It may sound shocking, but one of the many aspects I love about my job is that people in our community, as well as those I know outside of our community, feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and perspectives about the Jewish community with me. And in particular, both the rise of antisemitism and what is going on in Israel and its impact on the Jewish world. So often, people have ideas and perspectives that they wish they could share with someone in a leadership position or at least discuss. I love being able to be that person for many people.

This past weekend, I had one of those conversations with someone. And as it turned out, it was something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last several years.

On several occasions, I have felt that one of the many challenges facing the Jewish world is our lack of ability, as THE Jewish community, to coalesce around a single ideal or perspective for us to try and educate the non-Jewish world about what it is like to be a Jew today, and the impact that the rise of hate has on our community.

In 2022, there were a series of instances where antisemitism was being discussed and analyzed in mainstream media, including the impact it was having on the Jewish world. I was encouraged by this as I knew we needed to educate and inform more people. The problem, however, was that the message was not coordinated, and I felt that to address the situation, we needed a more robust plan.

According to the Public Relations Society of America, public relations (PR) is the practice of strategically communicating with the public to build and maintain a positive image and mutually beneficial relationships for an organization, individual, or brand. This is precisely what my friend and I discussed this weekend: the Jewish community needs a robust PR plan because, without one, it will be very difficult to change people’s perspectives.

Here is what we need – a robust and well-developed, multi-pronged, multi-messaged, and multi-platformed marketing and public relations campaign to educate and position the Jewish community, aiming to improve our public relations.

Sadly, one of the many thoughts I had after Hamas attacked Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he would be sending the IDF into Gaza was that this is going to be a PR nightmare because I knew that as reports started coming out about the number of civilians killed in Gaza, the support for Israel would begin to wane and the world would slowly turn against Israel and ultimately the Jewish community as a whole. I do not doubt that this was factored into Hamas’ plans, and it is exactly what we have seen playing out these last 22 months.

You should be aware that efforts have been underway for some time at the national level to collaborate with national media and improve their reporting on the fighting between the IDF and Hamas; however, to date, these efforts have not yielded significant results. I just wish there were more energy to develop and implement a national PR campaign because I truly believe that it is something we need as American Jews.

Does anyone know someone in a national public relations firm that could help develop it? Or, do you have other ideas? If so, please feel free to share them with me.