Azrieli Foundation to End Support for Toronto Arts Foundation as Protest Campaign Claims a Win
The Azrieli Foundation will cease its support of the Toronto Arts Foundation (TAF), closing a funding relationship that has helped underwrite TAF’s Breakthrough Artist Award since 2023. The change comes after months of public pressure from Artists Against Artwashing (AAA), a coalition of Canadian artists and arts workers that has urged cultural organizations to sever ties with the foundation over its alleged connections to Israel’s real estate sector and the ongoing war in Gaza.
Both the Azrieli Foundation and TAF say the decision is not connected to the protests. Still, AAA has framed the end of the agreement as a milestone in a broader effort to challenge what it calls “artwashing” — the use of cultural philanthropy, the group argues, to soften scrutiny of political and economic entanglements.
TAF’s director of development and engagement, Dane Bland, disputed the idea that the foundation’s withdrawal was prompted by the campaign. Asked whether the termination reflected AAA’s organizing and other opposition, Bland said: “No that is not a correct understanding.” He did not provide additional detail about why the partnership is ending.
AAA has been calling on TAF to cut ties with the Azrieli Foundation since March 2024. Later that year, the group delivered an open letter to TAF leadership signed by more than 450 artists and cultural workers. The campaign also included direct action at the Toronto Arts Foundation Mayor’s Evening for the Arts on November 20, 2024, when AAA members and supporters repeatedly disrupted the event, including interrupting remarks by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.
In a statement issued earlier this week, AAA described the funding shift as “a victory” and linked it to “two years of organising and protest.” The group has alleged that the Azrieli Foundation is “resourced by this genocide and land theft,” referring to the war in Gaza.
AAA has also claimed that the foundation is “deeply embedded in the Canadian arts landscape” while supporting “Zionist lobby groups including Honest Reporting Canada,” which AAA says contributes to the dehumanization of Palestinians in Canadian media. The group has further asserted that several major Canadian cultural organizations continue to receive Azrieli Foundation funding, naming Canadian Stage, the Luminato Festival, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the National Arts Centre among them.
The Azrieli Foundation’s website lists a wide range of recipients across the visual and performing arts, as well as healthcare, education, architecture and design, history, and other fields.
Heather Sherman, the foundation’s director of communications, said the organization is aware of “false claims alleging our partnership with the Toronto Arts Foundation has ended as a result of baseless accusations.” She added that the foundation is “shifting its focus to new opportunities to support Canadian arts and culture,” and said it remains “proud of what we have accomplished with the Toronto Arts Foundation,” while expressing interest in future collaboration.
Sherman also said the foundation “condemns the false, hateful and willfully misleading mischaracterisations of our work and our organisation,” adding that allegations made against the foundation “are often antisemitic.”
AAA spokesperson Vince Rozario rejected that framing, saying the group’s organizers “refuse the characterisation that stating these facts, or demanding accountability of arts funders constitutes antisemitism.” Rozario argued that the group’s claims about the foundation’s investments and influence are “easily verifiable” through public records, including charitable tax filings, annual reports, and statements by the organization’s officers.
Beyond the dispute over the TAF partnership, AAA has alleged that the Azrieli Group real estate company holds “significant assets in illegal settlement infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem,” and has shares in Bank Leumi, which the group describes as violating international law by financing settlements and extracting natural resources in Palestine. The Azrieli Group disputes these allegations.
Naomi Azrieli, chair of the Azrieli Foundation, has said the foundation is distinct from the Azrieli Group, with an independent board and mission. Even so, the episode underscores how quickly cultural philanthropy can become a flashpoint — and how arts institutions, increasingly pressed to account for the origins of their funding, are being pulled into wider political arguments that extend far beyond the gallery and the stage.
