For well over a decade I ran a media relations office inJerusalemon behalf of AgudathIsraelofAmerica. I used to think I did a pretty good job. Not any more.
For the past six weeks I’ve been watching from the sidelines as Ronit Peskin and Leah Aharoni have run a multipronged response to the well-oiled publicity machine that is Women of the Wall. Despite spotting WoW a 24-year head start they have managed in that brief period to completely reset the terms of the public debate. And they have done so while raising families and running their own businesses and without taking a penny in salaries.
A successful campaign to change public opinion today is not a matter of writing op-eds at a stately pace or putting together a documentary of traditional women speaking about what the Kosel means to them — all of which I once did. It is more like a rapid-play chess game. There is no respite. One has to keep changing tactics in response to shifts on the chessboard. An understanding of modern media and the ability it provides to reach large numbers of people quickly is absolutely essential.
Responses must be instantaneous. When police put a cordon around the Old City on Sunday Rosh Chodesh Tammuz in order to allow WoW to conduct their rites at the Kosel Leah Aharoni one of the founders of Women For the Wall (W4W) already had a piece up on the Jerusalem Post site within hours pointing out the heavy price of WoW’s “freedom” to worship as they wished — i.e. large numbers of Jewish men and women who wanted to daven at the Kosel that morning were unable to do so and school children from outside theOldCity were not able to get to classes.
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