California judge bans Kars4Kids ads for hiding Orthodox Jewish agenda

The infamous commercials failed to tell donors they were actually funding programs designed to promote conversions to Orthodox Judaism

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A California judge has just banned all Kars4Kids ads from being broadcast in the state, which means residents will no longer hear that catchy-yet-annoying jingle:

Given the ruling, it seems like a great time to remind everyone of how this ad is actually a religious scam and why multiple states have tried to remove it from their airwaves or at least punish the company.

The commercials tell people to “donate their cars today” by calling the number for “Kars 4 Kids” (which is more than 7 digits but whatever). But maybe you’ve asked yourself some questions whenever you see or hear the ads. What do they do with the cars since kids can’t legally drive? If I trade in my car, does the cash go to kids? How much cash? And which kids? Seriously, what is this a commercial for, exactly?

In the final frames of that 30-second ad above, you see this screen which only says “Because kids are our future!” and “Learn how you can make a difference in the life of a child”!

Notice it never says how you can make a difference. They just want your damn cars. With a K. Now donate and shut up.

Why do we get so few details in those commercials?

To find that answer, you have to go to the actual website for Kars 4 Kids, but even then, you have to know where to look.

Here’s how the general process works: You give them information about your car, pledging to hand over your keys and the title to it. If everything checks out, they’ll send a tow truck to your home to pick it up, at which point they’ll try to sell it for the best possible price. If they’re successful, they’ll send you a receipt so you can get a tax break for your donation. (They’ll even throw in a voucher for a couple free nights at a hotel.)

There’s nothing inherently weird about any of that. If you want to donate your car, that’s certainly a way to do it.

But that still doesn’t explain how the donations are used.

Here’s what the ads don’t tell you: Donations to Kars4Kids go to a non-profit group that works to promote Orthodox Judaism.

The website even says donations support the non-profit itself along with their “sister charity” Oorah, which is a Jewish group that runs summer camps and religious education programs for kids with the goal of making them devout Orthodox Jews... and turning secular Jews into what they would consider observant ones.

The head of a non-profit oversight group called CharityWatch once said this about Kars4Kids:

"They ought to [say] you are helping proselytize to secular Jews so they can become orthodox," said Daniel Borochoff, president of CharityWatch, who said he is Jewish. "What's even worse is their ad makes it out that they are helping kids in general."

They are not helping kids in general. They’re not even really helping all Jewish kids. They’re focusing on helping one specific kind of Jewish kid remain in the fold while trying to get all the other ones to join their club.

To be sure, if people want to donate to a religious charity that works to indoctrinate or convert kids, that’s their business and their right. (Let’s not pretend Orthodox Jews are any different in that regard from other religious groups that do the exact same things.) But the charities should at least be open and honest about that in any solicitation. How hard would it be to say, in those ads, that donations benefit children of Jewish parents or that the mission of the charity is religious in nature?

There are plenty of criticisms you can make about those commercials, but at the top of the list should be the intentional omission of how it’s connected to an Orthodox Jewish group.

How connected are we talking here? The music—the extremely annoying music—was even taken from a song called “Little Kinderlach,” by an Orthodox Jewish singer named Country Yossi. That song is all about how the little kinderlach—the little children—are going to help the Messiah return by being good little Orthodox Jewish boys and girls.

Why doesn’t Kars4Kids say any of this? Because they don’t really want you to know. It might drive away donations. (Pun intended.) After all, would evangelical Christians or atheists or Muslims want to donate their cars through Kars4Kids if they knew the primary goal of those donations was to create more observant Orthodox Jews?

In fact, in 2009, Kars4Kids had to pay $65,000 fines in both Oregon and Pennsylvania for misleading people about where the money was going. But those fines were pocket change for this group. Between 2012 and 2014, Kars4Kids raised $88 million. That’s a lot of cars. But only about half of that money went to charity (by which I mean bringing kids into their religion). It’s a horrible ratio. A big chunk of the rest of that cash was used to get that commercial on TV and radio. (Also, they once lost over $9 million in “failed real estate projects controlled by a second cousin of the charity’s president.”)

Turns out the adorable kids not even playing their own instruments weren’t the only things in the commercials that were misleading.

Those money problems, by the way, infuriated Minnesota’s former attorney general so much that, in 2017, she filed a 300-page report with the IRS explaining why they should revoke the group’s tax exemption. She also pointed out that Minnesotans donated $3 million in cars to Kars4Kids from 2012 to 2014, but only $11,600 went back to helping kids in Minnesota. Less than 1%. The charity literally helped three kids in the state. Not great. Unfortunately, the IRS did not act on the complaint.

In response to that complaint, though, Kars4Kids tried to justify their spending this way: “Since we are headquartered in the northeast, many of our programs and recipients naturally come from this area. We believe Minnesota residents… appreciate that their generous donations to Kars4Kids help children both in and out of state.”

Nope. Not appreciated. Speaking on behalf of all Minnesota residents, all we want is honesty and transparency about the nature of our donations.

And that’s the heart of what the California judge just said.

In that case, a man named Bruce Puterbaugh sued the charity in 2021 after donating his 2001 Volvo XC (only worth about $250) because he saw the Kars4Kids ad and wanted to help “underprivileged kids from all over the U.S.” He only learned after giving the car away “that the funds were directed to a Jewish organization in New York.”

During the trial, the COO for the charity admitted that the ads say nothing about the true nature of their mission and that the word “Jewish” doesn’t appear anywhere in the commercials. As Orange County Superior Court Judge Gassia Apkarian explained:

[COO Esti] Landau explicitly testified that the organization’s primary purpose is not to help economically disadvantaged children. She testified that Oorah’s programs include “matchmaking” for young adults and “gap year” trips to Israel for 17- and 18-year-olds (averaging 250 participants per year). She also admitted that Kars4Kids operates no functional programs in California. Their local activity is limited to “small grants” consisting of approximately 1,000 backpacks bearing the corporate logo, distributed to any child regardless of financial need. She also testified that Kars4Kids is not involved in how the money is spent once transferred; those decisions are left entirely to Oorah.

… Ms. Landau testified multiple times that the advertisement “does not mention anything” and contains “no details” about what Kars4Kids does. She stated that while the ad features children aged 8–10, she confirmed the funded programs often target young adults (17–18) and matchmaking as well as Jewish families.

The bottom line? The government has every right to regulate “misleading” commercial speech, and these “fraudulent omissions” don’t fall under any kind of free speech protections.

The Court finds the message that the charity helps “needy” children is not “inherently vague.” In the context of a charitable appeal, “needy” implies socio-economic disadvantage. Using funds for “gap year” trips to Israel for 17-18-year-olds or a $16.5 million real estate acquisition contradicts the “needy child” persona cultivated by the ad.

The name “Kars4Kids,” the 8-10-year-old actors in the advertisement, and the repetitive jingle all serve to reinforce the belief that donations are used exclusively for the benefit of children.

What this means is that the charity can no longer play those ads in California unless they overhaul them completely:

Kars4Kids ads are now banned in the state until there’s “an express, audible disclosure” of the charity’s religious affiliation, the region of where the money goes and a more accurate age range of the recipients. The organization also can’t use young kids in its ads anymore.

Actually, the judge used far better phrasing than that: “The Defendant may no longer use images of prepubescent children to solicit donations that support individuals who have reached the age of majority.”

At this point, the charity would have to start from scratch. Because a revised version of the current ad, with young adults playing toy instruments while talking about religious mission trips and their need to find Orthodox Jewish partners, wouldn’t be nearly as memorable. Though it’d be a great setup for a Last Week Tonight parody.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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