This Week
Insight
Remember
When •
Up In The Polls
From the pages of the Jewish News for
this week 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60
years ago.
Genesis of a PR campaign: using political savvy
for Israel in the Middle East conflict
MATTHEW E. BERGER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Washington
s a political consultant for
both overseas elections and
U.S. Democratic candi-
dates, Jennifer Laszlo
Mizrahi has a pretty keen eye for an
image problem.
On maternity leave in 2000, as her
colleagues worked on the U.S. presi-
dential election and the ensuing vote
recount in Florida, Mizrahi saw that
Israel was not being perceived posi-
tively in the United States.
Israel continued to project a more
positive image than the Palestinian
Authority, but it seemed to Mizrahi
that Israel was being portrayed as
opposed to Middle East peace and as
an instigator, not a victim, of the
region's violence.
Almost two years later, after devel-
oping a team of Jewish political con-
sultants and pollsters, Mizrahi has- for-
mulated a thorough message strategy
to change American perceptions of
Israel.
The strategy has been circulating for
the past month among American
Jewish leaders and Israeli officials.
Started with $50,000 of her family's .
foundation money, the Israel PR
Campaign has begun seeking support
from Jewish groups to create television
ads geared toward "opinion elites"
(opinion shapers) nationwide.
Some say Mizrahi's project has been
able to do what other groups only
dreamed about — create a formal
strategy to enhance American percep-
tions of Israel. The strategy is focused
on television ads, which are expected
to launch early next month, and
training for Israeli and U.S. Jewish
spokespersons.
Gathering the information and get-
ting Jewish communal leaders on
board has been a bit of a struggle,
Mizrahi says. In the early months of
the intifitda (Palestinian uprising),
Mizrahi found herself complaining to
family, friends and Jewish leaders
A.
8/30
2002
34
about Israel's negative image. Others,
however, were focused on more prac-
tical needs, such as bulletproof ambu-
lances and security zones around sen-
ior citizen centers.
"A lot of people feel that image is
fluff, like plastic surgery," she said.
But given her experience on politi-
cal and advocacy campaigns, Mizrahi
understood that negative views could
result in larger problems, such as pos-
sible anti-Israel policies from the new
George W. Bush White House.
A Transformation
For their part, Jewish leaders say they
weren't ignoring Mizrahi's ideas, but
that she wasn't saying anything signif-
icantly different from others who also
were theorizing about how to paint
Israel in a better light.
Some wondered whether Mizrahi
was motivated by self-promotion or
by real concern for
Israel. But
many now say
Mizrahi has
proved to be
one of the
first to
develop a
thorough
plan to
improve
Israel's image.
1992
Unable to get funding for her proj-
ect last spring, Mizrahi turned to the
one place she knew she could get the
resources — her own political strategy
company and the charitable trust she
and her husband have established.
She supplemented that with money
from other private family foundations,
whose representatives she met at a con-
ference of the Jewish Funders Network.
She recruited some of the biggest
campaign names in Washington:
Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist
who has worked for former Israeli
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu;
Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster
for Public Opinion Strategies; and
Stanley Greenberg, President Bill
Clinton's former pollster who worked
extensively with former Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak.
"I wanted it to be the best and the
brightest," Mizrahi said.
While some of the consultants and
pollsters are ideological opposites,
they have joined in the past to work
for associations and _corporations. But
this was different, they said.
"You're dealing with a country
under siege and you're trying to help
them. There are much bigger conse-
quences than your standard political
campaign," said Patrick Lanne,
research director for Public Opinion
Strategies, who ran some of the focus
groups for the Israel PR Campaign.
The initial strategy was to affect
the perception of Washington elites,
and Mizrahi used the research data to
create television ads in Washington
that were funded by defense organi-
zations such as the Center for
Security Policy.
The ads ran on Washington-area
cable networks throughout the
spring and summer, at a
cost of $30,000 a week.
A New Campaign
The second round of
polling, launched in early
summer, looked at the general
POLLS on page 35
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
Congregation Shaarey Zedek dedi-
cates the opening of its Eugene and
Marcia Applebaum Beth Hayeled
Building and Jewish Parenting
Center in West Bloomfield.
Laurie Nosanchuck of West
Bloomfield heads the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations'
first camp for autistic Jewish chil-
dren at Camp Kutz in New York.
Detroit's 30 athletes perform well at
the first North American Youth
Maccabi Games in Memphis.
Percy Kaplan, executive director of
the Jewish National Fund in Michigan,
retires after 29 years of service.
Detroit Allied Jewish Campaign lead-
ers Max M. Fisher, Paul Handleman,
William Gershenson, Irving
Seligman, Paul Zuckerman and
William Avrunin completed a three-
day briefing in Israel at the invitation
of Prime Minister Golda Meir.
RIM101111111.1.111M1
Congregation Beth Moses in
Detroit selects Rabbi A. Irving
Schnipper as its spiritual leader.
Reparations talks concluded in The
Hague between Germany and
Israel, and also between Germany
and the Conference on Jewish
Material Claims Against Germany.
Congregation B'nai Moshe in
Detroit will begin classes in its recent-
ly completed new education building.
,A&
A special tribute is given to
Detroiter Fred M. Butzel, "a nation-
al institution," on his 65th birthday.
Plans for a communal Yiddish
theater have been postponed indefi-
nitely, says the Jewish Theater
Guild, due to deadlocked negotia-
tions with the Hebrew Actors
. Union of New York City.
— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Leo M. Franklin
Archives, Temple Beth El