Jewish Week’s Jonathan Mark wrote last month in Keeping Talk Radio Pro-Israel about Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, “the leading industry publication for talk radio.”

But whether talk radio, be it left or right, is fair to Israel, is, in fact, very important to Harrison. For the past five years, Harrison and his publication have been shepherding more than 50 talk show hosts to Israel in conjunction with America’s Voices for Israel (AVI), a group founded and presided over by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Harrison, a member of AVI’s board of directors, recently devoted an entire glossy front page of Talkers to these Israel trips. And on one trip, several weeks ago, conducted in conjunction with United Jewish Communities, among the radio personalities traveling with Harrison was Lionel, the uni-monikered host newly hired as Air America’s 9 a.m. mid-morning slot.

It remains to be seen how this trip will impact the newly relaunched liberal talk radio network Air America’s new morning host, Lionel. But the trip, sponsored by the notoriously right wing Malcolm Hoenlein, which did not include visits to checkpoints or Gaza, naturally made a profound impact.

Before he shifted to Air America from WOR, Lionel had the 13th-ranked talk show in the country. According to recent Arbitron ratings, the top five talk show hosts are each staunchly on the right and supportive of Israel’s conservative flank: Rush Limbaugh (13.5 million weekly listeners); Sean Hannity (12.5); Michael Savage (8.25); Dr. Laura Schlesinger (8); and Laura Ingraham (5).

If some are perplexed about the Zionist-tilt on talk radio in defiance of what is found elsewhere in the media, perhaps some credit belongs to the persistence of Harrison, Hoenlein and the ongoing educational efforts of their America’s Voices for Israel.

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