Birthright Scored for Picking P.R. Firm Tied To Scandal, Hard Right Politics
By Nathaniel Popper
Taglit-Birthright Israel, one of the most widely praised Jewish communal programs, is facing a rare dose of criticism from within the Jewish world after deciding to hire a public relations company with big national clients — and a history of controversy.
Birthright, which sends young Jews on free 10-day trips to Israel, has retained the services of 5W Public Relations, a brash young firm that has represented rap stars, as well as corporate giants like Fannie Mae and the Loews Regency Hotel.
5WPR and its CEO Ronn Torossian have also attracted controversy for some of their smaller clients, including the soft-pornography company Girls Gone Wild. While the firm has represented prominent, non-partisan Jewish organizations, it is also known for clients that espouse views on the far right of Israeli politics.
The recent criticism of Torossian is about his politics and also about his company’s tactics. Last summer, his firm was caught posting fraudulent comments on Web sites, impersonating the critics of one of the firm’s clients – the kosher meat company Agriprocessors.
All of this has been cited in the criticism of Birthright’s decision. Jewish activist and journalist Dan Sieradski has started an online petition calling on Birthright to drop 5WPR. Rabbi Andy Bachman, a rising star in the Reform movement and a fan of Birthright, posted a long item on his blog chastising Birthright.
“You can’t hire an unethical person to represent a program that is supposed to inspire people to connect with the Jewish tradition – and all the great things Judaism has to offer,” Bachman, the chief rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, told the Forward. “A person with questionable integrity sullies the brand — it’s that simple for me.”
Torossian would not comment on the criticism of Birthright’s decision to hire him, but he did note that the person at his firm responsible for the problems with Agriprocessors is no longer employed by his company.
Birthright Israel is sponsored by a combination of funding from the Israeli government, American Jewish federations and Jewish philanthropists around the globe. Birthright Israel officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment on their decision to hire 5WPR.
In the midst of the current blowback over Birthright, Torossian received another hit of bad news when the New York City Department of Labor visited the offices of 5WPR on August 17. The visit was first reported on the Web site Gawker. The department of labor confirmed to the Forward that the visit to 5WPR was part of an “ongoing investigation” of the company. Torossian told the Forward in an e-mail that: “The department of labor made a random site visit.”
Torossian has been taken to task in the past by Gawker for his allegedly harsh treatment of employees and people who have crossed his path. Last year, Gawker published e-mails that Torossian had written to a former employee, whom he was suing. In one e-mail, he wrote: “You will pay for the rest of your life for trying to ruin my business.”
“Let’s see if you ever work again,” he added in a series of e-mails that were filled with expletives.
In the past, Birthright’s 10-day trips have been conspicuous for not aligning with any particular point of view on the Israeli political spectrum. But until now, for the last four years, Birthright had retained Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications, which is known for working with liberal, Democratic Party politicians, leading Jewish organizations and, more recently, J Street, a new lobbying group which has often been strongly critical of Israel.
Torossian, 34, is proud of his right-wing political beliefs. When he lived in Israel after college, he founded an organization called Yerushalayim Shelanu, or Our Jerusalem, which worked to push Israeli Arabs out of Jerusalem.
In 2004, he told the Forward, “The PLO or P.A., or whatever the gangsters call themselves today, have no place in Jerusalem.”
Torossian’s views have been highlighted frequently by Jeffrey Goldberg, an alumnus of the Forward who now writes for The Atlantic Monthly, where he has dubbed Torossian’s advocacy of mass military retaliation against Palestinian civilians “a Nazi idea”.
“He represents the hardest right on the Israeli spectrum,” Goldberg told the Forward, criticizing Brithright for its choice.
These politics were cited by Bachman, the Brooklyn rabbi, in his critique of Birthright’s move. But Torossian has received even more criticism from the Jewish activists who caught 5WPR employees impersonating critics of Agriprocessors last year. Shmarya Rosenberg, who first discovered the fraudulent posts on his blog Failed Messiah, has written long posts on his blog detailing Torossian’s past. The man who started the online petition against Torossian, Sieradski, had been involved in discovering the fraudulent posts on the Web site of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, where he worked at the time.
“I physically caught 5WPR engaged in these tactics,” Sieradski said. “I know from firsthand experience that this is the shady business that they deal in.”
In the blog posts that landed 5WPR in such trouble, a 5WPR employee pretended to be Rabbi Morris Allen, who has been one of the leading critics of Agriprocessors.
When asked about Birthright’s decision to hire Torossian, Allen said, “the best I could say is I was surprised.”
With reporting by Josh Nathan-Kazis and Devra Ferst.
Contact Nathaniel Popper at popper@forward.com
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Frank,
Merely being pro-Israel should not be the sole litmus test for hiring PR firms, for crying out loud.
5WPR with their CEO has done some really shady things, and current and former employees find the guy absolutely intolerable.
I'm in marketing/PR, and fortunately have a job, but I know plenty of non-sleazy Jewish PR guys that are out of work. They're pro-Israel, and they at least represent decent Jewish ethics on top of that.
If you have an ideological axe to grind, you could champion so many better people than Torossian and his ilk.
I think a bigger issue here is with all the cutbacks from donors in the Jewish non-profit world, why would the limited Jewish organizational dollars hire a company that represents some of the big dollar PR clients? Is there so much money among Jewish organizations today that they can buy the priciest PR package? Tell them to all our friends and neighbors who are out of work, can't pay tuition in Jewish schools, and would love to have a few of those bucks.
Take that money, give it to a smaller Jewish PR firm that is just as effective but charges less. This way, there's more money to support the Jewish causes that are hurting so much!
Like Obama, I am a graduate of Harvard Law School. I too have Muslims in my family. I am black, and I was once a leftist Democrat. Since our backgrounds are somewhat similar, I perceive something in Obama's policy toward Israel which people without that background may not see. All my life I have witnessed a strain of anti-Semitism in the black community. It has been fueled by the rise of the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, but it predates that organization.
We heard it in Jesse Jackson's "HYMIE town" remark years ago during his presidential campaign. We heard it most recently in Jeremiah Wright's remark about "them Jews" not allowing Obama to speak with him. I hear it from my own Muslim family members who see the problem in the Middle East as a "Jew" problem.
Growing up in a small, predominantly black urban community in Pennsylvania, I heard the comments about Jewish shop owners. They were "greedy cheaters" who could not be trusted, according to my family and others in the neighborhood I was too young to understand what it means to be Jewish, or know that I was hearing anti-Semitism. These people seemed nice enough to me, but others said they were "evil". Sadly, this bigotry has yet to be eradicated from the black community.
In Chicago, the anti-Jewish sentiment among black people is even more pronounced because of the direct influence of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Most African Americans are not followers of "The Nation," but many have a quiet respect for its leader because, they say, "he speaks the truth" and "stands up for the black man." What they mean of course is that he viciously attacks the perceived "enemies" of the black community - white people and Jews. Even some self-described Christians buy into his demagoguery.
The question is whether Obama, given his Muslim roots and experience in Farrakhan's Chicago, shares this antipathy for Israel and Jewish people. Is there any evidence that he does. First, the President was taught for twenty years by a virulent anti-Semite, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In the black community it is called "sitting under." You don't merely attend a church, you "sit under" a Pastor to be taught and mentored by him. Obama "sat under" Wright for a very long time. He was comfortable enough with Farrakhan - Wright's friend - to attend and help organize his "Million Man March." I was on C-Span the morning of the march arguing that we must never legitimize a racist and anti-Semite, no matter what "good" he claims to be doing. Yet our future President was in the crowd giving Farrakhan his enthusiastic support.
The classic left wing view is that Israel is the oppressive occupier, and the Palestinians are Israel's victims. Obama is clearly sympathetic to this view. In speaking to the "Muslim World," he did not address the widespread Islamic hatred of Jews. Instead he attacked Israel over the growth of West Bank settlements. Surely he knows that settlements are not the crux of the problem. The absolute refusal of the Palestinians to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is the insurmountable obstacle. That's where the pressure needs to be placed, but this President sees it differently. He also made the preposterous comparison of the Holocaust to Palestinian "dislocation."
Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective. His construct of "The Muslim World" is unique in modern diplomacy. It is said that only The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical elements of the religion use that concept. It is a call to unify Muslims around the world. It is rather odd to hear an American President use it. In doing so he reveals more about his thinking than he intends. The dramatic policy reversal of joining the unrelentingly ant-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Islamic UN Human Rights Council is in keeping with the President's truest - albeit undeclared - sensibilities
Those who are paying attention and thinking about these issues do not find it unreasonable to consider that President Obama is influenced by a strain of anti-Semitism picked up from the black community, his leftist friends and colleagues, his Muslim associations and his long period of mentorship under Jeremiah Wright. If this conclusion is accurate, Israel has some dark days ahead. For the first time in her history, she may find the President of the United States siding with her enemies. Those who believe as I do that Israel must be protected had better be ready for the fight. We are.
NEVER AGAIN!
given that "In the blog posts that landed 5WPR in such trouble, a 5WPR employee pretended to be Rabbi Morris Allen, who has been one of the leading critics of Agriprocessors" :
is there any reason NOT to believe that the above anti-Obama screed - otherwise totally out of place with this story! - penned by one "Bishop Jackson Sr." is actually the work of Torossian or one of his current co-conspirators?
If "Shmarya" Rosenberg and Dan Sieradski don't like Ronn Torossian, he must be doing something right. What have these bloggers done to strengthen Israel and Judaism?
They have axes to grind against orthodoxy, and their hate consumes them.
Given the usual anti-Israel comments, often by extreme leftists, including patently anti-Semitic libels, it is telling that the following was DELETED:
......
This article is gibberish. It reports that Birthright has been, "conspicuous for not aligning with any particular point of view on the Israeli political spectrum", but then turns around and reports that, "until now, for the last four years, Birthright had retained Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications, which is known for working with liberal, Democratic Party politicians ..., and more recently, J Street, a new lobbying group which has often been strongly critical of Israel." Huh?
So Birthright previously made the grave error of hiring a P.R. firm that catered to leftist organizations, and recently a virulently anti-Israel/anti-Semitic extremist "progressive" propagandist machine which is devoted to attacking Israel and American support for Israel? Continuing to utilize a company working for sworn enemies of Israel would be outrageous!
And now it uses a pro-Israel P.R. company. So what's wrong with that? "Hard-right" really means pro-Israel when spouted by the likes of the Forward. The only criticism of that would have to come from anti-Israel propagandists, like the faux-"Jewish" Forward and J Street. Who cares what Israel's enemies think?
To Bishop E. W. Jackson:
Forward readers should read your comment. I would urge you to post it in response to other stories published by the Forward.
Shmarya Rosenberg is a great, highly under-appreciated man who has literally helped take down one of the largest purveyors of treiff meat to religious Jews. Anyone who keeps kosher owes him a tremendous debt of gratitude. Dan Sieradski though? What does it say that after numerous tweets, a blog post or two and this article, as of this writing, only 32 people have signed his petition 11 days after it was first posted? Obviously Birthright's decision to hire 5WPR was a boneheaded move, even without regard to the political implications involved. Birthright is going to need another PR firm to spin the mess generated by the hiring of this PR firm. So why only 32 signatories? Is it possible that the much vaunted former JTA Director of Digital media has lost his mojo?
I'm waiting to hear how the trial turns out before I pass judgement. Is there any court case pending or do you just plan to destroy Ronn Torossian with gossip?
Thank you Darren! LOL!
Forward-speak glossary Understanding the subtext
Hard right = pro-israel
Hard liner = one who asserts basic human rights for Jews
Progressive = a person or organization that is hypercritical of Israel and represents Palestinain mythology as ideology
"As a Jew..." - opening words to anti-israel article
Liberal = extremist
Moderate = liberal
Right-leaning = moderate
Extremist = right winger
Ultra orthodox = orthodox
Feel free to add your own --- perhaps I'll turn this into a webpage, tweeter, facebook group and my space page
Lol in cambridge,
D.
When Richard Silverstein who hates all things Israeli except the muslim terrorists who are in prison there for killing Jews.Comes to defend Sieradski you knopw how beyond left Sieradski is http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/tag/dan-sieradski/
Isn't 'ethical pr firm' an oxymoron?
Who wants to bet SK, Patty & Mark are all 5WPR staffers?
Dan: Maybe we can do what Shmaryahu did earlier & check out their IP addresses. Can we lay wagers on where they trace back to?
As far as Mark's smear is concerned--I don't think Dan Sieradski considers me a political ally and I've been willing to criticize institutions & ideas which he hasn't taken kindly to. So it would be a typical mistake by the extremist right to lump us together.
As for Mark's claims regarding what I believe--they're as bogus as he is.
I just love that by these commenters' standards, I'm worse than a guy who hawks pornography because I think Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as me.
You can lay wagers today till Hell freezes.Please compare IP's to see what fools you are.
http://www.standardnewswire.com/index.php?module=releases&task=view&releaseID=4358
Bar emes ,me thinks your wrong ROFL
I have known Ron Terrossian for many years and know him to be a strong advocate for Israel, his firm must be doing a good job considering his list of clients and that coupled with his love of the land and the Jewish people will give Birthright the exposure it needs. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not know Ron and is not interested in strengthening the American Jews bond with the land of Israel, which is what Taglit/Birthright is all about
Like Robert, I have known Ronn for years--since he was a Jewish student leader at SUNY Albany who had the guts to take on the Farrakhan people on campus back then. Kol hakavod to him for his success. He's the kind of role model the birthright alums would do well to emulate.
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