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When Jimmy Carter visited the settlement of Gush Etzion last June, Monroe resident Jerry Gordon was surprised by a comment the former president made to the Israeli media.

Carter, who has come under fire most recently from Israel advocates for accusing the Jewish state of pursuing a policy of apartheid, declared that Gush Etzion is not what he pictured the typical settlement to be.

"This particular settlement area is not one I ever envision being abandoned or changed over into Palestinian territory," Carter reportedly told the Jerusalem Post.

Gordon said that while this story was "big news" in Israel, the American press largely ignored it.

The absence of positive stories like this one, Gordon said, has led him to start his own Internet newsletter, aptly called "Jerry's Upbeat Israel News," whose first issue will be released April 5.

"It's going to be all upbeat, not political," Gordon told The Jewish State. Gordon said that he will collate stories from across the Internet and other sources that present positive news coming out of Israel. Stories will include updates on Israeli medical and technological breakthroughs, sporting accomplishments, and culture.

Israel's portrayal in the media, Gordon said, focuses almost exclusively on conflict, leading many Jews, especially younger ones, to lack an emotional connection to the Jewish state.

"The identity is not there, the feelings aren't there and if you asked most people about Israel today, they'd talk about Netanyahu and Biden," Gordon said, referencing the fallout after the controversial announcement of housing construction in eastern Jerusalem during the vice president's visit last week.

Gordon pointed to a 2008 study funded by the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County in which 58 percent of respondents (all of whom were Jewish Middlesex Country residents) said identified themselves as "extremely or very emotionally attached to Israel," a number that Gordon feels is much too low.

The goal of the newsletter, he explained, is to "heighten the awareness of what Israel is all about."

Gordon, who for the last 12 years has run central New Jersey's Jewish business directory, Jewish 411, said that he will send via email his bi-monthly newsletter to everyone in his address book, which numbers approximately 6,000 from Middlesex, Monmouth, Essex, Union, Mercer, Somerset, and Ocean counties. Gordon said that he hopes to expand his reach as more people become aware of the publication and sign up to receive it.

"Email is the lifeblood of communication," Gordon said, explaining his reason to disseminate his newsletter this way.

Asked whether his project was inspired by the Israeli government's recent hasbara (public relations) initiative, Gordon replied, "their means of doing it is totally different. I'm starting at a grassroots level that can go across the country."

Gordon said that the idea to use his first name as part of the newsletter's title came from his desire to keep it personal and that the word "upbeat" was the best way to capture the online publication's mission.

"When I started using 'upbeat,' people smiled and that clinched it for me," he said.

For more information about "Jerry's Upbeat Israel News" or to sign up to receive it, email jerry@jewish411.com.