Nice Jewish (Spin) Doctors
Forward reporter Beth Schwartzapfel has the latest dust-up stemming from the Republican Jewish Coalition’s ad campaign:
Lawyer and Democratic activist Paul Kujawsky is taking issue with the most recent in the Republican Jewish Coalition’s spate of print ads promoting Republican candidates that they identify as being strong on Israel. In the ad, Kujawsky, Vice President of Democrats for Israel, Los Angeles, is quoted as saying, “I am very worried that the Democratic Party’s pro-Israel stance will continue to show cracks and that the most Zionist Jews will continue to flow to the Republican Party.” The quote is taken from an October 17 Orange County Register article called “Democrats Turning Away From Israel.”
“The quotation is accurate,” Kujawsky told the Forward. “But they’re using it in a way that I didn’t intend.” In his interview with Orange County Register reporter Mark Ballon, Kujawsky identified what he perceives as a Democratic softening on Israel because he feels “we need to reform, not abandon, the Democratic Party,” he said—exactly the opposite of the message of the RJC’s ads.
“I’m sorry to hear that he’s upset,” Matt Brooks of the RJC told the Forward, but “based on what he said to this paper, we have a similar concern, which is the direction of the Democratic party. [His quote] expresses a point of view which agrees with what we’re trying to say.”
Kujawsky has complained to the director of the Los Angeles chapter of the RJC, and is in the process of writing letters of correction to the papers that ran the ads.
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