"Elder," who likes to remain anonymous, announced the winners during a speech he gave at Yeshiva University on January 29.
The topic of his talk was "Know How to Answer the Top Anti-Israel Arguments." About 70 attended the lecture and the Hasby Awards ceremony.
Readers of his website http://elderofziyon.com provided nominations in various categories, such as Best Tweeter, Best Pro-Israel Blog and Best Pro-Israel Video. Based on criteria he described during his talk, Elder chose the winners.
Here is a list of the categories, the nominees and the winners:
BEST PRO-ISRAEL TWEETER
Nominees:
Avi Mayer (winner)
David HaIvri
Challah Hu Akbar
Martin Kramer
Arsen Ostrovsky
BEST PRO-ISRAEL MEDIA OUTLET NOT EXCLUSIVE TO ISRAEL
Nominees:
Douglas Murray
Melanie Phillips
The Commentator (winner)
Gatestone Institute
Charles Krauthammer
Evelyn Gordon
BEST PRO-ISRAEL COMMENTATOR
Nominees:
Caroline Glick
Martin Kramer
Daniel Gordis
Barry Rubin (Winner)
BEST ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PRO-ISRAEL MEDIA OUTLET
Nominees:
Algemeiner
Times of Israel (Winner)
Israel HaYom
Tablet
JPost
BEST MAINSTREAM MEDIA WATCHDOG
Nominees:
CAMERA (Very close second place)
Honest Reporting (Winner)
BBC Watch
CiF Watch
David G Daily Mideast Media Sampler
Huffington Post monitor
BEST PRO-ISRAEL BLOG (PRESENT COMPANY EXCLUDED)
Nominees:
Israellycool
Israel Matzav
Missing Peace (co-winner)
Daphne Anson (co-winner)
Augean Stables
Sultan Knish
Daled Amos
This Ongoing War
Size Doesn't Matter
BEST PRO-ISRAEL VIDEO
Nominees:
Pat Condell, Israel and the United Nations
The Red Line (Shraga Simmons) (winner)
Zionism without Jerusalem (Im Tirtzu)
The Children are Ready (Temple Institute)
The Rhythm of Israel (AJC)
Real Apartheid in the Middle East (Stand With Us)
IDF aid missions around the world (IDF)
Israel vs. Palestine (cartoon)
This was the second Hasby Awards, and the first one that was divided into different categories.
Audience members live-tweeted the winners as they were announced, and congratulatory tweets have been streaming in both to the winners and to the other nominees.
The Yeshiva University Israel Club issued a statement after the event on Facebok, saying "Thanks to everyone who joined us, I think I speak for us all when I say that it was a truly incredible event--thank you Elder!! "
The Elder of Ziyon said that he enjoyed giving the lecture and is happy to make other appearances - as long as no cameras are allowed!
The lecture itself, which elicited a lively Q&A session afterwards, will be turned into a video in the coming weeks. The video will be freely available on YouTube.
