TEL AVIV, Israel _ When Donald Trump named Steve Bannon his chief strategist, backlash from Jewish leaders was swift. They feared that the former Breitbart News boss would bring white nationalist sympathies to the White House.
So in one of his first interviews on the new job, Bannon tried to quiet those concerns by invoking something most people had never heard of: "Breitbart Jerusalem."
"Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States of America," Bannon told The Wall Street Journal. "I have Breitbart Jerusalem, which I have Aaron Klein run with about 10 reporters there."
It's a line that Bannon and his allies have used repeatedly since his appointment, turning to the fledgling media operation as a shield against suggestions that he, and the administration by extension, are tolerant of anti-Semitism. It's an accusation rooted in Bannon's praise for the "alt-right," a movement associated with white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
And Klein is playing his part, emerging as a vocal validator for Bannon while building the right-wing website's international brand.
"We have major influence right now politically," said Klein, who travels the 45 miles from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem several times a week to report.
"Our platform skyrocketed since the election," he said. "It increased in the last year, I would say. Around the time of the campaign. With the rise of Trump and the rise of Breitbart."
Aaron Klein grew up in Philadelphia, the oldest of 10 children in a modern Orthodox Jewish family.
As editor of a student newspaper at Yeshiva University, he covered the school administration aggressively, leading to a dispute over whether the university was hiding copies of the paper.
He was also captivated by international news �� in particular, Islamic extremism �� and as a student reporter, he went to London for a conference that was hosted by radical preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed and devoted to terrorism and Osama bin Laden.
The cleric would later be banned from Britain, but he was willing, at the time, to be interviewed by Klein, who wrote a story for publications including the Jerusalem Post headlined, "My weekend with the enemy." It was published before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, and Klein considers it an expose of extremist thought.
"They don't disguise their ideology," he said of terrorists.
It was the start of a career that for years would keep him on the fringe of conservative media.
After college, what Klein calls "the whole talking with terrorists thing" became a hallmark of his reporting. It drove his work both as an Israel-based reporter for WorldNetDaily, a right-wing site that has pushed its share of conspiracy theories, and for his still-running radio broadcast, on which he has also worked on stories like the controversy over the ultimately failed Ground Zero Mosque.
For years, he and Bannon traveled in the same circles, holding shared beliefs about the rise of what Klein pointedly calls "radical Islamic terrorism."
"We're totally on the same page as far as our vision for the Middle East, the war on terror," he said.
Bannon hired him a year and a half ago after courting him in emails and phone calls.
Bannon told Klein that Breitbart would "grow exponentially," and that "it gets a lot more mainstream exposure," Klein said.
Bannon promised resources.
Now, Breitbart Jerusalem, which is published only in English and is aimed at Americans and English-speaking Israelis, employs three full-time reporters, including Klein; several part-time reporters, two editors and two full-time researchers, including Klein's brother, Joshua, who travels back and forth between Israel and the U.S.
Breitbart Jerusalem approaches Middle Eastern news from a staunchly conservative pro-Israel perspective, working to counter what Klein calls anti-Israel bias in broader media coverage. For example, its stories routinely note that "some of Judaism's holiest sites are located in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem" �� but often don't mention the fact that those areas are also hotly contested by Palestinians and much of the rest of the world.
And like his Breitbart colleagues in the United States, Klein sometimes uses the term "fake news" to dismiss stories that are critical of Trump.
Breitbart Jerusalem is not remotely as influential as the flagship Breitbart website. Several veterans of Israeli diplomatic circles said they didn't know Breitbart even had a bureau in Israel.
"I can't remember hearing an Israeli ask me if I'd read a Breitbart piece," said Daniel Shapiro, who was U.S. ambassador to Israel during Barack Obama's presidency and is now a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Klein said the Breitbart Jerusalem platform is growing in influence along with the rest of the organization in the Trump era, and the outlet has recently landed interviews with prominent American and Middle Eastern officials.
Klein has big hopes for increasing Breitbart Jerusalem's video focus, seeing a "great opportunity for really hot video here in the Middle East," and maintains his practice of interviewing extremists, often with the help of a colleague, Ali Waked, who speaks Arabic.
For now, Breitbart Jerusalem is skeletal, lacking even a headquarters. Klein lives and writes in Tel Aviv. He said that if the organization were to open a headquarters, it would be in Jerusalem, Israel's seat of government.
Klein is open about his personal views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and they fall within the mainstream of Israeli society. Theoretically, he supports the creation of "a Palestinian entity/state on some level" through negotiations, under the right conditions, and in the meantime supports assistance for Palestinian economic development.
Klein insisted that he doesn't "filter the facts" through a partisan lens, while acknowledging that "if somebody is looking at us from the outside, I can see why they believe Breitbart Jerusalem is more on the nationalist side."
Still, many in the Jewish community remain deeply uncomfortable with Bannon. That's due in large part to his description of Breitbart as the "platform of the alt-right." It doesn't help that his ex-wife, in divorce proceedings, also once accused him of making anti-Semitic remarks, which he denies.
The Anti-Defamation League "strongly" opposed Bannon's appointment by Trump, calling him "a man who presided over the premier website of the alt-right, a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists." The group also conceded, "We are not aware of any anti-Semitic statements made by Bannon himself," and several former employees who are Jewish have repeatedly come to his defense.
Yet opening a bureau in Israel ��something many news organizations have done, pro-Israel or not �� does little to assuage those who have concerns about Bannon.
"Regardless of how many employees Breitbart Jerusalem has, the fact that Steve Bannon, as CEO of Breitbart, gave a platform to the alt-right, a home for white supremacists who peddle in anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred is deeply concerning and dangerous to our community," said Aaron Keyak, co-founder of firm Bluelight Strategies, which advises leading Jewish organizations and Democratic causes.
But Klein has taken it upon himself to vociferously fight criticism of Bannon and of Trump within the Jewish community, vouching for them through interviews in Israel and with conservative media.
"I was so frustrated and even hurt, in a way, that somebody so close to me, like Steve, who I know to be the exact opposite of anti-Semitic, who empowered me, that he would be smeared in this way," Klein said.
Despite his praise for Bannon and Trump, Klein said Breitbart Jerusalem will call out the Trump administration should it abandon core promises �� for example, failing to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, or if the administration offers "one-sided condemnations" of Israel.
"I don't believe we're going to be shy," Klein said. "Steve Bannon �� he asked us to hold the Trump administration accountable publicly. That's what I believe the role of media should be, not to create new scandals, not to serve as the 'opposition party,' if you will. It's to report accurately, also to hold elected officials accountable. I believe you're going to see Breitbart do that, certainly Breitbart Jerusalem as well."
