Image taken from Wikimedia Commons A new report, published by Action Forum Israel (Aktionsforum Israel) in Germany, questions the German Bank for Social Economy (BfS)’s decision to give a bank account to Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which Action Forum Israel maintains is affiliated with parent organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Action Forum Israel is a German group that was founded with the purpose of promoting Israel, Judaism, and Zionism, as well as advocating for peaceful coexistence in Israel and the Middle East. Its report suggests that in admitting Jewish Voice as a client, BfS violated its stated policy of not supporting boycotts of Israel. Action Forum Israel claims that BfS specified in a private interview in March 2017 that it is committed to Israel’s right to exist and that boycotts of Israel violate the bank’s principles. However, on April 24, 2017, the Bank for Social Economy announced that it was giving the Jewish Voice a bank account. The report goes on to emphasize Jewish Voice and JVP’s support for the BDS movement. According to the international BDS website, Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East is part of the global BDS movement. Action Forum Israel’s report also notes that JVP has worked with convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who perpetrated an attack in 1969 that killed two Hebrew University students. Odeh spoke at a 2017 JVP National Membership Meeting, but has since been deported from the United States for lying about her terrorism conviction. BfS’s decision to admit Jewish Voice as a client has drawn a lot of backlash. The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted that the bank’s facilitation of BDS qualifies its bankers to be “in the early running for SWC Top Ten 2018,” an annually published list of the worst anti-Semitic or anti-Israel incidents. The Central Welfare Board of Jews in Germany (ZWST), which is a partial owner of the BfS, called on the bank to investigate its facilitation of BDS activity. Other organizations have also weighed in on the issue: according to The Jerusalem Post, the Magnus Hirschfield Foundation, which combats discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals, closed its account with the bank in April. Israeli public fundraising organization Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal announced that its German branch will stop doing business with the bank, and Frankfurt’s deputy mayor, Uwe Becker, said that Frankfurt will do the same. All this comes in the midst of the recent decision by a German intelligence agency to classify BDS as an anti-Semitic movement.