The Three Assumptions

The events of October 7 sent shockwaves around the world.  Almost immediately, protests erupted—not against Hamas, but against Israel. Before the IDF even entered Gaza, before a single shot was fired in response, calls for a ceasefire and chants “from the river to the sea emerged”.  These chants were being bellowed by a seemly broad spectrum of Americans. This exposed a fundamental shift in public perception. It led me to ask: How did we get here?

With the backdrop that Generation Z predominantly consumes news through social media platforms. A 2020 survey found that 39% of U.S. teens aged 13–18 often get their news from personalities, influencers, and celebrities they follow on social media or YouTube.

In recognizing social media had become the dominant mechanism for influencing culture, informing educators, and even directing political discourse, our team set out to build a network of social media warriors supported by a piece of technology to push back against the prevailing narratives. As we embarked on this effort, we made three key assumptions about how this effort network would come into being. Two turned out to be mostly incorrect while one turned out to be right. It is worth mentioning that this story is not complete and that it’s still playing out in this moment.

Assumption #1: People Want to Fight Back, there is a hunger to amplify our voices and when given the opportunity people would be eager to act

This was the one we got right.

When given the tools to push back in an organized and strategic way, people want to use them. I have been to many communities and the reactions have been overwhelming.  People are excited to become activated, have expressed gratitude for the opportunity to fight back, and have shared the multitudes of ways that they’re going to spread the message of coordinated action on social media. People have even expressed emotion in some cases by shedding tears and sharing their sense of loneliness and powerlessness to deal with the onslaught of negativity that there experiencing.  What is clear is that there is a hunger to take back control of the narrative and it’s widespread.

Assumption #2: Jewish Leadership Would Recognize the Moment

We assumed that Jewish communal organizations, influencers, and institutions would immediately understand the gravity of this shift and the need for a unified, strategic response and would put aside territorial concerns and work together.  The assumption was that when presented a real solution to combat anti-Semitism on social media, the uniqueness of our challenges after Oct 7th would cause these organizations to transcend their past ways of doing things.  In some but not all cases the response has been something along the lines of:

1. Prove to me that it works and then I’ll give you my support. The challenge is a classic chicken-and-egg problem
2. They want to know who will control the information and are concerned about “their constituencies”
3. How will their brand be affected or how much can they be payed (influencers)

It is important to note that there are some organizations who do recognize the need to give up some ground to partner in this fight. Certain leaders within these institutions have the vision to see beyond their immediate turf and understand that victory requires coordination. These partners have been crucial, and their role will only become more important moving forward.

Assumption #3: Funders Would Step Up

There’s a combination of factors at play.

The foundations:

They are “in the business” of giving out money and as such they are looking for return on their investment. They’re also very risk averse in “the way they go to business”.  This is not conducive for supporting new ideas or new approaches. This is another scenario where it’s “prove to me that you’ve changed the world and then I’ll give you money” ”.

The big independent funders:

These individuals are being pitched for donations by a large amount of different non for profit organizations. Many of these organizations are doing very good work and do deserve funding, But it is causing a situation where it is hard for funders to distinguish between one organization and the other. It’s making it hard to cut through the noise between well intentioned (and important) projects and initiatives aimed at proactively dealing with fundamental problems (anti-Semitism on social media).  A lot of the efforts sound the same, but I assure you they are not the same. Everybody’s trying to fight anti-Semitism… but the questions are what is the methodology and what is the action taken specifically?

The third group of funders are the smaller funders

These funders are generally already committed to a project that they feel connected to. They have a limited amount of money they can donate and there isn’t any extra for new projects. Unfortunately again it’s hard to convince them that this grand idea of combating anti-Semitism on social media is worthy of withdrawing their contributions to other places.

What this means moving forward

The challenge is not motivating people to care; it is having access to the people to inform them about the fact that such a tool exists to proactively move the needle in the fight for the minds and hearts of average Americans.   The success of public engagement is likely not going to be won through the magnanimity of Major organizations or at fundraising galas.  We must engage the individual where they are and with communities that are willing to work together. By doing this we are finding our power and we will eventually come together with all the organizations once we prove our worth to them through the collective action of masses of people.  When we do come together onto one network, the collective we, will be able to harness power to act in ways previously unimaginable.