PRIMER creates advocacy award to insure mission lives on even as it quits active operation

Award named to honor PRIMER founder Norman Gross PRIMER, a local organization founded in 1992 to counter anti-Jewish, anti-Israel messages, has taken steps to insure that its mission will live on while ceasing active opertion.

The organization recently transferred its remaining funds to the Pinellas TOP (Tampa, Orlando, Pinellas) Jewish Federation to support creation of an edowment fund to support an annual advocacy award.

Norman Gross and others created PRIMER (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting) to counter written, visual and oral messages against Jews and Israel “through media watch, media response and dissemination of complete and accurate information.”

Since then, B’nai B’rith and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Pinellas and Pasco Counties, has expanded their programs to encompass PRIMER’s activities.

That, along with recent life changes involving members of the board, prompted a decision to deactivate PRIMER.

Seeking to create a permanent legacy to the organization, the board also set up the TOP endowment fund for the Dr. Norman N. Gross PRIMER Advocacy Award. The award will be presented annually to the Tampa Bay area individual who most ardently carries on the mission of PRIMER and best embodies the “silence is not golden” motto of the award’s namesake and the group’s guiding force.

The first recipient will be none other than Gross himself, who will receive the award during the annual anti-hate update of the Greater Tampa Bay Unit of B’nai B’rith.

“We are thrilled to be able to present this award to Norm. Obviously, there is no individual in our community more deserving to get the first PRIMER Advocacy Award than he is,” said B’nai B’rith President Stuart Berger.

The presentation will take place Sunday, Jan. 17 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Golda Meir/Kent Jewish Center, 1950 Virginia Ave, Clearwater. Cost to attend is $6, which includes a bagel and lox brunch. RSVP to Stuart Berger at (727) 480-5721 by Friday, Jan. 15.