Breitbart’s Jerusalem Chief Boasts Of ‘Major Influence’ In Trump Era
Image by Nikki Casey
The man running Breitbart’s Israel bureau is a Yeshiva U. graduate from Philadelphia who runs the outpost of the influential far-right media operation from his sunsplashed triplex apartment in Tel Aviv alongside a dog named for a machine gun.
Aaron Klein also shares a deep suspicion of Muslims with his ex-boss, Steve Bannon, who now works as a top aide to President Trump.
“We have major influence right now politically,” Aaron Klein told McClatchy Newspapers, while tending to Uzi.
In a long-ranging profile, Klein tells McClatchy he grew up as the oldest of 10 children in a modern Orthodox family. He began his journalism career while editing a student newspaper at Y.U.
Bannon hired Klein because the two men share views about the rise of “radical Islamic terrorism.” Breitbart Jerusalem reports from a pro-Israel, conservative angle which a senior editor-at-large called “unabashedly Zionist.”
Klein sees his bureau as evidence that Bannon is a supporter of the Jewish people.
“I was so frustrated and even hurt, in a way, that somebody so close to my, like Steve, who I know to be the exact opposite of anti-Semitic….would be smeared in this way,” Klein told McClatchy.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
