AIPAC'S Grassroots Path to Congress

AIPAC's Grassroots Path to Congress: How Isaiah Kenen Built AIPAC To Be A Powerhouse, Kobby Barda, Simple Story, 2020

This book looks at how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) became one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

What became AIPAC was started during World War II. It was a way from American Jews to influence the American Government to help European Jews who were fleeing to Israel. Early on, it became clear that the way to influence Congress to be more pro-Israel was to flood it with telegrams and phone calls from constituents (this was before e-mail and smartphones).

A man named Isaiah "Si" Kenen became CEO in the early 1950's, and took the organization to the next level. AIPAC was registered as a lobbying organization, not a foreign agent. There was only a small staff in Washington, with a few lobbyists. AIPAC established an inverted pyramid structure, with the CEO at the bottom , and the individual members, in cities and small towns, were at the top. He started a national newspaper, to get AIPAC's point of view out to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. For instance, Kenen calls ten regional leaders to alert them to a bill in Congress important to AIPAC. Those ten people will call ten more people, each of whom will call ten more, and on, and on. Within one or two days, Congress will be flooded with comments from constituents about that bill. Even those members of Congress who may not be pro-Israel were forced to admire AIPAC's ability to get their members to communicate with Congress.

This is a really interesting book. It takes years to create an organization that can effectively influence Congress; this is one way to do it. Any new political organization could do a lot worse than read this book. It easily gets four stars, maybe even four-and-a-half stars.