Jews cannot propagandize our way to being loved

Both Israel and Northwestern University double down on dumb p.r. Plus: Tiny yarmulkes; why Rosh Hashanah is like alien abduction

Before I get to the serious stuff this week, here is a funny bit of a conversation I just had with very funny Yehuda Kurtzer about how to find the right yarmulke as a bald man:

For more of the podcast, go here.

The longer conversation about head coverings (yarmulkes, kippahs) got into awesome territory; among other things, I asked Yehuda about the tiny little disc-like ones I see. A couple weeks later, he sent me this pic from Bogota:

Wow. That’s small.

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OK, on with the show…

If there’s one thing a journalist grows to hate, it’s spin, or what might be called propaganda, or what might be called bullshit (though as philosopher Harry Frankfurt argued, bullshit is actually a specific, and different, thing; read the book). That would include a good amount of anti-bias training as well as a good amount of government propaganda. Both endeavors, even when well meaning, aim not at truth but at compliance and submission. But what happens when the intended beneficiaries don’t want to comply and submit?

First, I read in the indispensable Jewish Telegraphic Agency that

Newly filed records with the Department of Justice show that Israel’s government has quietly launched a two-track influence operation in the United States, blending big-budget political advertising with grassroots-style influencer campaigns.

The filings reveal that a firm called Bridges Partners LLC has been hired to manage an influencer network under a project code-named the “Esther Project.” It is unclear if there is any link to Project Esther, a plan to combat antisemitism published by the Heritage Foundation, an American right-wing think tank.

Somewhere, the actual biblical Esther is turning over in her grave to think that her name is being invoked for hasbara. You can read the article, but the basic gist is that Israel hired a couple American p.r. firms to pay “influencers” to say pro-Israel things.

The contracts allow for up to $900,000 in payments over several months and include a detailed pricing schedule: $60,000 in upfront payments to cover influencer recruitment and concept development, another $140,000 in development-phase payments as five or six influencers began posting, and monthly allocations of up to $250,000 earmarked for influencer fees, production, and agency costs. A final $50,000 was budgeted for wrap-up and post-campaign reporting.

The filings also map out a phased rollout: three to six influencers onboarded at a time, each expected to post roughly 25 to 30 pieces of content per month across Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms. Later phases anticipated further expansion, including “matching with Israeli content partners” and developing partnerships with U.S.-based marketing agencies.

It seems that some of the paid influencers—the article seems to guess at this, because Netanyahu met with them in New York recently—were “Lizzy Savetsky, a fashion and lifestyle personality who has rebranded as a prominent voice for Israel; Ari Acker, who runs a popular news explainer account; and Zach Sage Fox, known for his pro-Israel video content. Other participants included Miriam Ezagui, a nurse who posts Jewish lifestyle content; and Joyce Chabb, a digital creator who has described her work as advocacy against antisemitism.”

Maybe Ari Acker and Joyce Chabb swing bigger sticks than a Gen X’er like me knows, but what I know for sure is that this is all a very bad look, not least because anti-Israel influencers can now run digital content featuring a headline from a Jewish wire service reporting on Israel’s astroturfing of bought-and-paid-for pro-Israel content from pro-Israel influencers. Nice work, Bibi.

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And then there is Northwestern University. Now look, I don’t envy university presidents. Or Hillel directors. Or advisors to the Islamic student societies. Or anyone who gets paid in part to manage the anxieties of students during the ongoing Gaza War. But still, there are dumb ways to handle all this, and then dumber ways.