recently discovered a promising new organization in America. When I first saw its initials, CJV, my curiosity was naturally tinged with suspicion. Basic survival instincts impelled me to find out, first of all, who are these people, and are they for us or against us? To my relief, I quickly discovered that CJV stands for the Coalition for Jewish Values, and that the man behind the initiative is the dynamic and charismatic Rabbi Pesach Lerner, well known for his long years of service in the National Council of Young Israel and his many independent initiatives.

I first became acquainted with Rabbi Lerner some years ago, when he appeared in Mishpacha’s Jerusalem offices to ask for our support in his efforts on behalf of Jonathan Pollard. Since Pollard’s release from prison on parole in 2015 under severely restrictive conditions, Rabbi Lerner has continued to advocate for his freedom. Later, in the midst of the Western Wall controversy, Rabbi Lerner discussed with me the need for a vigorous campaign to counter the narrative promulgated by the heterodox movements about a supposed “rift” between American Jewry and Israel, due to Israel’s refusal to grant official recognition to the Reform and Conservative movements as legitimate expressions of authentic Judaism.

The newly formed Coalition for Jewish Values is a focused effort to give voice to the authentic Jewish view on a wide range of issues in the public spotlight. The organization begins from the premise that something can be called an authentic Jewish value only if it is rooted in Biblical and rabbinic teachings passed down through millennia of Jewish history. Neither spurious references to “tikkun olam” nor the use of Biblical verses plucked out of context transform personal views into Jewish tenets.

After conversing with Rabbi Lerner and reading some of the organization’s position papers, it seems that a small revolution is in the making. With the help of over a thousand rabbis whom he’s enlisted to the cause, Rabbi Lerner intends to go on the offensive and storm the media with an information campaign to bring the voice of authentic Torah tradition to the public ear.

For many centuries in the Diaspora, Torah-true Jews have generally kept their hashkafos to themselves. Why this sudden need to come out and express the Torah view on public issues, even in non-Jewish forums?

“Because what’s happening today is a real chillul Hashem,” says Rabbi Lerner. “Whenever there’s a public discourse on any issue, anything that Judaism has something to say about, skilled spokesmen from Reform are quick to express their opinion, and the people accept their words as the Jewish view on the subject. Usually, the views they express are absolutely contrary to the view of Torah Judaism. We’re determined to change that.”

Rabbi Lerner says his plan is really very simple: to flood the arena of American public opinion, both Jewish and non-Jewish, with position papers on every issue that comes up. “Plus,” he says, “There are many people in high places who genuinely want to hear the authentic Jewish view. Our response on every issue has to come quickly, clearly, and precisely. From now on, the public arena will no longer be taken over by falsifiers. The pure and unadulterated Torah view will be out there as well, in all its strength.”

Rabbi Lerner clearly means business. I’ve been receiving a position paper nearly every day on some hot-button issue in the American news — all seen through the lens of Torah hashkafah.

“American liberal Jewish movements have long abandoned Jewish tradition as their final arbiter of morality, and today declare that Judaism requires support for positions at odds with Torah,” says Rabbi Lerner.

Thwarting the Reform movement’s attempts to dig its claws into the Western Wall is one of the CJV’s major projects in Eretz Yisrael. Other important position papers clarify the Jewish view on the public hysteria raised by the deviant community. This sector of the population has somehow gained the support, even the embrace, of most of the mainstream media both in the US and in Israel. In their aggressive campaign to gain approval as just another variety of “normal,” this movement is confusing the minds of many and posing a threat to the kedushah of the traditional family structure. CJV has been using several avenues to cut through the propaganda and appeal to people’s inborn sense of fairness and morality, clearing away the cobwebs of confusion and restoring a basis for rational thought.

A recent widely publicized video clip showed an Israeli woman — a Jewish studies teacher at the University of Maryland — loudly ridiculing and berating a Chabad shaliach for putting tefillin on a man at Ben-Gurion Airport and accusing the pair of “disturbing” her as she laughs demonically at them. The man himself, who was more than happy to accept the shaliach’s initiative, shared the video on his social media page and from there it spread to many news outlets, eliciting shocked and disgusted responses from both religious and secular Jews alike.

In thousands of comments and blog posts, people spoke out against this coarse, intolerant behavior on the part of a person who is supposed to represent the height of culture and enlightenment. But the CJV took it a step further and appealed directly to the administrators of the university where the woman is employed, demanding that they suspend her from her job of teaching tolerance in a multicultural society until she issues a public retraction of the message of intolerance she conveyed at the airport.

To what extent the Coalition for Jewish Values will be effective in influencing public thinking, I cannot predict. But the Lubavitcher Rebbe zy”a once said, “Experience has shown that propaganda achieves results.” If this can be said of false propaganda that comes to negate kedushah, then clearly we have an obligation to publicize counterpropaganda on behalf of Torah values. And in this respect the CJV is a lighthouse, standing on the shoreline against a stormy sea, lighting the way to protect the ships from crashing against the rocks. From that stormy sea a cacophony of voices arises, and everyone is influenced, at least subtly, by aggressive propaganda. Even we Torah-true Jews are not immune to the influence of false rhetoric if it’s repeated often enough and clothed in righteous terminology. After all, propaganda is designed to penetrate our defenses as well.

Words have power. We never know how far our words reach and what they might bring about. In the end, nothing can stand in the way of the truth. We only have to give voice to it.

On this point, I speak from personal experience. More than 40 years ago I merited to be part of a team of writers for a regular column called “Know Your Judaism,” which appeared for nearly a decade in the daily Maariv, at that time Israel’s most widely read paper. The column explored Jewish concepts in a modern, engaging style, and the letters it elicited from thousands of nonobservant readers taught us the power of the word. According to one study conducted by the University of Haifa, that column was a contributing factor in triggering the teshuvah movement that began to unfold at that time.

I trust that Rabbi Lerner’s Coalition for Jewish Values has a bright future ahead of it, and that until it’s no longer needed, may the days come speedily, its service to the Jewish People will prove invaluable. (Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 724)