Senior Fellow (chair) of the Harvard University Corporation and a board member of Microsoft Corp.--which has invested millions of dollars into Israeli startups specializing in “defense” technology since 2014.

In late 2013, Forbes magazine estimated that the net worth of FCL President Simmons’s wife was then $600 million; and FCL President Simmons, himself, is apparently an heir to a construction and retailing fortune.

So, not surprisingly, between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, Freedom House Trustee and Blue Haven Initiative Co-Founder and Principal capitalist investor Simmons had enough individual personal wealth to “lend”—not donate--$2,296, 646 to the FCL “non-profit” that he’s the president of, according to the Foundation for Civic Leadership’s Form 990 financial filing for 2022.

In an August 4, 2024 email to the FCI’s Interim Executive Director, Sue Heilman, this writer asked the FCI Interim Executive Director to respond by email to the following three questions:

1." What is Foundation for Civic Leadership [FCL]’s response to allegation that it actually shut down Cambridge’s Democracy Center building in July 2024 to block antiwar and Palestine solidarity Movement organizers from using building as venue to organize protests in opposition to Anti-Defamation League [ADL]-supported IDF war on Gaza—because FCL’s president sits on Freedom House Board of Trustees with an ADL national board member?"

2. "Does Freedom House Trustee and FCL President Ian Simmons support an immediate end to all U.S. government weapons shipments to the IDF and the U.S. antiwar and Palestine solidarity Movement’s BDS campaign in 2024? And, if not, why not?"

3. "How, specifically, did FCL President Simmons obtain the $2,296,646 he lent to the FCL between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023? And why was the $2,296,646 lent to FCL, rather than just donated to FCL?"

But the FCL interim executive director had not provided an email response to this writer’s Aug. 4, 2024, 2024 email query, as of August 11, 2024. (end of part 1 of article. To be continued.)