Bridges Partners LLC

Overview

Most coverage of the Esther Project leads with the estimated $7,000-per-post price tag. The firm’s own filings tell a more concrete story, one almost no outlet has published: attached to its FARA registration is a $97,054 disbursement ledger naming who had been paid, and how much, before the filing date. It lists $15,000 to Uri Steinberg and a combined $25,000 to Yair Levi for project services, a $15,000 consultant fee to “Shtrauchler Nadav,” $15,000 in legal fees to Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, three payments totaling $9,874 to Pnina Rezidor for project services, $12,000 across two payments to the Matt Brown Group, and smaller sums to Mark Forrester, Candor Marketing Inc., Arnon Shatz & Co., and Valley Bank in banking fees (DOJ filing).

Bridges Partners LLC is a Delaware-incorporated public-relations and political-consulting firm that registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act on September 26, 2025, as registration no. 7652, for work its filing describes as assisting “with promoting cultural interchange between the United States and Israel” on behalf of the Government of Israel through Havas Media Group Germany (DOJ filing). The filing names the owners as Israeli consultants Uri Steinberg and Yair Levi; the attached Havas media order calls the project the “Esther Project” (JTA).

The filing mechanics

Exhibit AB was received by the DOJ’s National Security Division FARA Registration Unit on September 26, 2025, at 3:18 PM, with the execution sworn under penalty of perjury by Uri Steinberg (DOJ filing). Exhibit B states the contract with the foreign principal is dated June 16, 2025, and records a $199,985.00 advance for campaign expenses received July 3, 2025, from the “Government of Israel through Havas Media Group Germany.” The filing lists the firm’s primary address as 400 Seward Square SE Apt 31, Washington, DC 20003 — a residential apartment rather than a corporate office. The attached Havas Media Germany order (Order No. 93702/0, dated 16/06/2025) names the client as “LAPAM International,” the product as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the campaign as the “Esther Project,” and the Havas contact as Martsello Alexidis (DOJ filing).

The disbursement ledger

The ledger, given as the appendix response to Item 13 of Exhibit B, records every disbursement made in connection with the work before registration, totaling $97,054.00 (DOJ filing). Beyond the owners’ own project-services payments, it shows $15,000 paid on August 6, 2025, to “Shtrauchler Nadav” as a consultant fee; three payments to Pnina Rezidor for project services ($1,124 on August 1, $4,375 on August 7, and $4,375 on September 2); $15,000 in legal fees to Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP on September 2; consulting fees of $4,120 and $7,880 to the Matt Brown Group; a $625 legal-documentation fee to Arnon Shatz & Co.; $2,000 to Mark Forrester; a $2,000 prepayment to Candor Marketing Inc. for future content generation; and $555 in Valley Bank fees. Responsible Statecraft’s Nick Cleveland-Stout reported that the campaign had enlisted Nadav Shtrauchler, a former major in the IDF spokesperson unit, and that Levi and Steinberg had turned to Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman for legal counsel, noting that the firm had previously worked for the spyware company NSO Group — the filing independently confirms that both a Shtrauchler and Pillsbury were on the payroll (Responsible Statecraft via ZeroHedge; DOJ filing).

Campaign architecture

The Havas media order maps the rollout month by month: $60,000 for June 16–30 for initial payments for production and influencer concept development, including “begin matching with Israeli content partners and writing initial post”; $140,000 for July as five to six influencers begin creating content with post volume of approximately 25–30; $200,000 for August as three to four additional influencers begin and “new Israel connections” are created; $250,000 for September with three to four more influencers activated and further expansion of content partnerships; $200,000 for October for the final group of three to four influencers; and $50,000 for November for final payments and a post-campaign summary — summing to the $900,000 contract ceiling (DOJ filing). JTA’s reporting on the filings describes the same structure — three to six influencers onboarded at a time, each expected to post roughly 25 to 30 pieces of content per month across Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms — and notes that the documents list payments to a range of contractors, suggesting the project was building an entire support ecosystem of content production, legal compliance, and campaign analytics (JTA). The $6,143–$7,373 per-post figure widely quoted in coverage is Responsible Statecraft’s own arithmetic: roughly $552,946 flowing to influencer payments between June and September 2025 after administrative costs, divided across an estimated 75–90 posts by a cohort of 14 to 18 influencers — the filing itself names no influencer count and gives no per-post figure (Responsible Statecraft via ZeroHedge).

Public scrutiny

In November 2025, the Quincy Institute and Public Citizen sent a joint letter to the DOJ’s FARA Unit alleging that the approximately 14–18 U.S.-based influencers being compensated through Bridges Partners were operating as unregistered agents of the Israeli government, noting that only co-owner Uri Steinberg was individually listed as a foreign agent on the contract, and asking the department to require Bridges to amend its filings to disclose the influencers’ names, addresses, and contracts (Public Citizen). A Quincy Institute research paper published in July 2026 placed the $900,000 Esther effort inside a far larger picture: more than $1 billion in Israeli public-diplomacy spending since October 7, 2023, with over $100 million spent under FARA since 2023 and 17 new firms registering to work for Israeli interests in 2024–2025 — wider estimates presented as the institute’s analysis, not settled fact (Quincy Institute). Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly condemned the campaign, calling it “disturbing” for influencers to secretly receive payment for propaganda without disclosing their sponsors (ANews).

The filings surfaced alongside a broader push. JTA described a two-track operation: the Bridges influencer network plus a separate $1.5 million-per-month contract with Brad Parscale’s Clock Tower X LLC, which also registered as a foreign agent for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs through Havas (JTA). In a recorded September 2025 New York meeting with influencers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers. I think you should also talk to them if you have a chance, to that community — they are very important.” JTA later clarified that its authors did not intend to imply the influencers at that meeting were connected to the Esther Project or had received payments, and expressed regret for any confusion (Times of Israel / JTA). One influencer photographed at the meeting, Lizzy Savetsky, stated through her attorney that any suggestion her content was paid for by the Israeli government was “100% false” and that she had “zero relationship whatsoever” with Project Esther (JTA).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not conclude that Bridges Partners LLC or any individual influencer violated FARA. It does not name any influencer as a paid participant in the Esther Project, because the public filings reviewed do not identify them. It does not claim that the influencers who met Prime Minister Netanyahu in New York in September 2025 were paid under this contract — JTA explicitly disavowed that implication. The $6,143–$7,373 per-post range is Responsible Statecraft’s calculation, not a figure in the filings. The Quincy Institute’s wider spending estimates are that organization’s analysis. The joint FARA complaint is an allegation, not an adjudicated finding, and its final outcome could not be confirmed. It is also unclear, as JTA noted, whether the “Esther Project” has any connection to the Heritage Foundation’s separate “Project Esther” plan on antisemitism.