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Israel Pays Evangelicals with Trump Ties to Create Pro-Israel Content
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
Israel Pays Evangelicals with Trump Ties to Create Pro-Israel Content
The new “Esther Project” foreign influence campaign has been paying Pentecostal consultants with ties to Trump family members.
(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
A new foreign influence deal aims to shape American public opinion to be more pro-Israel by paying influencers hefty sums to post on social media. The American Conservative reveals that some of the first payments from the so-called Esther Project have been to evangelical Christian consultants, one with links to former Donald Trump aide Brad Parscale, who runs a right-wing media company that’s partially owned by Donald Trump Jr. and Lara Trump. Other consultants paid by the firm come from a network of evangelical Christians in Trump’s orbit that have long been cultivated by the Israeli PR professional running the effort as a facet of maintaining support for Israel among American religious conservatives. The Esther Project is an influence campaign run by a company working for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the firm’s recent disclosure with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA.) The September filings from Bridges Partners LLC, which mapped out a well-funded campaign, sparked rampant speculation about which pro-Israel American social media influencers might receive thousands of dollars to create pro-Israel content, as American popular support for Israel’s actions in Palestine continues to wane. Two new, similar campaigns from Israel’s Foreign Ministry have also been launched in recent months. One will pay a California company to “geofence” attendees at Christian colleges and churches in Western U.S. states to deliver them pro-Israel ads. Another effort will give Brad Parscale $6 million to use predictive AI to create pro-Israel media for Gen Z audiences. But the Bridges Partners social media influencer campaign’s links to Parscale and evangelical Christian advisors have not yet been reported. Bridges Partners’ influencer campaign runs through Havas Media Group, a Germany-based organization. Bridges Partners LLC was formed in Delaware this June by two Israeli consultants, Uri Steinberg and Yair Levi. Steinberg worked for Israel’s Ministry of Tourism for a decade and was its North American tourism commissioner from 2014 until 2018. As commissioner, he partnered with various American evangelical groups, and as an independent consultant he worked, in his own words, “as a conduit between Israeli and American entities, helping them to connect with one other, primarily with the faith-based community.” Steinberg also serves as director of CityServe Israel, a branch of California faith-based charity CityServe International that has worked with Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump several times and describes itself as a “collaborative network designed to help local churches create greater impact and offer hope in the name of Jesus. We mobilize the church to fulfill its purpose locally and globally.” Steinberg has long partnered with American evangelical leaders. In 2009, he even met with leaders of Kentucky’s Creation Museum, which promotes a literal belief in creationism and the events depicted in the Bible. On Sept. 2, Bridges Partners paid the Matt Brown Group and Mark Forrester $7,880 and $2,000, respectively, for consulting. The Matt Brown Group is a Minnesota LLC that manages content for Matt Brown, an evangelist and author with 1 million followers on Facebook. The co-founder of CityServe International is Dave Donaldson. He posts often about Ivanka Trump’s support for his charity on X and hosts a podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, which has featured both Steinberg and Matt Brown on another podcast on the platform. In 2021, Donaldson was on a call with national faith leaders when Trump, then exploring a run for reelection, announced the launch of a national faith advisory board to shore up his support among evangelical groups. Ivanka Trump partnered with CityServe and superstar televangelist and Donald Trump advisor Paula White on a charitable initiative in 2021. Trump has long enlisted White’s help to garner support from evangelicals, even as she’s been criticized for moves like selling $1,144 “resurrection seeds.” Paula White Ministries has worked with CityServe Israel and Steinberg himself as recently as 2024. Matt Brown has written a column for an online Christian magazine owned by Salem Media Group—the Texas-based conservative Christian media conglomerate that owns a radio network, a streaming network, and the conservative websites TownHall, Redstate, and Hot Air. Trump’s 2016 digital media campaign director Brad Parscale was appointed chief strategy officer of Salem in 2025. Parscale is himself an evangelical Christian based in Texas. Donald Trump Jr. and his wife Lara Trump became stakeholders of Salem Media Group this year. Parscale is widely credited with helping Trump win in 2016 with his social media efforts as digital media director for that campaign. Brown has expressed his support for Israel for years, including in 2020 and 2024. It’s unclear what his consulting fee from Bridges is for, and if he will be helping to locate and manage social media influencers for paid pro-Israel posts. One Mark Forrester was also paid a consulting fee by Bridges as part of Project Esther. The Mark Forrester in the FARA filings appears to be the chief communications officer for a major Pentecostal denomination, Assemblies of God. Forrester has written for Matt Brown’s website and called Brown his good friend on Facebook. Steinberg also appears to have partnered with Forrester, tagging him in a post announcing a new Israel outreach program he launched in 2020, called Israel Campus. Israel Campus, he said, was the “first of a kind live online classes from Israel, delivered by top Israeli scholars in a variety of subjects relevant for Christians around the world.” Forrester has also previously participated in other Israel-evangelical American crossover outreach. Last year, he appeared on a podcast with the president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Yael Eckstein. Eckstein’s podcast “Nourish Your Biblical Roots with Yael Eckstein” is also hosted on the Charisma Podcast Network. Charisma Podcast Network is owned by evangelical publisher Stephen Strang who once wrote a book about how Trump was divinely foretold to be elected and then reelected. “You have a lot of young people who are also exposed to the rise in antisemitism and demonizing Israel and the Jewish people. How have you seen the response, specifically from the younger generation of Assemblies of God to outwardly unapologetically standing with Israel in this post-October 7th world?” Eckstein asked Forrester, bemoaning what’s “happening on college campuses.” Forrester explained that support for Israel in Assemblies of God is based on the Bible, and spans generations.Emailed inquiries to Forrester, Brown and Steinberg were not returned. Eckstein and Steinberg have both been honored as “BridgeBuilders”or “top activists in Christian-Jewish engagement” by Root Source, a Texas-based nonprofit “dedicated to promoting respectful relationships between pro-Israel Christians and Jews.” Assemblies of God is a large, international fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian church, and churchgoers believe in practices like speaking in tongues, faith healing, and prophecies. Along with other American evangelical groups, Assemblies of God has historically been part of a large and longstanding Christian Zionism tradition. But even the evangelical community is seeing a generational divide in attitudes toward Israel. Support among younger evangelicals for Israel began to wane even before the war in Gaza, religious scholar Matthew Taylor said. “It makes sense for Israel to reach out to American evangelicals,” he told The American Conservative, “since Christian Zionists make up a much bigger demographic than Jewish Americans, who are now very divided in support for Israel.” Steinberg’s co-owner of Bridges Partners appears to be Israeli Orthodox musician and former IDF captain Yair Levi, who appears in photos with Steinberg on Facebook. Bridges also paid law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a firm that’s previously worked for Israeli spyware company NSO Group, and a woman in Israel working as a digital marketer for “Project Services.” A firm called Candor Marketing, Inc received $2,000 for “pre-payment for future content generation.” Candor Marketing, Inc, located in South Carolina, is owned by an evangelical Christian couple who previously participated in something called the Israel Collective, part of Christians United for Israel, the country’s largest Christian Zionist organization. A former employee of Uri Steinberg’s consulting firm, who also worked under him at the Israel Ministry of Tourism, worked as the group’s outreach and alumni development coordinator. Matt Brown also partnered with the Israel Collective and traveled to Israel several times with the group. Candor does social media management, content creation, and paid ad campaigns for clients like faith-based fitness trainers and Christian business coaches. Candor did not reply to messages. So far, no social media influencers have been identified as being paid as part of the Esther Project, but these newly-identified vendors suggest they will likely be American evangelicals tasked with the uphill battle of boosting Israel’s popularity with young Americans.
The post Israel Pays Evangelicals with Trump Ties to Create Pro-Israel Content appeared first on The American Conservative.
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