Who Went to Israel for AIPAC? How Congressional Trips Really Work, Where the Names Are, and What the Data Shows

Introduction: The question behind “who went to Israel?”

A very specific question keeps coming up in U.S. politics:

“Which politicians have gone to Israel because of AIPAC?”

On social media it’s usually framed as a simple list problem, as if there is a publicly available spreadsheet listing every member of Congress who ever boarded a flight to Tel Aviv with AIPAC footing the bill.

But the reality is more complex and more revealing:

- AIPAC is a lobbying organization and cannot directly pay for congressional travel.

- Its sister nonprofit, the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), sponsors most of the trips.

- Every trip is technically documented in congressional ethics and travel disclosure forms.

- The data is scattered across PDFs, databases, and paywalled platforms.

This blog breaks down:

1. How AIPAC and AIEF are structured.

2. How the Israel trips are organized and disclosed.

3. What the available data shows.

4. How to find the names yourself.

5. Why no simple master list exists and what that fact reveals about influence.

1. AIPAC vs. AIEF: Who actually pays for the trips?

AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a powerful U.S. lobbying organization. As a 501(c)(4) entity, it is barred from directly paying for congressional travel.

Instead, congressional trips to Israel are funded by:

American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF)

- A 501(c)(3) “educational” nonprofit.

- Described publicly as AIPAC’s “charitable affiliate.”

- Sponsors educational seminars in Israel for members of Congress and staff.

- Relies heavily on AIPAC infrastructure and personnel to execute trips.

Investigations and public records have shown:

- AIEF is formally separate but closely tied to AIPAC.

- AIEF funds educational programs and trips while AIPAC handles lobbying.

- AIEF describes its mission as educating political leaders about the U.S.–Israel relationship through firsthand experiences in Israel.

Thus, although AIPAC doesn't technically “pay for the trips,” it architecturally enables them.

2. How the trips are structured and disclosed

Trips usually appear in disclosure forms as:

- “Educational Seminar in Israel”

- “Republican Members of Congress Educational Seminar in Israel”

- “Democratic Women Congressional Delegation to Israel”

Trips typically include:

- Meetings with Israeli government and military officials

- Guided tours of security sites

- Briefings on foreign policy and regional conflict

- Lodging, meals, security, and transportation paid by AIEF

House rules require the sponsor and travelers to file:

- A Primary Trip Sponsor Form

- A Post-Travel Disclosure

These documents must include:

- Sponsor name (AIEF)

- Destination (Israel)

- Dates

- Itemized expenses (guides, hotels, security, room rentals, meals)

- Trip purpose and itinerary

- Names of all travelers (members and staff)

This information is public but difficult to aggregate because it is distributed across thousands of forms.

Data Aggregators:

- LegiStorm (paid) organizes all private travel records.

- CNS Maryland Congressional Travel Explorer (free) aggregates House disclosures into a searchable interface.

3. The scale: How many trips and how many politicians?

AIPAC and AIEF use congressional travel as a major influence tool.

Examples of scale:

2011:

- Roughly 80+ members of Congress visited Israel through AIEF programs during that year’s August recess delegations.

2019:

- The largest congressional delegation ever sent to Israel:

 - 72 House members (41 Democrats, 31 Republicans), led by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

 - Week-long trips that included meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

2023:

- Privately financed trips to Israel exceeded $2.9 million, with AIEF among the top sponsors.

2024:

- In the first part of 2024 alone, dozens of privately funded trips to Israel were already reported, again with AIEF listed as a leading sponsor.

August 2025:

- LegiStorm reported that the American Israel Education Foundation sponsored 63 trips to Tel Aviv in a single month.

- AIEF accounted for about $1.43 million of all privately funded congressional travel spending that August.

Conclusion:

A non-trivial share of the House — especially leadership, foreign policy, and appropriations members — have taken AIEF-sponsored trips.

4. Concrete examples: Who is documented?

Leadership with documented AIEF trips:

- Steny Hoyer (D-MD): Over a decade of AIEF-sponsored travel; led the 2019 delegation that brought 72 House members to Israel.

- Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): Led major GOP delegations, including trips in 2019 and subsequent years.

- Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): Joined Democratic leadership delegations to Israel on AIEF-sponsored seminars.

- Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL): Frequently listed on Democratic AIEF educational delegations.

- Brendan Boyle (D-PA)

- Pete Aguilar (D-CA)

- Marilyn Strickland (D-WA)

- Kathy Manning (D-NC)

- Norma Torres (D-CA)

These names appear repeatedly in congressional travel logs and investigative compilations.

Why these names matter:

- They show bipartisan participation.

- They illuminate who maintains recurring, institutionalized engagement with AIPAC/AIEF educational programming.

5. Why there is no simple “master list”

Despite widespread interest, no clean public list exists for several reasons:

1. Fragmentation  

Each trip is filed individually as a PDF. There is no single government database listing all travelers by sponsor and destination in a downloadable format.

2. Paywalls  

LegiStorm, which has the most comprehensive dataset on privately sponsored travel, restricts bulk access and exports to paid tiers.

3. Ambiguous definitions  

Should a list include:

- AIEF-only trips?

- Trips partly funded by multiple pro-Israel groups?

- Non-congressional officials and staff?

4. Ever-changing dataset  

New trips occur annually. Amendments or late filings alter records.

Result:

The information is public but buried technically accessible, practically obscured.

6. How to find the names yourself

Option 1 CNS Maryland Congressional Travel Explorer (free)

- Go to the Congressional Travel Explorer.

- Search sponsor: “American Israel Education Foundation.”

- Filter by destination: “Israel” or “Tel Aviv, Israel.”

- View each trip individually.

- Click into the detailed trip record to see the names of members and staff.

Option 2 Official House Clerk Travel Disclosures (government site)

- Visit the House Clerk’s site for travel and financial disclosures.

- Search by sponsor (“American Israel Education Foundation”) or by individual member names.

- Review the PDFs manually to see itineraries, costs, and traveler lists.

Option 3 LegiStorm (most complete but paywalled for bulk data)

- Use LegiStorm’s privately funded travel section.

- Filter by AIEF as sponsor.

- Filter by Israel or Tel Aviv as destination.

- View all related trips chronologically.

- Export data if you have a subscription and then build your own spreadsheet of every member, date, and cost.

This tri-method approach gives you the highest accuracy and lets you build your own dataset instead of relying on headlines or partial lists.

7. What the pattern tells us about influence

Key insights:

1. Travel is a core influence mechanism  

These seminars shape congressional understanding of Israel, its security narrative, and how members frame the U.S.–Israel relationship in hearings, votes, and media appearances.

2. It is bipartisan and normalized  

Top Democratic and Republican leaders participate regularly. For ambitious members, especially those on foreign affairs, defense, or appropriations committees, attending is considered part of the unwritten career playbook.

3. There is pressure to participate  

Members have described implicit expectations to attend AIEF trips, especially for those wanting a say in foreign policy debates.

4. Transparency exists but not usability  

Ethics rules create transparency at the level of forms and PDFs, but not at the level of public understanding. The complexity of retrieval obscures the scale of participation from the general public.

In short:

The influence is structural, institutionalized, and deeply embedded in congressional culture.

8. Turning this into a long-term project

If you want to build a public-facing dataset or advocacy project, the steps would be:

1. Define your scope  

  - Years (for example, 2000–present).

  - Chambers (House only, or House + Senate).

  - Sponsors (AIEF only, or all pro-Israel travel groups).

2. Extract data  

  - Use CNS Maryland’s Explorer to identify trips by AIEF to Israel.

  - Cross-check each trip using the House Clerk’s official PDFs.

  - Optionally, use LegiStorm for deeper coverage and staff-level details.

3. Clean and categorize  

  - De-duplicate entries.

  - Tag each traveler by party, state, committee assignments, and leadership roles.

  - Flag repeat travelers.

4. Publish the dataset  

  - Make it searchable by name, year, party, and committee.

  - Accompany it with narrative explainers, charts, and context like this blog.

Final Reflection

A list of names is valuable but the larger truth is that AIPAC and AIEF have built a long-standing, bipartisan, normalized influence channel through congressional travel.

Understanding this system requires more than a list:

It requires examining relationships, structures, incentives, and the architecture of political education itself.

Sources & References (for further reading and citation):

1. American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) – official site: https://www.aiefdn.org/

2. AIPAC Tomorrow Campaign page describing AIPAC and AIEF relationship: https://www.aipac.org/atc

3. AIEF profile and mission description (Cause IQ): https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/american-israel-education-foundation,521623781/

4. AIEF overview and description of trips (LegiStorm organization summary): https://www.legistorm.com/organization/summary/33758/American_Israel_Education_Foundation.html

5. Congressional Travel Explorer – interactive database of House privately sponsored travel (Howard Center / CNS Maryland): https://cnsmaryland.org/interactives/fall-2024/congressional_travel_explorer/index.html

6. “Privately sponsored travel to Israel on the rise again” – LegiStorm article on 2023–2024 Israel travel costs: https://www.legistorm.com/pro_news/3159/privately-sponsored-travel-to-israel-on-the-rise-again.html

7. “August sets spending record for congressional travel” – LegiStorm article on August 2025 AIEF trips: https://www.legistorm.com/pro_news/4341/august-sets-spending-record-for-congressional-travel.html

8. “Heads of Republican-Democrat delegation agree: Omar, Tlaib should visit Israel” – Times of Israel report on the 2019 72-member delegation: https://www.timesofisrael.com/heads-of-republican-democrat-delegation-agree-omar-tlaib-should-visit-israel/

9. AIPAC / AIEF relationship and 2019 delegation summary (Mishpacha / other reporting compiled on AIEF trips): https://mishpacha.com/a-few-minutes-with-house-majority-leader-steny-hoyer/

10. AIPAC and AIEF background summary (Track AIPAC project): https://www.trackaipac.com/aipac

11. AIPAC Wikipedia entry, including section on AIEF and congressional trips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC