Drop Site has now identified five more people whom Megamot Shalom has employed as content writers, editors, and consultants. These individuals—Elihu David Stone, Yehuda HaKohen, Abigail Bornstein, Aharon Dikel, and Alexander Malbin Duncan—were identified through a review of Megamot Shalom’s business filings with the Israeli government from 2016 to 2024, where they were listed as the nonprofit’s highest-paid employees. They are all Americans who moved to Israel and are connected to one another and individuals reported to be involved with Canary Mission.

None of the individuals identified by Drop Site responded to requests for comment. Drop Site is not publishing the names of two other individuals listed in Magamot Shalom’s filings because additional identifying details were not publicly available.

The Canary Mission website was launched in the spring of 2015; Megamot Shalom was incorporated in late 2015 and made its first filing in 2016. A series of reports by The Forward in 2018 uncovered evidence that Megamot Shalom was formed as the entity running Canary Mission’s operations by a UK-born businessman named Jonathan Bash, who now lives in Jerusalem.

Bash and Megamot Shalom did not respond to requests for comment.

Drop Site’s previous investigation confirmed that Megamot Shalom appears to run Canary Mission, with non-public websites revealing staging material for Canary Mission’s website showing that someone uploading content for a dossier of a pro-Palestine activist on the site matched the name of a person listed as a content writer on Megamot Shalom’s business listing, a UK-born writer named Alex Ben Carson, now living in Jerusalem.

Megamot Shalom’s filings reveal that it receives millions from overseas donors, including funds from major American nonprofits that were earmarked for Canary Mission on their tax filings, another indication that Megamot operates the website. American donations are moved to Megamot via a New York-based nonprofit called the Central Fund of Israel. Drop Site previously uncovered ties between Bash and a New York interior design business that shares an address with the Central Fund of Israel.

The American Israelis who appear to be providing content for Canary Mission’s operations via Megamot Shalom come from all over the U.S., and have been involved in American organizations like settler nonprofits, the Wexner Foundation, and Israeli groups with reported ties to the Israeli government such as the legal nonprofit Shurat HaDin.

A number of the Megamot Shalom content writers are also associated with Aish HaTorah, a Jewish Orthodox educational nonprofit based in Jerusalem to which Bash, some his family members, and other Megamot Shalom board members have longstanding ties.

The Wexner Fellow
Elihu David Stone appears in the Megamot Shalom government fillings every year from 2016 through 2024, in a section that lists the organization’s five highest paid employees. His title is given as content writer or content editor, depending on the year, and his top annual compensation was about $80,000 (236,682 shekels), which made him the highest paid employee for five years.

An Elihu David Stone originally from Boston and now living in Israel has previously written pro-Israel content for outlets like The Times of Israel. Stone shared Canary Mission posts on his Facebook account and is connected on social media with two other highly paid Megamot Shalom content writers identified by Drop Site…

Crosspost from https://news.abolish.capital/post/44448