Our children attending secular colleges today are constantly bombarded by anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric, from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), part of the “Free Palestine” movement, among other such groups. The Free Palestine movement is a Palestinian-Syrian-backed movement and community organization opposing the existence of Israel. Since the horrific events of October 7 they continue to garner support from young people and push lawmakers to stop giving money and weapons to Israel, and work to influence young Democratic voters to threaten to boycott President Joe Biden as political retribution for any support he has shown to Israel. They appeal largely to young people’s emotions and feelings as opposed to the facts.
And so, on October 11, Robin Lemberg and Jon Bond, co-founders of The Heart Monitors, a new strategy and insights marketing consultancy, came together to help the Jewish world deal with their fragmentation and fact-driven messaging that was no match for the call of “Free Palestine,” which thrives on fueling the fire of anger and confusion. “The Heart Monitors was born out of crisis,” said Lemberg. “It’s a war of words,” noted Bond.
The co-founders of The Heart Monitors view the current war of messaging as “arguably one of the biggest emotional events to hit Gen Z, and ‘Free Palestine’ one of the best marketing campaigns of the centuries, seeded for over 20 years and launched on October 7.” According to The Heart Monitors’ findings, “Free Palestine” messaging has 50% of Gen Z inspired to act and support its cause while the slogan #BringthemHomeNow matters to Gen Z Jews personally but only matters to 51% at this point in the war.
While The Heart Monitors is a new venture, its co-founders are not new to the scene. Bond is a well-known thought leader and entrepreneur in the advertising and marketing industry, renowned for shaping the landscape through the development of innovative companies and groundbreaking marketing concepts. He originally co-founded Kirshenbaum Bond and Partners (KBP) when he was 29 years old, where he served as the CEO. Under his leadership, KBP became the first modern multidisciplinary agency, leaving an indelible mark on the industry. Currently, he serves as co-chairman at The Shipyard (a full-service agency) and is the founder and “chief tomorroist” at TOMORRO (a value accelerator), and the co-founder of Evolve (a nonpartisan gun safety and responsibility group).
Lemberg is a globally recognized leader in branding, strategy, marketing and communications, renowned for her strong desire to understand people and translating that insight into big ideas that simplify complex challenges. She has led an expansive career spanning leadership roles at PepsiCo, Credit Suisse, Interbrand, BBDO TBWA, Mercer and Disney, and her own consultancy. Both Lemberg and Bond have Gen Z-age children.
“We took strategic principles of marketing and applied them to issues with the Jewish “problem audience—in other words, Gen Z,” Lemberg told The Jewish Link. “Our goal is to change attitudes by changing feelings, which first requires understanding those feelings. We are continually in the market, tracking reactions to breaking news events as well as long-standing attitudes, and dissecting where and why these attitudes emerge, and then work to determine how to change them.” The Heart Monitors’ strategy and marketing consultancy gets to the feelings behind the facts through a combination of cutting-edge, innovative stealth marketing, immediate market research and smart people.
“There is a plethora of research proving that humans make decisions based on feelings, not facts,” Lemberg continued, “though they rationalize those feelings with whichever facts support their position. It is gut, in-the-moment, heartfelt, visceral reactions to events and pop culture that more often than not are found on social media platforms.”
While it may be surprising to many that people, especially young people, are turning away from Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The Heart Monitors is working to better understand the younger generation’s psyche in this regard. Since January 1, The Heart Monitors has fielded over 300 market studies to explore why Gen Z as a whole (while focusing specifically on Gen Z Jews and Gen Z Muslims), seems to be shifting away from supporting Israel and Netanyahu, and how Jews view their own Jewish cultural identity. “What we have uncovered is that Gen Z is majorly swayed by their emotions and feelings evoked from what they read and see,” Lemberg said. “This Palestinian appeal to feelings is what is paving the way for the blatant antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment that has swept across the nation.”
Our children attending secular colleges are being exposed to anti-Jewish, anti-Israel thinking because that what their peers are thinking. As Bond told The Jewish Link, “The pro-Palestinian movement has recast Israel as big, bad Goliath and themselves as heroic David.”
Added Lemberg: “Gen Z Jews’ beliefs are very removed from their parents’ and we must acknowledge this reality. We must shift our discourse. Our spewing only facts when this is a war [about] feelings is not working.”
Some of the results of The Heart Monitors’ polls and research are jarring when it comes to how Gen Z Jewish young people feel. The Heart Monitors found that 36% agree that Israel’s control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is apartheid, which is higher than Gen Z overall (31%); 35% believe that Israel’s actions are reflective of the beliefs of Jews around the world; 20% of Gen Z Jews do not think that supporting Hamas’ actions is antisemitic. Moreover, 39% do not think Israel is justified in bombing Gaza; 36% think the IDF is responsible for killing innocent Palestinians; 46% believe Israel’s actions hurt the Jewish people around the world; and 50% believe protesting the Israeli government is not antisemitic.
“Gen Z Jews understand ‘antisemitism’ in its classic forms but … not new ones,” said Lemberg. “Therefore, they do not stand up like we perhaps would expect on college campuses.” She offered these findings as examples: 71% of Gen Z Jews said that Harvard was right in denouncing as hate speech the cartoon that appeared on the Instagram account of Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, of an image of a Black man and an Arab man with nooses around their necks, held by a hand imprinted with the Star of David that has a dollar sign in the middle of the star versus 54% of Gen Z; 49% of Gen Z Jews agree that boycotting Jewish establishments is antisemitic versus a third of Gen Z Muslims; half of Gen Z Jews think pro-Palestinian protests targeting Jews is antisemitic; 20% of Gen Z Jews do not think supporting Hamas’ actions is antisemitic.
Lemberg told The Jewish Link: “Our findings do indicate that Israel makes it difficult to be Jewish for our kids. Almost half believe that Israel’s actions are hurting Jews worldwide and that as a result 50% see that protesting the Israeli government is not antisemitic. Worse, the IDF is also seen by some to be engaged in the killing of innocent civilians.
“From our work, the conventional Jewish fact-driven slogans and marketing approaches are no longer resonating with our kids, and worse, are further alienating Gen Z overall. When we tested Jewish slogans, even ‘Never again is now,’ they are seen to be in an echo chamber and lacking inspiration. While the Holocaust is primordial to us as a people, our kids face the pushback that it is ‘history,’ especially when their peers see modern-day ‘genocide’ is happening now.”
So, what can be done to counter these thoughts and feelings? Bond said: “We need a single-minded approach, but one that involves herding the Katz! Meaning the Jewish nonprofits. Jews must stop worrying about being right and start worrying about winning the propaganda war. Gen Z relates to Palestine because they themselves feel oppressed by the establishment.”
Echoing these sentiments, Lemberg said: “The Jewish world must stop fighting a war of facts in a world of feelings, especially to connect with Gen Z. We must accept that many of our kids have a different lens than we do.
“We must band together to work to develop messaging and even language that resonates with our kids and meet them where they are. We must stop denying their feelings and points of view and stop thinking we can spoon-feed our facts to change their points of view. We must inspire them, and we need to urgently figure this out.”
For more information: theheartmonitors.com
Susan R. Eisenstein is a longtime Jewish educator, passionate about creating special, innovative activities for her students. She is also passionate about writing about Jewish topics and about Israel. She has two master’s degrees and a doctorate in education from Columbia University.
