For months, David Porush of San Mateo winced every time he drove southbound on Highway 101 through San Carlos, where a provocative billboard displayed the message “Stopping genocide is not anti-semitic.”
The billboard also featured the somber face of a dark-haired child with an injured eye.
“On the face of it, it’s true that fighting genocide is not antisemitic,” Porush, 72, told J. But the context, suggesting that Israel was committing genocide, was “insidious,” he said.
The billboard is part of a PR campaign by the Northern California Islamic Council. On its website, the group has pictures of more than a dozen similar billboards carrying intense, blaring messages condemning Israel.
Some are digital billboards, others are made from standard billboard materials. One includes a photo and quote from Aaron Bushnell, the man who shouted “free Palestine” as he burned himself alive in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25.
As of press time, it was not clear how many of the billboards were still on display across Northern California. But a grassroots campaign organized by a local group of concerned Jews challenged the billboard in San Carlos. Because of their efforts, it was swapped out for a pro-Israel one designed by JewBelong, an East Coast nonprofit.
Porush wasn’t alone in feeling disgust about the billboard. Isa Marcus, a Peninsula resident and pro-Israel community organizer, was similarly disturbed.
“It feels like harassment on the Jewish community,” Marcus said.
For months, an effort had been underway to have the anti-Israel billboard removed. Last spring, Marcus helped create a WhatsApp group of likeminded people. To Israel supporters, the accusation of “genocide” is inaccurate and defamatory.
First, members of the group called and emailed ADCO Outdoor Advertising, the Belmont-based company that owns the San Carlos billboard. Later on, lawyers in the group researched ways to challenge the billboard on legal grounds, with no success. “Nothing changed,” Marcus said.
Saul Kaye, a Jewish Bay Area musician and podcast host, also called the ad company several times, he wrote in a Facebook post.
When Porush joined the WhatsApp group earlier this month, spurred to action after attending an Oct. 7 commemoration at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, he proposed a new idea: “Make a better offer to the [billboard] owner,” he told J.
With the group in agreement, Porush initiated a crowdfunding campaign on JewBelong.com, the New Jersey–based advertising company known across the Bay Area and the U.S. for hot pink billboards with pointed messaging aimed at “supporting joyous Judaism and confronting antisemitism,” according to its website.
The campaign launched at noon Oct. 11, hours before Kol Nidre. Porush, relying on Jewish networks on WhatsApp and other community contacts, shared the link widely. Within about 56 hours, the fundraiser had reached its goal of $22,000. That was enough to pay for one month of billboard advertising.
As of Wednesday, the campaign had collected nearly $29,000 from 164 donors, ranging from gifts of $18 to one donation of $5,000.
“This was extraordinary,” Porush said.
The group was able to purchase space for a new billboard, which reads, “Let’s be clear: Hezbollah and Hamas are your problem too.” It went up on Oct. 25.
The illuminated billboard is in a highly visible location, according to ADCO Outdoor’s website.
“This billboard is a strong testament to the power of a local community rallying together to stand up against antisemitism,” JewBelong co-founder Stacy Stuart said in a statement emailed to J. “It was funded by a group of local donors who were outraged about a hateful billboard and rather than driving by came together to replace it.”
Sam Tramiel, 74, a friend of Porush’s and the former president and CEO of Atari Corp., donated $5,000 to the campaign.
The billboard “angered me every time I drove by and saw it,” said Tramiel, the son of a Holocaust survivor. “Because it was, in my opinion, a very misleading poster. So I told [Porush] right away, it’s a great idea, and I am supporting you, financially, without question.”
Isa Marcus called the new billboard “such a relief” after months of feeling “attacked” by the previous billboard. However, she’s concerned that a new anti-Israel billboard will be coming after JewBelong’s contract ends on Nov. 24.
She got an unexpected preview last week, when a member of the WhatsApp billboard group shared a photo after noticing a crew installing a new San Carlos billboard — and it wasn’t the one from JewBelong. That person informed the crew they had the wrong billboard, Marcus said, and insisted crewmembers make a phone call to correct the error.
“Israel is dragging us into a bigger war. Save America. Stop Israel,” the wrong billboard read.
ADCO did not respond to J.’s request for comment.
UC Berkeley ethnic studies professor Hatem Bazian, an outspoken anti-Zionist and the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, chairs the Northern California Islamic Council. Neither Bazian nor NCIC responded to J.’s request for comment.
Porush is now focusing on trying to “repeat the victory” and raise funds to replace other anti-Israel billboards with JewBelong messages.
“Yes, it’s one sign. It’s only up for a month. But it’s saying, we’re here and we’re not just going to go quietly,” Porush said.
“There are no small victories,” Marcus added.