V15 maintains a very public field office on Tel Aviv’s hipster Lilienblum Street. Inside the glass-encased front walls of the small, storefront property, one finds what appears at first glance to be the hastily organized, temporary residence of a grassroots mobilization effort.
During a visit to the Lilienblum site, this reporter was greeted by smiling, 20-something, field staffers who were manning a small folding table and helpfully distributing fliers and buttons. A few organizers were entering and exiting a smaller back room that serves as a meeting place.
The real brains of the effort, however, is located about one block away on the second floor of a decrepit building off Rothschild Boulevard.
To arrive at the headquarters, one most walk down an uninviting alleyway into a poorly lit entrance and up a flight of exposed concrete stairs.
Once on the second floor and past a creaky wood-colored door, one enters the bustling expanse of V15’s real headquarters – actually the offices of a U.S.-UK group calling itself OneVoice.
The office is divided into about 10 rooms, each of which brandishes a sign that announces the various activities taking place inside each section.
The signs read “digital,” “marketing,” “volunteers” “outreach” and more, demonstrating a highly organized structure.
Dweck explains it was OneVoice that first contacted him to get behind his initiative and hire Bird’s firm.
He maintains V15 started as a “truly grassroots” effort when he decided to organize about 20 friends for a meeting to talk about voting for a center-left bloc after new elections were announced in Israel about a month and a half ago. The plans were advertised on social media, and, eventually, 300 people showed for the meeting, Dweck recalls.
He said he was contacted by OneVoice about a month ago, and things took off from there.
Dweck seemed genuinely surprised by the ballooning size of his organization. He said V15 currently maintains a staff of about 300 people, with more than 5,000 volunteers nationwide.
He became tight-lipped when asked where his funding comes from, only disclosing that his effort is funded by “private donors.”
OneVoice is reportedly sponsored by scores of nonprofits and received two grants in the past year from the U.S. State Department.
The State Department is also listed as a partner of OneVoice on the group’s website.
Aside from the State Department, OneVoice is also openly partnered with Google, the UK Labour Party, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
NOTE: Starting this Sunday, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” will be added to the line up at 990 AM in Philadelphia from 7-9 p.m. ET.