When Leah Soibel left her position at The Israel Project in Jerusalem in 2012, she knew her next adventure had to include her two passions: pro-Israel advocacy and the Spanish-language media.
“I looked around and saw that the Spanish-language media was basically ignoring Israel and the Jewish community,” Soibel said. “Their coverage of Israel and Jewish issues wasn’t necessarily negative, it was simply non-existent. However, at the same time, I saw anti-Israel forces making an effort to reach out to them. I knew the Latino community had to hear both sides.”
That’s when the St. Louis-born Latina founded the nonprofit Fuente Latina (Latin Source). After creating the nonprofit in Jerusalem, she moved to Miami in 2018 to grow it. She chose Miami because it is the crossroads between the U.S. and Latin America, and it’s a major Spanish-language media hub with a large concentration of Hispanic media influencers.
“Eleven percent of the total US Jewish community identify as Latino. It is a population that can’t be ignored.” — Leah Soibel
“I immediately knew we also needed a strong presence in Los Angeles, and thanks to the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, we were able to open our second U.S. office in LA,” Soibel, who is Fuente Latina’s founder and CEO, said. “More Latinos live in Los Angeles County (4.9 million) than any other ethnic group. Further, Los Angeles County is home to America’s second largest Jewish community (530,000). Eleven percent of the total US Jewish community identify as Latino. It is a population that can’t be ignored.”
Today, the nonprofit has offices in Miami, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, Mexico City and Madrid. Its mission to engage the Spanish-language media by providing them with 24/7 content to cover local stories about Israel and the Jewish community positively and accurately.
Over the last nine years, Soibel said Fuente Latina has facilitated 6,000+ interviews resulting in 65,000+ accurate news stories, published 200+ opinion pieces in top Spanish-language outlets and published 350+ videos/visual content. She estimated that this work has resulted in informing more than 800 million Latinx news consumers worldwide. Its accolades include two TV Emmy wins and several nominations for major U.S. Hispanic network coverage and an Associated Press Broadcasters Award.
According to Soibel, it’s crucial to engage the Spanish-language media about Israel and Jewish issues because, “Many issues important to the Latinx community resonate with the Jewish community and vice versa. Further, Israel and the Jewish community need to ensure that the massive Latinx community has an accurate understanding of the facts when they form opinions of the Jewish community. They are not getting that with the mainstream media. Worse, they are getting misinformation, fed to them by anti-Jewish forces.”
Soibel said that during the Operation Guardians of the Wall conflict in the spring of 2021, Fuente Latina’s Los Angeles Media Associate Daniella Schwartz facilitated interviews and provided facts to local Spanish-language media to ensure they were reporting on recent antisemitism in LA. Her work resulted in several balanced stories on the Telemundo 52 network about the antisemitic attack at Sushi Fumi, and coverage on Univision, the most widely watched Spanish-language television network in the country.
Fuente Latina also brings journalists to Israel so they can see Israel firsthand and up close. To date, they have brought 330 journalists from 12 countries (10 from Los Angeles).
Soibel said she believes it’s important that people know that Fuente Latina is a women-led, JOC (Jew of Color) organization. Six of the eight board members and all 10 staff members are Hispanic Americans, originating from Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Spain, reflecting the diverse Latinx populations they serve.
The nonprofit seems to have carved out a niche that was unfilled. “We are a non-partisan, nonprofit organization,” Soibel said. “Our only objective is to provide the facts to the large and growing Hispanic population so they can make informed decisions when it comes to Israel and the Jewish people.”
