Posted on June 22, 2022

Anti-Defamation League: A Compilation of Information on Its Political Nature

Stuart H. Hurlbert, The CAIRCO Report, May 2022

INTRODUCTION

The Anti-Defamation League has inserted itself into American politics in variety of ways over the decades primarily in the guise of a non-partisan, civil rights organization. Currently it has been allowed to have great influence nationally on bullying, diversity, equity and inclusivity issues in K-12 education systems in particular. This note does not analyze ADL in depth but only critiques specific sections of the NPFH Handbook and provides excerpts from 106 linked articles about ADL’s politics and activities. These materials should give pause to organizations or institutions, especially public ones, that partner with ADL in any enterprise. Here is a brief sampling of facts illustrated by these articles.

ADL does not represent even the Jewish community as a whole and is regarded with distaste by a large segment of it. That disaffection increased in 2015 when the directorship passed from Abe Foxman to hyper-partisan, radically left Jonathan Greenblatt. ADL has long engaged in smear attacks and hate-mongering against organizations and politicians who push for enforcement of immigration laws and the reduced quotas for legal immigration as long recommended by various national commissions. It continues to do so. ADL opposes the letter and spirit of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the California Constitution; it endorsed the pro-racial preferences Proposition 16 in California in November 2020 while that was opposed by 57% of Californians. In a recent Supreme Court case, ADL submitted an amicus brief supporting Harvard’s discrimination against Asian applicants for admission. All of these positions and ADL’s vicious use of smear tactics surely account for some of the antisemitism in the US. ADL has also recently teamed up with the pro-Proposition 16, anti-1964 Civil Rights Act administration of San Diego State University to deal with putative increases in antisemitism at SDSU.

THE HANDBOOK

Coordinator Handbook & Resource Guide 2020-2021, No Place for Hate, An ADL Education Program, 56pp. Annotations of selected texts by S. Hurlbert are given within [ ]

p. 9: “One of the most powerful components of No Place for Hate has been helping our community become mindful of microaggressions and how we might commit them.” [Much nonsense has been perpetrated under this label, including the idea that only whites can commit ‘microaggressions.’]

p. 9: “The greatest challenge for any schoolwide effort is always how we reach all members and move toward universal consciousness.” [A candid and presumably unintentional confession of the degree to which NPFH is an indoctrination program. It is one thing to demand good behavior and encourage “fairness, kindness, safety and happiness.” It is quite another to indoctrinate the students in the particular social, political, environmental, etc. beliefs of the ADL and NPFH leadership. Those are not very “universal”!]

p. 11: “Schools are expected to notify ADL when any incident of bias, bullying, discrimination or harassment occurs (p. 43) so that together we can promptly address these cases. ADL reserves the right to revoke the No Place for Hate status of any school that fails to adequately address incidents of bias and bullying that may arise. Schools are expected to keep ADL regularly apprised of their progress throughout the year, so their work can be recognized on ADL’s social media channels.” [Big Brother will always be close at hand…]

p. 20: “Although learning how to demonstrate kindness is an important part of a child’s psychological and social development, ADL highly encourages schools to move beyond kindness to social justice. … Social action, defined as “activity on the part of an interested group directed toward some particular institutional change,” generally involves a group of people who work together to bring about institutional change so that society advances, and people experience improved safety, freedom and equity.” [This seems to be the first mention of this term ‘equity’ in the Handbook. Notably, the term is not defined in any of the glossaries given in the back of the handbook. Do not think it simply means ‘fairness.” It is usually used in the sense of ‘group equity’ which is the opposite of ‘equality opportunity for individuals based on individual merit.’ Those who favor the latter stick to the letter and spirit of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Those who favor the former will advocate and try to implement, often covertly, race or sex preferences. If the racial composition of students who qualify for an AP course is not close to that of the student body as a whole, ‘equitarians’ will argue for either relaxing standards or dropping the course. If the racial composition of the faculty does not approximately match that of the student body (or perhaps the general population) ‘equitarians’ will push for use of racial quotas or preferences in teacher hiring. Both ADL and NPFH are fundamentally opposed to the 1964 Civil Rights Act which prohibits these things. It would be highly unethical to not make the above completely clear to administrators, teachers and students. Is this being done?]

p. 27: “You Are Welcome Here: Lead a discussion with all students about immigration and refugees using ADL’s curriculum unit “Huddled Mass or Second Class: Challenging Anti-Immigrant Bias in the U.S.” (link below). As an extension to the lesson, ask students why it’s important to learn about the stories of immigrants and refugees in connection with making their school No Place for Hate.” [With this short, inconspicuous paragraph, we are given entrée into ADL’s materials obsessively promoting mass amnesties for illegal aliens, mass legal immigration, and demonization of all organizations and individuals as “anti-immigrant,” “haters,” “racists,” etc. who oppose such policies. It truly reflects an unhealthy obsession, because NONE of this is needed to assure kind and respectful treatment of immigrant kids by other kids. It is deliberate propaganda. And it is damaging to the kids, not just because of the amount of misinformation and ‘spleen’ fed to them (and their teachers), but because it loads onto their emotional backs all the problems relating to immigration issues their parents’ and grandparents’ generations have not solved…. and does so starting in primary school! The paragraph links to a horrific ADL webpage, which in turn links to another horrific ADL webpage and on and on ad infinitum. See:

Huddled Mass or Second Class?: Challenging Anti-Immigrant Bias in the U.S.

Mainstreaming Hate: The Anti-Immigrant Movement in the U.S.,

This section on immigration constitutes a major national disgrace given how many school systems have been using the NPFH program and for how many years. Across the country, the teachers, unions, school boards and administrators responsible need to be investigated and sanctioned. In the meantime, everyone can look at the fair, rational and humane policies and principles advocated by key organizations that ADL and other hatemongers, like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), are constantly labeling as “anti-immigrant,” “racist,” “white nationalist,” “white supremacist,” etc. Try: Federation for American Immigration Reform, Californians for Population Stabilization, Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization, Center for Immigration Studies, NumbersUSA, and Progressives for Immigration Reform.

p. 32-33: “The Pyramid of Hate Activity: The Pyramid of Hate is a useful tool to help understand how words, jokes and stereotypes can escalate to more systemic incidents of bias, discrimination and oppression. … The Pyramid shows biased behaviors, growing in complexity from the bottom to the top. Although the behaviors at each level may only negatively impact individuals and groups, as one moves up the Pyramid, the behaviors have more life- threatening consequences. Like a pyramid, the upper levels are supported by the lower levels. … A primary function of the Pyramid of Hate is to provide an impetus for challenging all manifestations of bias and discrimination by motivating action in response to behaviors many see as subtle or insignificant.”

p.34: “The Pyramid of Hate illustrates the prevalence of bias, hate and oppression in our society. It is organized in escalating levels of attitudes and behavior that grow in complexity from bottom to top. Like a pyramid, the upper levels are supported by the lower levels. Bias at each level negatively impacts individuals, institutions and society and it becomes increasingly difficult to challenge and dismantle as behaviors escalate.”

[There we go again – “Hate” one of ADL’s favorite and over-used nouns. Note the implied meaning of the figure below: “Criminal justice disparities, Inequitable school resource distribution, Housing segregation, Inequitable employment opportunities, Wage disparities, Voter restrictions and suppression, Unequal media representation” are all assumed to result from or reflect “Systemic Discrimination,” i.e. systemic racism. No wonder so many of the incognoscenti say systemic racism is everywhere! Great idea to teach to kids! Stop disciplining kids in different racial groups at different rates, or “genocide” may be coming to your town! – S.Hurlbert]

p. 41: “ADL Education Training Programs: ADL Education provides high-quality educational programs and curriculum resources to assist school communities in combating bias, bullying and bigotry. Please contact noplaceforhate@adl.org to learn more about how the following training programs for educators, administrators, students and family members can supplement your No Place for Hate® goals.” [Unfortunately, there seems to be no non-ADL officer to whom one can send complaints about “bias” or hate-mongering in ADL or NPFH materials or websites.]

p. 50: “INEQUALITY[means] An unfair situation when some people have more rights or better opportunities than other people.” [Simply incorrect. Most “inequalities” are not a result of unfair treatment or oppression.]

p. 51: “DIVERSITY means different or varied.” [simply incorrect]

p. 51: “DISCRIMINATION” [definition given applies only to “unjust discrimination.”]

p. 52: “RACISM[means] The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.” [a politicized definition not widely accepted]

THE ARTICLES

These are arranged in chronological order. Direct quotes from articles are given in [ ]. Inclusion of an article in this list does not imply our endorsement of all statements or ideas in it or of the philosophy and principles of the author or sponsoring organization. The compilation is a sampler, not a catechism.

Religions and the Environment: Commitment High Until U.S. Population Issues Raised, Roy Beck, The Social Contract, Winter 1992-1993 [“The Earth is the Lord’s and people of faith must ensure that it is properly cared for – including curbing humankind’s overpopulating ways, according to a powerful consensus that has emerged among America’s religious leaders. … But an informal survey by The Social Contract discovered that protection of natural resources within U.S. boundaries is not a top-priority action within religious leadership circles. … The religious Action Center of Reform Judaism recently help found the “Joint Appeal by Religion and Science for the Environment” organization to coalesce a greater body of religious leaders behind environment and population issues. “The Jewish community has a many-thousand-year-old religious concern for protecting God’s creation, so for us this is a religious obligation,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Washington, D.C. center which represents approximately 850 Reform congregations with about 1.5 million members. A spokeswoman at the center said America’s Reform Jews have had official stances since 1965 about the world’s exploding population and the goodness and importance of birth control and family planning. But when asked if members support U.S. population stabilization if it means limiting immigration, she answered, “My general sense is that we feel the United States has a special responsibility for persecuted people and to open its arms.” … Because of Jewish refugee experiences for centuries (especially the Nazi era), refugee issues ring with a special resonance within Judaism and its “do not mistreat the alien, for you were once an alien” scriptural foundation. The ethnic experience remains fresh; although Jews account for less than 3 percent of the U.S. population, between a quarter and a third of all refugees settled in this country in recent years have been Jewish. “On a worldwide scale, it is not clear that immigration hurts the environment,” wrote Gary E. Rubin of the American Immigration Coalition in a major paper about the ethics of immigration in 1991.”]

Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881-1965: A Historical Review, Kevin MacDonald, Population and Environment, March 1998 [“This paper discusses Jewish involvement in shaping United States immigration policy. In addition to a periodic interest in fostering the immigration of co-religionists as a result of anti-Semitic movements, Jews have an interest in opposing the establishment of ethnically and culturally homogeneous societies in which they reside as minorities. Jews have been at the forefront in supporting movements aimed at altering the ethnic status quo in the United States in favor of immigration of non-European peoples. These activities have involved leadership in Congress, organizing and funding anti-restrictionist groups composed of Jews and gentiles, and originating intellectual movements opposed to evolutionary and biological perspectives in the social sciences.”]

[NOTE: Later in this compilation is a recent critique of MacDonald’s ideas by Cofnas (2021) and a response by MacDonald (2022).]

High Noon to Midnight: Why Current Immigration Policy Dooms American Jewry, Stephen Steinlight, Center for Immigration Studies, April 1, 2004 [“Among the articles of faith in the waning culture of secular liberalism that has served as an ersatz religion for many mainstream American Jews, the most vulnerable tenet is belief in “generous legal immigration,” the euphemism for open-borders immigration in the lexicon of American-Jewish public affairs agencies. … Having failed to persuade the National Immigration Forum, to which virtually all belong, to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration, they chose the path of least resistance: they remained and went along with the charade, convincing themselves they could finesse this blurring of illusion and reality. Promulgating self-deception isn’t merely bad ethics; it’s untenable as a matter of policy: it conflicts with the interests, security and values of American Jewry. Increasing numbers of American Jews from the leadership on down are embarrassed by this transparent sophistry. … Reality is dawning on many American Jews that something is amiss, although it seems lost on some of the country’s most venerable Jewish organizations. There’s a sad, if comic irony associated with the fact that employees at organizations like ADL, the American Jewish Committee, and the Presidents’ Conference must pass through a gauntlet of concrete barriers, armed guards, metal detectors, and double bulletproof anterooms as they come to work each morning to protect them from radical Islamic terrorists, in order to spend their days studying and disseminating reports on the “threat” posed by Evangelical Christians. Meanwhile, the legislative affairs staffs of these organizations are directed to lobby against immigration reforms that could minimize the danger.”

A Vast Social Experiment: The Immigration Act of 1965, Otis L. Graham Jr., NPG Forum, October 2005 [“But American immigration policy in the post-war years attracted a small but growing body of opponents. The political core of a coalition pressing for a new, more “liberalized” policy regime was composed of ethnic lobbyists … claiming to speak for nationalities migrating prior to the National Origins Act of 1924, the most effective being Jews from central and eastern Europe who were deeply concerned with the rise of fascism and anti-semitism on the continent and eternally interested in haven. Unable by themselves to interest many politicians or the media in the settled issue of America’s immigration law, these groups hoped for new circumstances in which restrictions could be discredited and the old regime of open-doors restored. … Who would lead, and formulate what alternatives? Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy cautiously stepped out on the issue in the l950s, sensing that a liberalization stance would gather vital ethnic voting blocs for his long-planned run for the presidency. His work on a refugee bill caught the attention of officials of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, who convinced Kennedy to become an author of a pamphlet on immigration, with the help of an ADL- supplied historian, Arthur Mann, and Kennedy’s staff. The result was A Nation of Immigrants, a l958 bouquet of praise for the contributions of immigrants and a call for an end to the racist, morally embarrassing national origins system. The little book was initially ignored, but its arguments would dominate the emerging debate. The ADL, part of a Jewish coalition whose agenda included opening wider the American gates so that increasing U.S. ethnic heterogeneity would reduce the chances of a populist mass movement embracing anti-semitism, had made a golden alliance. John F. Kennedy was no crusader on immigration (or anything else), but he was an activist young President by l96l, comfortable with immigration reform as part of his agenda, elected on a party platform that pledged elimination of the national origins system.”]

Pandering by the ADL, Stephen Steinlight, Center for Immigration Studies, May 15, 2009 [“Whatever expletives others have used to characterize its action, what the ADL has done isn’t an aberration. It flows from deeply rooted predilections: unconditional commitment to open-borders immigration and its mission as a professional “tolerance promoter” to promote tolerance even for the least tolerant (with some exceptions, of course). When this American Jew was being defamed by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) using inaccurate, scurrilous, politically motivated “research” provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) claiming I’m a “white supremacist” seeking to “penetrate” the Jewish community (they smeared me because they disagree with me on immigration policy), I didn’t find an ally in the ADL. Rather, having done no research of its own and having made no effort to contact me to ascertain my views, the ADL backed my accusers. Interviewed in the JTA article about HIAS’s McCarthyism, Deborah Lauter, ADL’s civil rights director, said “the community should be ‘wary’ of Steinlight.” The revealing little drama summarizes the ADL in 2009: be wary of opponents on immigration policy but protective of Islam!”]

No ‘Progress by Pesach’: The Jewish Establishment’s Usurpation of American-Jewish Opinion on Immigration, Stephen Steiinlight, Center for Immigration Studies, August 17, 2009 [“The American-Jewish policy establishment is restless, eager for a “good war.” But the one it’s chosen to wage doesn’t rise to the definition. The first offensive was “Progress by Pesach” (Pesach is the Hebrew name for Passover), the counterfeit “civil rights” campaign for illegal aliens, aimed at achieving citizenship for 11-12 million who have repeatedly mocked the rule of law and stolen employment from unemployed and working Americans as the economy hemorrhages jobs, reducing wages and worsening working conditions for the nation’s most vulnerable citizens and legal residents while bloating the profits of its worst exploiters. The campaign also seeks an exponential increase in immigration, a disastrous policy for all Americans and one that particularly threatens Americans who are Jews. … Gideon Aronoff, chief strategist of Progress by Pesach, preceded the campaign with a purge, targeting anyone opposed to its goals, especially those perceived as persuasive political opponents. … Partnering with Aronoff in the purge is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the nation’s leading enforcer of political correctness “by any means necessary,” but chiefly by “attack dog research” whose hallmark is not accuracy but the capacity to smear the reputation of opponents through the repetition of scurrilous charges. … Virtually every constituent part of the American-Jewish Establishment engaged in domestic public policy signed onto this effort. The coalition includes the following organizations that HIAS’s website terms “national groups:” the Jewish Center for Policy Analysis (JCPA), a tiny umbrella organization that runs the annual conference for national Jewish organizations with domestic public policy agendas; the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); the American Jewish Committee (AJC); B’nai B’rith International; the Jewish Labor Committee, a small, disappearing old left agency that maintains symbolic ties to the American Labor Movement; Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), a miniscule far-left Boston-based organization; Uri l’Tzedek: the Orthodox Social Justice Movement, another tiny local group seeking recognition in the NYC area and which played a role in exposing ultra-Orthodox hypocrisy over AgriProcessors; the National Council of Jewish Women; the Rabbinical Assembly (the Conservative Movement); Union for Reform Judaism; Women of Reform Judaism (whose membership will be included in an overall figure of liberal members of the Reform Movement); and the Reconstructionist Movement. … In light of the monolithic, autonomic support by the American-Jewish Establishment for “comprehensive immigration reform” and, more broadly, open-borders immigration, one might infer these views represent those of most Americans who are Jews. Wrong. Taking that inference would constitute an unjustifiable, untenable leap. In the American-Jewish community, as within virtually every other U.S. demographic, a chasm divides the opinion of tiny self-appointed leadership cadres and those of the rank-and-file with regard to immigration policy. As is the case with other demographics, a privileged elite, or, in the case of the tiny leftist groups, a mouthy elite, has usurped the voice of the many. … The prominent role of so-called “Jewish defense agencies” (ADL and AJC) in the Progress by Pesach campaign for “comprehensive immigration reform” is particularly disturbing. It represents a betrayal of their raison d’être: protecting the well-being of the American-Jewish community within a nation dedicated to equal justice, democratic decision-making, pluralism, and respect for the rule of law. … Like other Americans, most ordinary American Jews believe illegal immigration and large increases in legal immigration threaten national security, U.S. sovereignty, the social safety net, the dignity of American labor, sane population growth, social cohesion, environmental sustainability, and our quality of life.”]

Why the ADL Became a Partisan Mouthpiece, Joel Sprayregen, American Thinker, November 29, 2009

[“The realization that political debate in a free society is often raucous accompanied my journey from work as an ACLU staff attorney to becoming National Vice-Chair of the then-respected Anti-Defamation League. This journey was inspired in significant part by “refuseniks” — met during an ACLU “mission” to the USSR — who were consigned to the Gulag because there was no First Amendment to protect them. You can thus understand the consternation, and not just mine, which greeted the ADL’s hyped “Report” declaring that “rage” expressed against President Obama is un-American. These tidbits reveal the flavor of ADL’s declaration: “Since the election of Barack Obama, a current of anti-government hostility has swept across the U.S. (creating) a climate of toxic rage (characterized by) shared belief that Obama poses a threat to the future of the U.S. (with) an intense strain of anti-government distrust and anger.” ADL’s perfervidly purple prose belies an abysmal ignorance of American political traditions. Thomas Jefferson — savaged by the press in his day — believed that the purpose of the press (which he said was more important than government) is to express distrust of officialdom. … More fundamentally, the ADL misses the significance of supine pro-Obama bias in most of the media, who clearly felt that shiver running up their legs. Dan Rather insisted on his right to smear Bush with false documents! The ADL is not troubled by the partisanship of MS-NBC. It is scandalous, for example, that the press has not uncovered what Obama wrote and read while in law school and college, and that they have minimized the influence of Obama’s (“G-d damn America”) rageful pastor. The failure of mainline media to scrutinize Obama and his mentors — which truly is unprecedented (one of Obama’s favorite words when describing his own policies) in American history — incentivizes many who love this country to sound off. … Sadly, there are explanations more embarrassing than ignorance of history (steeped in supercilious New York political bias) to explain why the ADL stumbled so egregiously. As observed by many, including myself, who have left the organization, the ADL has declined into an autocracy where no opinion counts other than that of its long-time National Director, Abraham Foxman, whom the New York Times described as “a one-man Sanhedrin for life.” When Foxman hatches a crackpot idea like the “Rage Report,” no one can restrain him.””]

The Jewish Establishment’s ‘Unity Pledge’; Will Sacrificing Israel to Obama’s Re-Election Cause Blowback?, Stephen Steinlight, Center for Immigration Studies, November 17, 2011 [“Ceren remembers the sleazy role Foxman and the ADL eagerly played during the 2008 presidential primaries and campaign in declaring all of Obama’s associations “kosher” in order to protect his candidacy. It should be remembered the Anti-Defamation League, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, goes after virtually any one that strongly opposes its policy preferences – immigration is a leading context – attacking them as white supremacists, xenophobes, or Islamophobes. But it bent over backwards to declare Obama and all his associates, including the notorious Rev. Wright, to be purer than Caesar’s wife. … When we enumerate the most vociferous and extreme proponents of amnesty and open-borders’ immigration in the United States, groups that form the core of our opposition, the Jewish Establishment is as central to that cabal as are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Immigration Forum, a Center for American Progress, the Cato Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the billionaire foundation universe. Short of their very unlikely conversion to our side, the best we can hope for is they either accord the issue reduced centrality or that they implode. While immigration is the holy of holies for the Jewish Establishment in terms of domestic policy, Israel is THE holy of holies. Ordinary American Jews have already registered their strong disapproval of the Jewish Establishment’s position on immigration, as any Establishment apparatchik capable of reading survey findings knows. The gap is wide and widening.’]

ADL Wrong on Islamic Attack at the Boston Marathon, Moshe Phillips, Israel National News, April 25, 2013 [“If you want to know what grassroots Jews are thinking about the international Islamic terror, Israel issues, U.S. politics and more, please don’t look to the self-appointed leaders of the Jewish Establishment. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) seemed to want to do everything possible to direct attention away from the possibility that the Boston Marathon attack was the work of Islamic terrorists when it issued an April 15 statement on the attacks. ADL head Abe Foxman stated: “This apparent terrorist attack comes during a week when we are already on heightened alert because of the history of extremist-related events that have taken place during the week of April 20th, including the Oklahoma City bombing and the federal raid of the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas.” … With the news that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were responsible for the attack, the ADL has yet once again proved that it has long outlasted its effectiveness or should revamp its leadership’s thinking. … And one of the most remarkable responses by an American Jew to the excesses of the ADL came from another Jewish guest host, Boston’s late Dean Barrett, and in the wake of the Boston Marathon attack it seems highly appropriate to recall him and his words. … Barnett guest-hosted for California-based Salem Radio Network host Hugh Hewitt on April 30, 2008. Let’s recall the point he made during the conversation he had with an African-American caller: The caller explained that Rev. Jeremiah Wright and other so-called leaders of the African-American [community] do not speak for him and that no one elected these leaders. Barnett responded to the caller by stating something to the effect that he sympathized with the caller and understood completely. Barnett said that, as a Jew, he often feels the same exact way when he sees the partisan statements of the Anti-Defamation League. There – someone had finally said what so desperately needed to be said about the American Jewish community: The ADL does not speak in our name.”]

What Will ADL’s Priorities Be in a Post-Foxman Era?, Jacob Kaaras, Jewish News Service, November 17, 2014 [“What message is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sending to the Jewish community through its recent selection of White House aide and social entrepreneur Jonathan Greenblatt to succeed longtime National Director Abraham Foxman? While some are praising ADL for thinking outside the box with its hire and trying to appeal to a younger demographic, others are concerned that Greenblatt is too visibly partisan and that his past experience may signal ADL’s de-emphasis of the fight against anti-Semitism in favor of civil rights work. … “ADL used Jewish donations to push for such things as immigration reform, gay marriage, and women’s rights, seemingly uncomfortable with focusing ADL’s work primarily on fighting to protect Jewish interests, even in these daunting times,” Jacobs told JNS.org. Echoing that sentiment is Chicago-based attorney Joel J. Sprayregen, a former national vice-chair of ADL who ended his involvement with the organization about a decade ago. “The ADL has been a great champion for civil rights over the years, but of course it’s a defender of the Jewish people, and I think they’ve blurred that mission in recent years, getting involved with things like bullying which are not part of an essential civil rights or Jewish mission,” Sprayregen told JNS.org.With the hiring of Greenblatt, Foxman and ADL “have doubled down on this tragic abandonment of Jewish interests in favor of an ill-defined universalism,” said Jacobs.”]

Mugged by reality, a new ADL might well emerge, Charles Jacobs, The Jewish Advocate, December 12, 2014 [“In an interview, I noted that Greenblatt’s profile as a progressive Democrat, especially one who holds a position in the Obama Administration, signaled that ADL would continue, even double down, on what many of us have been calling a disastrously failed policy of abandoning Jewish interests in favor of some vague universalism. As the left/Muslim alliance is driving the Jews out of Europe, and is now surging on our campuses, American Jewry’s most powerful defense agency has no strategy to deal with these real threats. Instead, ADL advocates for the Democratic Party’s agenda items – women’s and gay rights, immigration, voter ID laws, etc. ADL even fights “Islamophobia,” a bogus concept whose intent and effect is to block any criticism of Islamic culture, behavior or belief. Appointing a progressive like Greenblatt, I thought, would ensure that ADL’s vast resources will continue to be diverted away from real efforts to protect Jewish interests and Jewish lives.”]

My ADL Problem: What exactly is the famed organization fighting, and whom is it fighting for?, Jonathan Bronitsky, Tablet Magazine, July 13, 2015 [“First, I hope this essay persuades the ADL, which is heavily invested in antibullying (e.g., “No Place For Hate” campaign), to consider that it itself has become a bully to conservatives who remain in its ranks. Shutting out right-leaning individuals through crowd intimidation and derision weakens coalitions, which are vital in advocacy work. This behavior also diminishes the organization’s values, which will turn stale and trite when left unchallenged. Secondly, I want the ADL to revisit and clarify its mission. “The nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency,” asserts that it “fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry”; not just “all forms of bigotry,” but “anti-Semitism” and then “all forms of bigotry.” Yet as murderous anti-Semitism around the globe has surged in recent years, the ADL has dedicated itself more and more to matters of social justice in America (e.g., immigration, women’s reproductive health, economic “privilege”) that are already being pursued by a plethora of lobbying outlets and activist foundations. … Is combatting anti-Semitism a “priority” for the ADL? If so, then the organization should put its money where its mouth is. Alas, this outcome seems ever more unlikely as it seeks to enforce group conformity and advance political agendas that have nothing to do with defending the Jewish people.”]

CANDIDLY SPEAKING: Has the ADL lost the plot?, Isi Leibler, Jerusalem Post, August 16, 2016 [“But more recently, Greenblatt appears to have entirely lost the plot, behaving as though he remained employed by the Obama administration. He was entirely out of line in his condemnation of the Republican platform as “anti-Zionist” for omitting reference to a two-state solution. One can disagree about a two-state policy, but for an American Jewish organization which must remain bipartisan and should be concentrating on anti-Semitism, to issue such a statement breaches all conventions. It is totally beyond the ADL’s mandate to involve itself in such partisan political issues. … But the final straw is Greenblatt’s deepening association with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. … If the CEO of the ADL continues engaging in such partisan politics and refuses to prioritize his organization’s principal resources toward fighting anti-Semitism, he should step down.”]

The Anti-Defamation League turns anti-Israel, possible hush money from a Clinton ally & other notable comments, Post Editorial Board, New York Post,September 15, 2016 [“The Anti-Defamation League, a century-old Jewish civil-rights organization, has essentially become another J Street — an arm of the Democratic Party’s stable of pressure groups. So charges Jonathan Tobin at Commentary, flagging new ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt’s response after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinians’ desire for a Jew-free state “ethnic cleansing.” Greenblatt — a former Obama administration staffer — attacked Netanyahu and sided with the Palestinians, even though, as Tobin notes, the Palestinian Authority plainly doesn’t want Jews on its territory. Says Tobin: “for Greenblatt to re-position ADL from its former centrist position as a mainstream address for pro-Israel activism to one that is now in open opposition to the democratically elected government of Israel is a sea change of enormous importance . . . This is a betrayal of ADL’s long and honorable legacy as a group that sought to speak for the interests of the Jewish community as a whole and respected the right of Israel’s people and their leaders to make their own decisions about security.”]

Jonathan Greenblatt is destroying the Anti-Defamation League, Alex VanNess, New York Post, December 9, 2016 [“In Israel last week, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told legislators that anti-Semitism in America is now comparable to that of 1930s Germany. Yes, his fearmongering went that far: “Anti-Semitism has wound its way into mainstream conversations in a manner that many Jews who lived through Nazi Germany find terrifying.” He then laid blame for this resurgence almost exclusively at the hands of the political right and supporters of President-elect Donald Trump. This is merely the latest Greenblatt departure from the ADL’s nonpartisan tradition.”]

FBI Removed SPLC, ADL From Resources Pages Over ‘Number Of Concerns’, Jonah Bennett, Daily Caller, February 3, 2017 [“ New information indicates the FBI removed two “hate watch” organizations from the resources page of its website because of internal concerns with the organizations. In 2014, the FBI removed the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from the resources page of its civil rights division, telling The Daily Caller at the time that the removal was because the groups were not themselves government-run. “Upon review, the Civil Rights program only provides links to resources within the federal government,” an FBI spokesman told The Daily Caller in 2014. “While we appreciate the tremendous support we receive from a variety of organizations, we have elected not to identify those groups on the civil rights page.” According to emails dating back to March 2014 and obtained via a Freedom of Information Act Request by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the FBI-Civil Rights Unit Section Chief stated that his removal decision was actually “[b]ased on a number of concerns,” a decision which he came to after he had “met with a variety of external and internal partners with the Civil Rights Unit.” … The FBI, based on dates in the email, made the decision almost immediately after meeting with congressional staffers regarding concerns expressed by the head of the Family Research Council, a pro-family, pro-heterosexual marriage organization. The FRC’s head complained in February 2014 that its presence on the SPLC’s “hate-watch” list inspired a terrorist attack against the organization. Floyd Corkins, the shooter, explicitly targeted the FRC in August 2012 and wanted to kill as many employees as possible precisely because the FRC had been listed as an “anti-gay” group on the SPLC’s website since 2010. … Both the SPLC and the ADL have a history of questionable claims relating to extremism. In a particularly recent example, the SPLC was forced to apologize after placing Ben Carson on an extremist watch list in early 2015, a move which generated serious public backlash.”]

Remember the Hysteria about Trump-Induced Anti-Semitism, Dennis Prager, National Review, June 13, 2017 [“The hysteria was genuine. The anti-Semitism wasn’t. … Take, for example, the hysteria the Left created by charging President Trump’s election with the unleashing of unprecedented amounts of anti-Semitism and racism in America. Being attuned to the Left’s use of hysteria, I knew it was hysteria at the time. In the March 7, 2017, issue of the Jewish Journal, I wrote a column titled “There Is No Wave of Trump-Induced Anti-Semitism or Racism.” It was all a lie. That’s why you hardly hear anything now about an alleged wave of racism or anti-Semitism in the country. What rankles those who have a passion for justice is that the mendacious fomenters of the hysteria have gotten away with it. So, as a Jew who understands how much damage left-wing Jews have done to the real fight against anti-Semitism, I think that some of these people are worth mentioning. … Almost as hysterical about anti-Semitism in America was Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of a considerably more significant Jewish institution, the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL. As reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in December: “Anti-Semitic rhetoric in the United States has reached levels unprecedented since 1930s Germany, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt warned a gathering of Israeli lawmakers in Jerusalem on Monday. “Anti-Semitism has wound its way into mainstream conversations in a manner that many Jews who lived through Nazi Germany find terrifying,” he said at the Knesset meeting, which was convened to discuss the plight of American Jewry under the incoming Trump administration.” … And why aren’t we hearing any more about Trump-induced anti-Semitism in America? Because law-enforcement officials reported that a disturbed Israeli-American Jewish teenager in Israel was the source of nearly all the threats against Jewish community centers. And that a handful of other threats to them came from an angry, obsessive black radical trying to frame an ex-girlfriend. Will any of those who spread the lie and hysteria about Trump-induced anti-Semitism now apologize?”]

The Anti-Defamation League Has Betrayed Its Cause, Ran Baratz, DailyWire, July 12, 2017 [“In truth, one has to admit that the problem is more fundamental than political or organizational connections between the ADL and the radical left. The crux of the issue lies in the ideological radicalization of the left, a process Greenblatt epitomizes. This is expressed by the promotion of progressive doctrines such as “intersectionality” by Greenblatt and the ADL itself, apparently without realizing that lurking under those terms are hateful, divisive and oppressive agendas, which are entirely detrimental to the original cause of the ADL. … Greenblatt may not realize it, but he is riding an anti-Semitic tiger. … As the left keeps progressing into oppressive and illiberal domains, the ADL follows suit and is currently less worried about antisemitism per se.”]

New ADL Guide Blasts Right-Wing Anti-Semites, Gives Left-Leaning Bigots a Pass, Liel Leibovitz, Tablet Magazine, July 19, 2017 [“Yesterday, the ADL issued a guide to help us errant Jews understand who are our true haters. It is titled “From Alt Right to Alt Lite: Naming the Hate,” and it profiles 36 (double chai!) prominent individuals who are either known for their anti-Semitism or known for cozying up to people known for their anti-Semitism. As long, of course, as they’re on the right. … It’s a shame. As Jews face real hate from left and right alike, we need and deserve an organization that places principles over politics.”]

The Anti-Defamation League’s Sad Slide Into Just Another Left-Wing Pressure Group, Bethany Mandel, The Federalist, July 28, 2017 [“The former [ADL] staffer, who worked directly with former ADL head Abe Foxman, told me, “The ADL has lost its identity… I can only imagine how sad Abe must be. He dedicated his entire life to try to help Jewish people feel they had someone who had their back. And then less than five years after he leaves, his life’s work is in ashes… [Greenblatt] wants the ADL to basically be a Jewish-lite organization that gets involved in fights it has no place being in, like Hispanic hate crime. It’s not their lane. It’s bad, but not anti-Semitic. … What the world desperately needs instead, but is rapidly losing, is a respected and nonpartisan global monitor of anti-Semitism.”]

Jewish Americans Deserve Better Than The ADL, David Harsanyi, The Federalist, February 28, 2018 [“Anti-Semitism is a serious, albeit relatively small, problem in American life. Still, it’s a shame that the folks at the Anti-Defamation League, self-styled spokespeople of we Jews, are in the business of exaggerating threats when it serves their partisan interests and underplaying threats when they do not. … Anti-Semitism isn’t “soaring” in America, and the ADL knows it. Among 330 or-so million Americans, the ADL notes that there were 1,986 anti-Semitic reported incidents across the United States in 2017. That’s a 57 percent increase over the 1,267 reported incidents in 2016. Yet the ADL admits a part of the spike was driven by a surge in self-reporting rather than a surge in incidents. … The ADL’s report states that there “were 1,015 incidents of harassment, including 163 bomb threats against Jewish institutions, up 41 percent from 2016.” … The thing is that every single one of the bomb threats in the ADL survey were made by a single deranged self-hating Jewish teenager who was arrested in Israel. … It should be pointed out, though, that there is a population that runs into anti-Jewish sentiment more than most. The ADL and its activist head, Jonathan Greenblatt, would have you believe that “white supremacy” is the leading cause of anti-Semitism on college campuses throughout the United States. The narrative must be fed, after all. The ADL tells us that from Sept. 1, 2016 to Feb. 1, 2018, “346 incidents” of Nazi types handing out propaganda on campus were recorded. This, according to the ADL,is the most disturbing trend on campuses. As one of my Twitter followers correctly noted, “The idea that Jews are more likely to encounter white supremacists than aggressively anti-Israel BDS groups is utter delusion.””]

ADL Mourns Deaths of Hamas Terrorists as “Horrific Tragedy”, Matzav.com, May 23, 2018 [“It’s painfully shocking that Anti-Defamation League (ADL) head Jonathan Greenblatt recently wrote on ADL’s website: “it is a horrific tragedy that so many people have been killed and wounded at the Gaza border.” (“ADL Statement on Violence at Israel-Gaza Border,” May 15, 2018.) This broad statement was not limited to the tiny minority who were not members of a terrorist group. (And even that small minority joined the violent riots whose goal was to breach Israel’s border fence to descend upon nearby Jewish communities, schools, and day care centers – and all of Israel – to murder innocent Jews.) Thus, we must ask, how is the death of mostly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists a “horrific tragedy?” In fact, the deaths of these terrorists prevented a real “horrific tragedy” – the murder of thousands of innocent Jews who would have been slain if Hamas’ violent rioters had succeeded. Hamas leader Salah al-Bardawil and PIJ have admitted that 85% of the recent Gaza fatalities (50 Hamas plus 3 PIJ, out of 62 total) were their own terrorist operatives. … Such sympathetic proclamations only encourage more Hamas terror against Jews. Such proclamations also encourage the media to distort the truth of the Hamas war against the Jewish State.”]

Is Brett Kavanaugh Bad for the Jews?: The Anti-Defamation League loses sight of its mission and turns toward Democratic partisanship, Liel Leibovitz, Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2018 [“With nearly 2,000 hate crimes against Jews last year, the most in more than two decades, the group could—sadly—still have its hands full with the challenges of its original mission. Which is why it was so dismaying to see the ADL release a statement denouncing Judge Brett Kavanaugh minutes after President Trump announced his nomination to the Supreme Court. The ADL complained of Judge Kavanaugh’s “demonstrated hostility to reproductive freedom” and worried that his “judicial record does not reflect the demonstrated independence and commitment to fair treatment for all that is necessary to merit a seat on our nation’s highest court.” Why would a group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism engage in this sort of partisan warfare? The answer lies with the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, who succeeded Abe Foxman in 2015. A former junior aide in the Clinton White House and special assistant to President Obama, Mr. Greenblatt has frequently steered the ADL into the murky waters of party politics. … By focusing increasingly on the battles of the Democratic Party, and by weighing in on matters far removed from its traditional mandate, the ADL is leaving American Jews behind.”

The ADL Chooses Anti-Trump over Anti-Semitism: How a Democratic operative led the venerable hate-monitoring group off a partisan cliff, Jonathan Tobin, National Review, July 17, 2018 [“The moment President Trump concluded his announcement of the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to he U.S. Supreme Court, the Anti-Defamation League fired off a tweet. In it, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tore into Kavanaugh as lacking the “independence and fair treatment for all that is necessary to merit a seat on the nation’s highest court.” The tweet teased a press release that obliquely demanded that the Senate reject the nomination. The timing made it clear that there would be no questions or deliberative process before the venerable group, which for more than century has played the role of both defender of the Jewish community against anti-Semitism and monitor of hate crimes, made up its mind about Kavanaugh. … It is no surprise that many liberal groups — including some that are all-in on what some on the left are treating as an apocalyptic fight for the future of the High Court — are reflexively opposed to anyone Trump may nominate. But the ADL’s presence in the ranks of those who are supplying the organizational muscle for the resistance to Trump might come as a surprise to those who haven’t been paying much attention to the group in recent years. Though it spent its first century of existence being careful to avoid getting labeled as a partisan outfit, in the three years since the ADL’s longtime national director Abe Foxman retired, Greenblatt has steadily pushed the group farther to the left and, in so doing, more or less destroyed its reputation as being above politics. After the ADL has repeatedly involved itself in partisan controversies, it is impossible to pretend that Greenblatt’s vision of the group isn’t fundamentally that of a Democratic-party auxiliary that is increasingly overshadowing and marginalizing its still-vital role as the nation’s guardian against anti-Semitism.”]

Is Brett Kavanaugh Bad for the Jews?: The Anti-Defamation League loses sight of its mission and turns toward Democratic partisanship, Liel Leibovitz, Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2018 [“When the Anti-Defamation League was established in 1913, its mission was clear: “To stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people.” The ADL’s credo has changed a bit since—it now aspires to an “ever-more just society”—but it still presents itself as the nation’s primary watchdog against anti-Semitism. With nearly 2,000 hate crimes against Jews last year, the most in more than two decades, the group could—sadly—still have its hands full with the challenges of its original mission. Which is why it was so dismaying to see the ADL release a statement denouncing Judge Brett Kavanaugh minutes after President Trump announced his nomination to the Supreme Court. The ADL complained of Judge Kavanaugh’s “demonstrated hostility to reproductive freedom” and worried that his “judicial record does not reflect the demonstrated independence and commitment to fair treatment for all that is necessary to merit a seat on our nation’s highest court.” Why would a group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism engage in this sort of partisan warfare? … By focusing increasingly on the battles of the Democratic Party, and by weighing in on matters far removed from its traditional mandate, the ADL is leaving American Jews behind.“]

American anti-Semitism Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be, David Rosenberg, Haaretz, November 1, 2018 [“It’s a marginal phenomenon whose presence and power is inflated by social media and guns. The reality is Jews are so accepted they are intermarrying at record numbers. As a recent visitor to America, I was struck by how much of the wrenching national conversation over race and gender resolves around things like micro-aggression, coded messages and accusations of insensitivity. In that context, the murder of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh last Saturday stands out. Robert Bowers didn’t code any of his anti-Semitic feelings: he acted on them in a quintessentially American way by assembling a small arsenal of weaponry to use against Jews.

It’s the nature of things that a traumatic event has caused people to worry that anti-Semitism is a real problem in America. The massacre has been routinely juxtaposed in the media with an Anti-Defamation League survey showing the number of anti-Semitic incidents jumped 57% last year from 2016. But statistics show otherwise. The ADL survey is misleading on multiple counts. Among other things, it relies on reports of anti-Semitism, which is in the hate-conscious environment of America today, has simply led to more reporting of incidents.

In any case, the great, great majority of incidents involve incidents like spray-painting graffiti on a Jewish building, probably by bored teenagers. The most serious category of all – physical assaults against Jews – amounted to just 19 in 2017. That was down nearly half from 2016 and amounted to a blip in a screen in a country of 325 million people and 5.5 million Jews. Most misleading of all is the category of “harassment,” in which there were 1,015 incidents — 294 more than in 2016. More than half of that increase, however — 163 incidents — consisted of bomb threats to Jewish institutions that turned out to have been made by a lone, disturbed Jewish teenager living in Israel. Whatever else you might think of him and what he did, the unnamed man is not an anti-Semite.”

Don’t believe the ADL; we are secure in America, Rabbi Bruce Warshal, Jewish Journal, November 2, 2018 [“Immediately after the horrible massacre at the Etz Chaim (Tree of Life) synagogue in Pittsburgh, the television was surfeited with “experts” on the rising anti-Semitism in America. Among them was the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jonathon Greenblatt, quoting its 2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, published this past May. The headline blared that anti-Jewish incidents rose 57% in 2017, “the largest single-year increase on record.” It attributed the major part of this increase to anti-Semitic acts on college campuses. Let me share with you an analysis of this ADL report that I published when it was issued. The Audit received front-page coverage in newspapers and prominent coverage in magazines and other media. At the same time, studies by Brandeis University and Stanford University found just the opposite. The Forward wrote, “Both of these studies seem to support the conclusion that campus anti-Semitism is a negligible phenomenon,” but they were drowned out by the ADL megaphone. Whom should we believe? My answer: Brandeis and Stanford. Further, never, ever, believe ADL statistics. Benjamin Disraeli said that there are three kinds of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics. ADL has perfected the third kind.”]

New ADL Study Details How Extreme Anti-Immigrant Hate Has Been Thrust Into the Mainstream

New report profiles people, efforts that brought anti-immigrant views to fore over past decade., Press Release, ADL Website, November 29, 2018 [“Meanwhile, white supremacist groups and other extremists, who share certain beliefs with those groups and often feed off of their rhetoric, have used anti-immigrant rhetoric to stir anti-Semitism by blaming Jews for encouraging non-white immigration to this country. These conspiracy theories can lead to deadly repercussions, the report says, pointing to the recent attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue by Robert Bowers, who had been exposed to these conspiracy theories and allegedly cited them shortly before carrying out his attack. … To prevent extreme anti-immigrant ideas from taking hold, ADL urged elected officials and other leaders to forcefully denounce hatred and bigotry. Additionally, the report called on members of Congress to stop inviting known anti-immigrant groups to testify in hearings and forums. … ADL is the world’s leading anti-hate organization.”]

The Shame of the Anti-Defamation League: How its new executive director is betraying the organization’s purpose, Seth Mandel, Commentary magazine, November 2018 [“Like every organization, the ADL had its blind spots, but it never had an obstructed view of its own raison d’être—until the summer of 2015. That was when Jonathan Greenblatt succeeded longtime ADL director Abe Foxman. Greenblatt is a man of the left in the purest sense, and one who holds partisan politics paramount. In the years leading up to his hire, the American left’s relationship with world Jewry had begun a steady decline. This decline was exploited and exacerbated by President Barack Obama—for whose administration Greenblatt worked before taking over the ADL. It is unclear whether the ADL’s reputation can survive Greenblatt’s stewardship.”]

Mainstreaming Hate: The Anti-Immigrant Movement in the U.S., ADL Website, November 2018 [“Anti-immigrant fervor, once relegated to more extreme quarters, has been increasingly mainstreamed over the last ten years. Over the last two years, with the advent of a new administration focused on much stricter immigration policies and complementary executive actions, anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment has made life substantially more difficult for all immigrants. Anti-immigrant groups like FAIR (Federation for Immigration Reform) and CIS (Center for Immigration Studies) have successfully moved the Overton Window – or the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable within political action and public discourse. These groups’ ideologies have been brought into the mainstream by policymakers who appear to agree with their rhetoric, and who have sought to institute harsh anti-immigrant laws nationwide. … Anti-immigrant groups’ bigotry has also been normalized by the media, which provides a context-free platform for anti-immigrant spokespeople and their talking points. … Before the extreme ideas of the anti-immigrant movement fully take root, the government, media and general public must take intentional steps to remove this ideology from tolerable discourse in America’s pluralistic society.”]

Recent ADL Report a Thinly-Veiled Effort to Control What the Public Hears on Immigration, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), PRNewswire.com, December 6, 2018 [“A recent report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), titled “Mainstreaming Hate: The Anti-Immigrant Movement in the U.S.” is a flawed, ludicrous analysis based on a complete misunderstanding of public concern about immigration policy. It blatantly demands that all general public discussion about immigration be censored unless it comports with the ADL’s approved content. It is a thinly-veiled effort to control what views the public hears and what information and ideas are appropriate for public consideration. At its core, says Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the report has a flawed premise: That responsible organizations like FAIR have only achieved credibility of late, and that this must be stopped at all costs. “In fact,” says Dan Stein, president of FAIR, “our voice has been a major part of the national discussion since the late 1970s. Our views are the mainstream views of the American people, and our legitimacy is based on years of responsible, professional, competent advocacy and reason.” For four decades, FAIR has been a leading voice for responsible immigration policies. “The ADL suddenly posits that free discussion of the need for immigration limits is likely to lead to all sorts of bad things. In fact, it’s the failure of our national leadership on the issue that is causing mounting public frustration,” says Stein. “The ADL report reflects the highly politicized views of Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s director. Greenblatt, like many former Obama operatives, has continued to press his former boss’s mass immigration agenda through lavishly funded NGOs.”]

Tweet, Steven Pinker, @sapinker, December 7, 2018 [“American anti-Semitism is not rising. A rampage shooter is not a trend, and statistics from advocacy organizations (like ADL) should not be taken at face value, since their business model is “the worse the better.”]

The ADL Took $1.75 Million from a Funder of Alt-Left Anti-Semitism, Now It’s Ignoring Alt-Left Hate, Daniel Greenfield, FrontPageMag.com, January 18, 2019 [“On February 2017, Juan Thompson, a former reporter for the alt-left hate site, The Intercept, phoned in a bomb threat to the ADL. The phone threat targeting the ADL’s headquarters was one of a number of threats that the disgraced activist and journalist had made to a variety of Jewish organizations. On November 2017, the ADL tweeted its gratitude to the Omidyar Network, the foundation behind The Intercept for donating $250,000 in seed money to set up a Silicon Valley center for fighting online hate. … Omidyar’s money set up the Center on Technology and Society, using the ADL brand to provide cover for a deeply disturbing program for potentially automating online censorship. And the board of tech experts named by the ADL’s Greenblatt includes at least one figure with anti-Semitic connections. The Center on Technology and Society is supposed to provide guidelines to online companies for cracking down on hate. And yet the board of tech experts includes Eli Pariser, the board president of MoveOn and a co-founder of Avaaz, radical left-wing groups with their own histories of anti-Semitism.” … As online hate by the alt-left continues to grow, the ADL has not only failed to fight it, it ignored it and minimized it while making common cause with the funders and leaders of the anti-Semitic alt-left.”]

The ADL Murder and Extremism Report is a fraud, Dan Feinreich, The Times of Israel, January 29, 2019 [“On January 23, 2019, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report on “Murder and Extremism in the US in 2018.” … The report is a complete fraud. According to the report, there were a total of 17 incidents of “extremist-related murders” resulting in 50 people murdered in 2018, an increase from the 37 people murdered in 2017 but lower than the 70 and 72 murders in 2015 and 2016, respectively. … The ADL issued this report for political purposes. They want to attack President Trump, and they want to put conservatives on the defensive. They want to reduce attention paid to Islamic extremism and focus more attention on far right groups by exaggerating their influence. The ADL cleverly manipulated murder statistics in order to create a false perception that since the election of President Trump, right wing extremists and Trump supporters have come out of the woodwork and are roaming the country in every major city and small town in order to attack minorities. And it’s all Donald Trump’s fault. … With all due respect to the ADL, the facts in the report are not “chilling.” It is the intentionally misleading and deceptive conclusions contained in this report that are chilling.”]

The Anti-Defamation League Is Not What It Seems, Emmaia Gelman, Boston Review, May 23, 2019 [“Under the guise of fighting hate speech, the ADL has a long history of wielding its moral authority to attack Arabs, blacks, and queers. … At a time when it should be easier to see the ADL as a conservative knowledge production agency, a resurgence of concern with “hate” has only consolidated its power.”]

ADL, Antifa and Koch: Toxic Anti-Trump League, Michelle Malkin, RealClearPolitics, October 2, 2019 [“The Anti-Defamation League is a joke. Once a respected civil rights organization dedicated to fighting extremism and hate against Jews, the ADL lies in bed with violent antifa extremists and perpetuates hate against political opponents. …. The ADL also partners with the corporate cheap labor lobby funded by Trump-hating billionaire Republican Charles Koch to stifle patriotic critics of open borders. In June, the Charles Koch Institute joined left-wing Silicon Valley companies and ADL’s speech police to exploit the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, as a means of demonizing all Trump supporters and nationalist activists while giving cover to antifa online. … When the violence-enabling, smear merchants of the ADL and its collaborators are in charge of weaponizing “hate” and “defamation” to destroy dissent, who will step up to de-platform them?”]

Anti-Defamation League (ADL), InfluenceWatch, Capital Research Center, 2019? [“Since 2015, under the leadership of liberal former Obama administration staffer Jonathan Greenblatt, the organization has been sharply criticized for acting more as a left-leaning pressure group than a non-partisan anti-Semitism watchdog…. In this vein, the ADL has faced criticisms that it applies a double standard in its analysis of anti-Semitism, by focusing its efforts against political conservatives It has also been criticized for aligning with left-leaning groups such as the Black Lives Matter movement, whose membership has espoused anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric. The ADL has taken a number of partisan political positions that conservatives argue misuse the organization’s nonpartisan watchdog history and inappropriately place the organization at odds with politically conservative American Jews.”]

The ADL’s extremism statistics make it seem like ultraright-wing violence in the US is more common than it actually is, Anthony Fisher, Business Insider, April 23, 2020 [“The Anti-Defamation League’s statistics about extremism have been cited as authoritative by much of the press, including its most publicized claim that nearly three-quarters of extremist killings in the US over the past decade have been committed by “right-wing extremists,” a category that includes white nationalists. But if you define “extremist incidents” as incidents involving violence constituting a hate crime or terrorism, or incidents where a report of the incident refers to motivation by extremist views, just 58% of the incidents cited by the ADL over a 10-year-period fit that definition. A major factor is that the ADL counts “non-ideological” violence, such as extremists killing one another in botched drug deals and robberies, in its overall “extremist violence” stats. That significantly increases the overall number of incidents in its analysis. This is not to diminish violence motivated by bigotry or politics; on the contrary, the ADL’s reporting of statistics might be better served with more clearly defined and exacting standards of what constitutes “extremist violence.” Inflating the overall threat emboldens political extremists who want the public to live in fear. It also threatens confidence in the accuracy of trusted institutions’ analysis to public crises.”]

ADL San Diego Designates 76 No Place for Hate Schools for 2019-20 School Year, Press Release, San Diego County Office of Education, June 3, 2020 [“Despite pandemic-related shutdowns, this is the largest number of designations ADL SD has ever awarded to local K-12 schools in thirty years. No Place for Hate is an ADL partnership program that supports K-12 schools to maintain a climate where students of all identities feel safe, respected and have a sense of belonging. … Kelly Pallitto, Spring Valley Academy: “There is so much hate, and yet so much coming together right now. This moment in history is perfect for teaching about our human strengths when we put adversity aside and work together.””]

ADL CEO under fire for partnering with Sharpton in pushing for Facebook boycott, Jackson Richman, Jewish News Syndicate, July 2, 2020 [“The irony of Al Sharpton, who has a history of hate speech against Jews, calling out media giants for the same thing was not lost on Jewish organizations. … The campaign launched by the ADL and others to target hate groups on Facebook is being met with concern that it could encroach on issues of free speech and lead to the censoring of political ads by conservatives. Greenblatt, a veteran of the Obama and Clinton administrations, has also been criticized for moving his organization away from a nonpartisan stance and embracing the politics of the Democratic Party. Sharpton, host of the weekly one-hour show on the left-leaning cable-news network since 2011 (he had a failed run in 2004 for the Democratic presidential nomination), has long been embraced by Democratic politicians. Former Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, did not hold back in rebuking Greenblatt, calling the ADL leader’s appearance with Sharpton “pathetic,” “sickening” and “the worst hypocrisy in the world.” “

CAIR Joins 100+ Rights Groups in Denouncing ADL’s Pattern of Suppressing Justice Movements, Calls on Allies to Stop Working with ADL, Council on American-Islamic Relations Press Release, August 12, 2020 [“The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today joined a broad coalition of more than 100 civil rights and human rights advocacy organizations in denouncing the Anti-Defamation League’s “history and ongoing pattern of attacking social justice movements,” particularly those led by “immigrants, Muslims, Arabs, and other marginalized groups, while aligning itself with police, right-wing leaders, and perpetrators of state violence.” The coalition also called on community organizations, advocacy groups and social justice workers to reconsider their working relationships with the ADL.”]

Jewish orgs back Prop. 16 despite complicated history with affirmative action, Gabe Stutman, Forward, October 27, 2020 [“On balance, JCRC members opposed Prop. 209, though the decision was not unanimous: the ratio was about 3:1. Chair Judith Chapman announced the verdict in a letter on June 25, 1996, calling the initiative, from the perspective of the majority, “an unwarranted retreat from society’s obligation to correct centuries of discrimination directed against women and minorities.” This election season, Californians get a redo. Prop. 16 would amend the state constitution, repealing the 1996 addendum root and branch. … The outpouring of support today for Prop. 16 by major Bay Area Jewish organizations and lawmakers, alongside advocacy efforts, reflects an embrace of a policy that has a rocky history with American Jews, and may even divide them still. … And yet, exit polls conducted by the Los Angeles Times in 1996 showed a Jewish community more or less split on the issue. Fifty-eight percent of Jewish voters were against Prop. 209 (and therefore in support of affirmative action), while 42 percent supported the constitutional amendment to ban it. … Historically, while Jewish objections to race-based affirmative action have varied, many reveal scars left over from quota systems, which were common at American universities until the 1950s and capped the number of Jewish students at Yale, Princeton and other universities around the country. … Bay Area Jewish communal organizations, including the JCRC and the regional office of the ADL, have expressed strong support for Prop. 16. … Though it does not usually advocate publicly for state ballot measures other than issuing policy statements, this year the JCRC is urging yes on Prop. 16…. In explaining her office’s support for Prop. 16, Nancy Appel, senior associate regional director of the ADL for the Central Pacific, said she opposed those who would argue ours to be a “truly meritocratic and race-blind society.” … “California’s 25 year experiment in race- and gender-neutral public hiring, contracting, and education decisions has failed,” the ADL statement read. “That type of system can’t succeed in a world where women and people of color are paid less, given fewer chances to access higher education, and are denied job opportunities.””]

Coronado Schools Join No Place for Hate Program, Chloe Berk, The Coronado Times, December 10, 2020 [“The Coronado Unified School District (CUSD) has joined the national program, No Place for Hate, to combat bias and bullying in schools. No Place for Hate is an educational program of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that helps schools build a learning community of inclusivity, respect, and equity. Over 1,600 schools across the United States have adopted the No Place for Hate program. 76 schools in San Diego County have adopted this program in the past year. CUSD Equity Coordinator, Niamh Foley, announced, “CUSD has joined other San Diego districts in utilizing this [No Place for Hate] framework to ensure all students feel safe, valued, and respected in their school environments.” NOTE: This article makes clear that the NPfH program was one initiated and run by CUSD administrators, teachers and counselors; when objections to the program were raised by many parents the following spring, administrators claimed the program was just a student-initiated and student run “club.” Tch, tch. – S. Hurlbert]

How the ADL’s Israel Advocacy Undermines Its Civil Rights Work, Jacob Hutt & Alex Kane, Jewish Currents, February 8, 2021 [“In the summer of 2016, a handful of senior Anti-Defamation League (ADL) staff members and executives in New York and Washington, DC joined a conference call to discuss a sensitive topic: the organization’s position on what would come to be known as the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. The bill would amend federal civil rights law to employ a controversial definition of antisemitism, which included “delegitimiz[ing]” Israel, blaming Israel for “all . . . political tensions,” and, in the case of international organizations, “focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations.” … Foxman retired in 2015, and Jonathan Greenblatt’s takeover of the ADL that summer was heralded by ADL supporters and segments of the Jewish press as an exciting shift, a chance for the organization to enhance its stated role as a Jewish civil rights organization. Greenblatt had previously worked as an aide to the Obama White House in its Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, and before that had co-founded Ethos Water, a bottled water company eventually bought by Starbucks. Though he was not well known in the mainstream Jewish community at the time, the Jewish press painted him as a social entrepreneur who could attract young Jews. Greenblatt, The Forward reported in 2014, was “different in age, background, experience and politics from its outgoing iconic leader” and “embodie[d] the ADL’s wish to open a new era in which young American Jews, currently turned off by the idea of joining membership organizations, will flock back home.” … “Abe Foxman, love him or hate him, you knew where he stood,” said the former member of the ADL’s Civil Rights Division. “I don’t think Jonathan has personal beliefs.” Greenblatt’s squishy politics, critics say, have made room for donors and other influential voices at the ADL to shape the organization’s approach to the vexed Israel/Palestine debate in the US.“]

APT takes action where Jewish leadership has lost its way, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, August 13, 2019 [“The recent surge of hostility toward the American Jewish community is becoming harder to deny. More necessary than ever is a competent Jewish leadership, one which understands the threats we face and has a vision to guide and protect the community. This does not exist today. … America has been a haven for Jews for hundreds of years. Discrimination existed but it faded. And it came without pogroms. Our situation was manageable. Jews thrived in a society based on meritocracy. … Understandably, Jews thought they had built themselves a safe space in America: The Holocaust made antisemitism taboo. The unique American patchwork society made Jews just one more minority among all the others. The left saw the Jews as a special people because of their history of horrific persecution. Their passion for justice for all, especially for the historically marginalized or oppressed groups like African Americans, women, and immigrants, gave Jews star status on the liberal side of America’s house. The ground started to shift with the radicalization of those historically marginalized communities. Over the last few decades, the progressive movement, in the name of social justice and equality, slowly shifted the ground under America’s feet. It propounded — through media, political, and academic institutions — a new and toxic view of America, one that is rebranding the Jews as un-virtuous. … [Establishment Jewish leaders] failed to understand the nature and the inevitable animus towards Jews that lies at the heart of identity politics. They glimpse only now that “intersectionality” casts Jews as privileged wealthy “whites,” and supporters of the racist colonial Jewish state that persecutes “people of color.” They forgot the lessons of Jewish history. They seem unfamiliar with the historical experience of how politics is organized against Jews.”]

ADL, Antifa and Koch: Toxic anti-Trump league, Michelle Malkin, Palm Beach Post, October 4, 2019 [“The Anti-Defamation League is a joke. Once a respected civil rights organization dedicated to fighting extremism and hate against Jews, the ADL lies in bed with violent Antifa extremists and perpetuates hate against political opponents. The “progressive” group is now a brazenly partisan character assassination outfit headed by Jonathan Greenblatt, a Clinton/Obama operative and former George Soros-funded operative, whose contempt for President Donald Trump trumps all. The ADL also partners with the corporate cheap-labor lobby funded by Trump-hating billionaire Republican Charles Koch to stifle patriotic critics of open borders. In June, the Charles Koch Institute joined left-wing Silicon Valley companies and ADL’s speech police to exploit the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, as a means of demonizing all Trump supporters and nationalist activists while giving cover to Antifa online.”]

ADL San Diego Designates 76 No Place for Hate Schools for 2019-20 School Year, San Diego County Office of Education, June 3, 2020 [“ADL (Anti-Defamation League) San Diego announced that 76 schools have earned their No Place for Hate designation for the 2019-20 school year. Despite the challenges of distance learning as the academic year draws to a close, many San Diego County schools remained committed to completing the year-long program. In fact, a number of participating campuses utilized ADL’s digital lesson plans to help students expand their understanding of how the Coronavirus pandemic has contributed to increasing racism against people of Asian descent, and what students can do to fight such bigotry. … Visit the ADL San Diego website for a full list of San Diego County’s 2019-2020 Designated No Place for Hate schools. No Place for Hate is an organizing framework and ADL partnership program for K-12 schools committed to creating sustainable change that leads to improved school climate. Participating schools incorporate ADL’s anti-bias and anti-bullying resources with their existing programming to form one powerful message that all students have a place to belong. Over 1,800 schools across the country participate in No Place for Hate annually.”]

Black Lives Matter and the Jews (10min video), Americans for Peace and Tolerance, 2020[“We are witnessing the demise of a liberal culture, and its replacement by a radical and hostile culture. This emerging movement claims to advance fairness, justice, and righting historical wrongs; but its actions are doing the opposite. Sadly, it’s hard for Jews not to be fooled by good intentions. America’s Jews, who have been in the forefront of the struggles for black civil rights, now face a serious dilemma. While the slogan “Black Lives Matter” is a justified plea for equal treatment and a passionate commitment to the well-being of our black fellow Americans, significant elements within the Black Lives Matter leadership pose a threat to the Jewish community.”]

ADL Files First Circuit Amicus Brief in Support of Harvard College’s Admissions Policies, Fried Frank, News Release, May 21, 2020 [“Fried Frank served as counsel to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in its filing of an amicus brief urging the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to uphold Harvard College’s admissions policies. The amicus brief draws on ADL’s experience in a variety of education-related settings to demonstrate that exposure to a diverse academic community serves critical societal needs. The ADL’s amicus brief supports Harvard’s argument that the university has a compelling interest in pursuing the benefits of student body diversity, and rejects the Students for Fair Admissions’ argument that Harvard’s past discriminatory admissions practices—which were designed to decrease Jewish enrollment—are comparable to its practices today.”]

ADL targeted for not being woke enough for extremists, Jonathan Tobin, Israel Hayom, August 19, 2020 [“For the last five years, the Anti-Defamation League has undergone a not-so-subtle transformation. Under its longtime executive director Abe Foxman, who led the group from 1987 to 2015, it was a liberal-leaning but nonpartisan watchdog against anti-Semitism. But under his successor, Jonathan Greenblatt, a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations, the ADL has become a reliable auxiliary of the Democratic Party taking sides against Israel’s government and involving the group in partisan squabbles and bashing President Donald Trump. In a supreme irony, leftist anti-Semites have chosen to target the ADL, and not more centrist or conservative Jewish entities, as part of an effort aimed at canceling the group.”]

Why Jews would vote for Trump: Answering Abe Foxman, Norm Coleman, Republican Jewish Coalition, September 13, 2020 [“The “more in sadness than in anger” trope is on full display in a recent Times of Israel op-ed by Abe Foxman about Jewish voters and President Trump. Foxman, who served as head of the Anti-Defamation League for decades and oversaw its shift from mainstream community defense organization to a shill for the left, offers a harsh critique of President Donald Trump’s record of unparalleled support for Israel and fails to make mention of the virulent anti-Semitism that now flows from the lips of the ascendant “progressive leadership” of the Democrat party; including Ilhan Omar, Rashid Tlaib and AOC. Let me set the record straight. President Trump’s record is a story of perseverance and success in the face of overwhelming opposition – and his every success has benefited the United States and the Jewish community. … American Jews have better memories, and more smarts, than Abe Foxman gives them credit for. President Trump will win Jewish votes in this election because he has fought for us – for all of us – and we have seen the results. There has never been a better friend of Israel and the Jewish community in the White House, and with our community’s help, Donald Trump will continue his good work there for another four years.”]

Will impeachment and censorship defend Jews against anti-Semitism?, Jonathan Tobin, Jewish News Syndicate, January 12, 2021 [“Impeaching President Trump can be debated on the merits. But the Anti-Defamation League’s endorsement of it and the silencing of dissent shows how far it has strayed from the purpose for which it was created. … At the same time, for those organizations whose job is to defend specific Jewish interests, involvement in partisan politics is a perilous and often destructive temptation. Whether it is a question of seeking support for Jewish communal needs, Israel or the fight against anti-Semitism, it remains imperative that those who claim to speak in the name of the community avoid taking stands that will confuse Jewish interests with those of their secular political allies. Unfortunately, the leadership of the Anti-Defamation League has not only forgotten this principle but seems to think they no longer even have to pretend to be anything but a Democratic Party auxiliary group.”]

The Anti-Jewish Narrative, Nathan Cofnas, Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel 49:1329-1344, February 3, 2021 [“According to the mainstream narrative about race, all groups have the same innate dispositions and potential, and all disparities—at least those favoring whites—are due to past or present racism. Some people who reject this narrative gravitate toward an alternative, anti-Jewish narrative, which sees recent history in terms of a Jewish/ gentile conflict. The most sophisticated promoter of the anti-Jewish narrative is the evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald. MacDonald argues that Jews have a suite of genetic adaptations—including high intelligence and ethnocentrism—and cultural practices that lead them to undermine gentile society to advance their own evolutionary interests. He says that Jewish-designed intellectual movements have weakened gentile identity and culture while preserving Jewish identity and separattism. Cofnas recently argued that MacDonald’s theory is based on “systematically misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts.” However, Cofnas gave short shrift to at least three key claims: (a) Jews are highly ethnocentric, (b) liberal Jews hypocritically advocate liberal multiculturalism for gentiles/gentile countries but racial purity and separatism for Jews/Israel, and (c) Jews are responsible for liberalism and mass immigration to the United States. The present paper examines these claims and concludes that MacDonald’s views are not supported.”]

What’s ‘No Place For Hate’ actually teaching Colorado kids?, Will Johnson, Chalkboard Review, March 4, 2021 [“Coloradans agree that schools should be no place for hate. We should foster bravery and respect and reject bullying and racism. Cultivating such a school climate helps children reach their full potential—a goal we all recognize has life-long benefits. How do we best achieve these shared goals? A program called “No Place For Hate” (NPFH) implemented in more than 70 K-12 Colorado schools, including 35 in Douglas County, attempts to answer this. There are certainly some things to like about the program, such as condemning bullying and bias and promoting empathy. But below the surface, parents and our community should be aware of causes for concern—reasons to question whether this program is accomplishing what we think it is. The concerns begin with the program’s requirements. At least 75 percent of students must sign a “pledge” for a school to get the NPFH designation. We’re told it’s voluntary, but some teachers are directed to repeatedly ask students who haven’t signed the pledge to do so. The pledge itself is good, extolling shared virtues. But is it necessary for kids to sign the pledge to be seen as kind, respectful, and rejecting hate? … The core question here is “what is the purpose of publicly financed education?” Is it to make our kids hyper-aware of their differences and turn them into political activists? Or is it to teach them how to think, not what to think? Apparently, NPFH views the former as a primary purpose of education, and wants it to permeate Colorado schools’ curriculum. Is this how we want our tax dollars used?”]

Webinar: The Failure of Jewish Leadership — “Where’s the ADL?” (74min audio), Jonathan Tobin & William Jacobson interviewed by Charles Jacobs, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, March 10, 2021 [“In the first of APT’s 2021 webinar series on failed Jewish leadership, Charles Jacobs interviews Prof. William A. Jacobson of Cornell Law School and “Legal Insurrection,” and Jonathan S. Tobin, the editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). They both give their unique and experienced perspectives on how the American Jewish establishment’s crown jewel, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has consistently failed to carry out its mission of defending American Jews, preferring to simply be a mouthpiece for fashionable leftist maxims, which have nothing to do with Judaism.”]

Civil Rights vs. Israel Advocacy: The Battle Inside the ADL (77min video), Jewish Currents, March 15, 2021 [Noa Yachot, Jacob Matt, Alex Kane & Diala Shamas discuss the “Drop the ADL” initiative, conflicts among different foci – “white supremacy,” “antiracism,” defense of Israel, Foxman-Greenblatt contrast, influence of donors, proposed antisemitism awareness act, redefinitions of antiracism, “Palestine,” biggest funders = huge donor base, family foundations, grassroots, Robert Kraft (Trump supporter), Seth Karman, Bernard Marcus (Home Depot), etc., “real threat of white supremacist movement”, support Defund the Police movement, “white violence”, etc. Gives impression that ADL is very effective on fundraising and getting media attention by 1) exaggerating the threats of antisemitism and “white supremacy”, and 2) by actively defending Israel. But it seems an organization somewhat adrift and conflicted, and it certainly engages in a lot of “defamation” of others in many of its baseless accusations of “white supremacy” – S.Hurlbert]

ADL, others, give some anti-Semitism a pass, Jonathan Tobin, Intermountain Jewish News, March 18, 2021 [“We need to ponder why so much of the organized Jewish community has drunk the BLM and critical race theory Kool-Aid. This has led to it essentially legitimizing not only the rampant anti-Semitism in parts of that movement but also those, like Mallory, who have identified themselves with hate groups, and those opponents of Israel who spread the libel that it is an “apartheid state” and deny its right to exist. Among the most enthusiastic endorsers of this allegedly progressive stance are the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the ADL, which have embraced the BLM mantra as unquestioned truth. … The failure of much of the organized Jewish world to take a stand isn’t merely a disgrace. It’s one more piece of evidence showing how wokeness is compromising the defense of Jewish rights and enabling anti-Semitism.”]

Programs, Events in Support of the Jewish Community Planned for Fall, SDSU News Team, San Diego State University, March 30, 2021 [“A Presidential Task Force on Addressing Antisemitism, along with new events and programs, will launch at San Diego State University in response to regional and national instances of antisemitism and bias targeting members of the Jewish community. Beginning in fall 2021, these and other initiatives will be launched through a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in San Diego and Hillel to offer interventions that address antisemitism while also supporting Jewish inclusion at SDSU and elsewhere. … The ADL, which tracks extremism, confronts discrimination, and promotes refectful [sic] schools and communities, will work with SDSU’s Center for Inclusive Excellence. The partnership will lead to the development of a professional learning community for faculty and staff on recognizing and responding to antisemitism, bias and hate in the classroom and also in co-curricular spaces. … Members of the Presidential Task Force on Addressing Antisemitism, which will be formed later in the year, will create a recommended protocol for how universities can better react to incidents of antisemitism, hate and bias toward members of the Jewish community.”]

Orthodox Rabbis Defend Tucker Carlson From Charges of Anti-Semitism by Anti-Defamation League, Aila Slisco, Newsweek, April 14, 2021 [“A conservative group representing over 1,500 Orthodox Jewish rabbis has condemned Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Director Jonathan Greenblatt’s letter calling on Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson for allegedly promoting “a classic white supremacist trope.” The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) objected to the call to fire Carlson in a letter sent to Greenblatt on Tuesday, insisting that his views were informed by “grossly misplaced charges of antisemitism” that the ADL has promoted under his leadership. Four days earlier, Greenblatt penned a letter to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott accusing Carlson of espousing the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory during a segment positing that Democrats hoped to “replace” right-leaning American voters with left-leaning immigrants. “The Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents over 1,500 traditional, observant rabbis in American public policy, is distressed by grossly misplaced charges of antisemitism made by your organization,” the group wrote to Greenblatt. “Your recent attack on Tucker Carlson of Fox News, calling it ‘white supremacist’ to question whether particular policy choices enable illegal immigrants to nullify the votes of American citizens, is merely one example.”]

The ADL Is Not Jewish and No Longer Speaks for Jews: Under Jonathan Greenblatt, they’ve lost focus, attacking conservatives instead of fighting anti-Semitism, Dov Fischer, American Spectator, April 16, 2021 [“Thus emerged the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith. America’s Jews desperately needed a defense organization, and B’nai B’rith, the fraternal order, was their biggest group, so best situated to act. They formed the ADL. ADL emerged to defend German Jews in America, and they defended East European Jews because, when anti-Semitism arises, haters do not distinguish. For the next century, ADL became identified with Jewish legal defense. … But this no longer is the case. As Jew-hatred of the Marietta, Georgia, sort abated in America, ADL increasingly lost sight of its fundamental purpose. Expanding its mission to focus on opposing other forms of hate, ADL became more of a general all-purpose human-rights organization. That can be a good thing if implemented fairly. Unfortunately, ADL’s demise as a Jewish organization was cemented in July 2015, ironically almost 100 years to the day of the Leo Frank lynching, when the organization named Jonathan Greenblatt to be its new national director. Greenblatt, a hardened “progressive,” had just served as special assistant to the president in the Obama White House. He is an Obama acolyte through and through. From the day that he arrived, he converted the ADL into a markedly left-focused organization. Under Greenblatt, ADL has focused almost exclusively on combating right-wing hate and also attacking conservative non-haters among Republicans, Fox News anchors, and the like — while giving virtually free passes to the Left.”]

Dramatic Inappropriateness of an ADL-SDSU Alliance, Stuart H. Hurlbert, Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, August 16, 2021 [“In the Spring of 2021, the San Diego State University administration announced plans for an SDSU alliance with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to deal with antisemitism. Such an alliance seemed to me, based on my extensive investigations of ADL over the preceding year, a very unwise, political move on the part of the university. Knowing from long experience the ideological intransigence of the power brokers at SDSU and the misperceptions of ADL under which most of the SDSU community operates, and to provoke useful discussion among all faculty members, I sent out widely the letter below. Appended to this is a “Postscript October 2021” that recounts some of the apparent positive sequelae of this effort up to that time. None of this is to deny the real problem of antisemitism or to discourage in any way effective attempts to fight it. As most readers will see, the core problem described here is a central administration’s use of antiracism as a pretext for advancing other political purposes.”]

Biden Goes All in on ADL, FBI Hype Over ‘White Supremacy’, John Friend, American Free Press, April 19, 2021 [“Since assuming office, President Joe Biden has hysterically hyped the purported threat of domestic violent extremism, using the largely peaceful yet disorganized and chaotic Capitol protest on Jan. 6 as a justification. In a recent inaugural address, Biden decried “a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, [and] domestic terrorism,” largely manufacturing and exaggerating threats which he claimed the country “must confront” and ultimately “defeat.” The Biden White House has launched an all-out war on domestic violent extremism, including reviews to existing policies within the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Security Council, and the U.S. military designed to analyze, address, and tackle the purported threat. … In order to address this “massive threat” facing the country, the Biden White House and national security team “urgently reached out to the Anti- Defamation League (ADL) for help,” according to a revealing article published by Time magazine in mid-March. … The Biden administration has stepped up its consultation with biased grievance organizations such as the ADL and is using every tool, including intelligence agencies, at its disposal to combat domestic extremism. This possibly violates long-standing laws prohibiting the U.S. intelligence community—in particular the CIA—from engaging in domestic operations.”]

The ADL – Democrats who happen to be Jewish, David Isaac, World Israel News, April 22, 2021 [“The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called for Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s head earlier this month. In an over-the-top letter to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on April 9, ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt said, “It is time for Carlson to go.” … Carlson argued that “demographic change is the key to the Democratic party’s political ambitions. … When you change who votes, you change who wins. That has nothing inherently to do with race or nationality. It is the nature of democracy.” One may or may not agree with this, but it’s not anti-Semitism.

… Jonathan Tobin, the dean of American Jewish journalism, said the real weakness of the ADL’s argument “is that up until recently, the ones talking about immigrants replacing or overwhelming white voters have been liberals.” Carlson pointed this out, too. “They [the Left] say it all the time. They’ve done studies on it. Written long books about it. Talked about it endlessly on television, often in the ugliest racial terms. They’re not ashamed at all.” We, too, wonder where the ADL was when, for instance, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote a 2018 column under the headline “We Can Replace Them.” … The reason for the double standard is clear enough. The ADL, founded in 1913 “to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people,” has a new purpose. It’s no longer protecting Jews from anti-Semitism. It’s protecting Democrats from criticism. That’s why you get the disagreement over Carlson between two Jewish groups that will leave non-Jews scratching their heads. The unseemly dispute is the natural result of the ADL transforming into a Democratic party support group. … Most trace the ADL’s turning point to the advent of Jonathan Greenblatt, a former adviser to President Barack Obama. In a sane world, a resume with his background would have ended up in an ADL wastebasket. But ADL’s downward spiral came long before. One could say the ADL died in 1987 when Nathan Perlmutter, the last great ADL national director, passed away from lung cancer. It was under Abraham Foxman, national director from 1987-2015, that ADL lost its way. … The ADL measures its success in dollars and it’s pulling in tens of millions, giving it the false idea that it’s on the right track. It’s not money ADL needs. It’s new leadership and a return to its original mission.”]

Jewish groups should work for justice, not toxic race theories, Jonathan Tobin, Jewish News Syndicate, April 23, 2021 [“Americans were relieved by the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Still, the JCPA and ADL shouldn’t join with partisans and radicals to exploit it to push a racialist agenda that hurts Jews. … For the Anti-Defamation League, a post-Chauvin verdict statement in which it said, “It is long past time for our country to tackle systemic racism, reimagine what public safety looks like and create transformational change,” employed the same disingenuous talking points as BLM activists. The same was true of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, which issued a statement sounding the same notes about “systemic racism” and the need to “transform law enforcement.” What’s so discouraging about this is not just the way groups that represent the Jewish community to the rest of the country are now not just supporting BLM ideology, but how they are weaving its ideology into their own agendas.”]

Remove The ADL & No Place for Hate from Mountain Brook Schools: A Petition, Mountain Brook United, Change.org, May 2021 [“We write to share our deep concerns about controversial steps taken by the MountainBrook School System in connection with the stated goal of promoting diversity, including the decision to partner with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to conduct a series of training sessions for school teachers and staff. … It is very troubling and reflects poor judgment that the School System would align itself with a political organization like ADL. We know and respect that some in our community are supportive of ADL and will criticize our criticism of ADL and its programs, but it should have come as no surprise that there is widespread outrage within our community about the School System’s partnership with ADL. We are certainly aware that ADL promotes itself as a non-partisan organization, but its actions and stated positions on controversial topics demonstrate otherwise. To emphasize, everyone signing onto this letter endorses the original purpose behind ADL’s founding — fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry. But ADL’s website reflects that its mission has expanded to many other politically controversial areas and the positions it has taken in those areas and the actions to promote such causes are at odds with the sincerely held beliefs of many, many Mountain Brook citizens. … We also understand that the School System is cancelling its contract with ADL. We certainly support this, and request that a copy of the cancelled contract is made public, but this is only a first step needed to restore confidence and trust that our school programs will not be used to promote a partisan agenda.”]

Bearing False Witness: Leading civil rights organizations lend their voices to false claims about police, Ari Maas, City Journal, May 3, 2021 [“After Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd, many organizations and celebrities issued press releases that went beyond celebrating justice, offering blanket condemnations of the police as universally racist and oppressive. … During my career I have participated in training classes and used publications put out by both the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center, (SPLC). I know firsthand that these organizations value their partnerships with law enforcement. Yet this history didn’t stop either of these organizations from painting every police officer with the same broad brush. Every time a police officer takes a life, it is a sad and traumatizing event for everyone involved. But it is not, as the ADL contends, evidence of a system that “target[s] and devalue[s] Black, brown, and Indigenous lives for centuries.” An ADL press release opined that Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old shot by Chicago police, was killed because of “systemic racism,” not because police were responding to the presence of an armed individual fleeing the scene of a “shots fired” call. The shooting was tragic, but it wasn’t the result of systemic racism, and a group that seeks justice when churches are burned should know that.”]

Chutzpah: ADL wants a federal bailout, Michelle Malkin, Williston Herald, May 4, 2021 [“When I think of “essential” workers in America, the smear merchants of the Anti-Defamation League are at the bottom of the barrel. For decades, they’ve demonized conservatives and Christians as agents of “hate” and treated our very existence as incitements to violence. … Now, in the wake of the “Chinese flu” pandemic, ADL is lining up with all the other federal bailout vultures clamoring for free money. This week, the group issued a statement calling on Congress to include “relief for charities” in any COVID-19 legislation. “In times of crisis,” ADL self-righteously urged, “nonprofits are on the front lines, ready to respond and serve communities across the nation — but funds are needed to continue doing so.” The “relief package” pushed by ADL and several hundred other groups demands $60 billion in “emergency stimulus funding to support our work… during this time of crisis and need.” What a crock. The primary “front lines” ADL occupies are on the battlefields against American sovereignty and free speech. By my count, the open borders zealots of ADL have filed 17 amicus briefs in our courts supporting obstruction of Trump’s immigration enforcement and national security measures. … ADL’s full-throated promotion of America’s demographic transformation through mass migration stands in stark contrast to its unapologetic defense of Israel’s restrictionist immigration policies and militarized borders. But heaven forbid you point out the hypocrisy.”]

Jews, Defund the Anti-Defamation League, Alan Bergstein, Published Reporter.com, May 10, 2021 [Also published as The Paradigm Shift of the ADL in TheJewishVoice.com] [“It’s time for Jews who are truly concerned for the survival of American Jewry and Israel to finally take a deep breath and stop signing donation checks to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). That former vital and fearless Jewish defense group, now under the leadership of former President Obama aide and Soros confidant, Jonathan Greenblatt, has shamelessly joined other such worthless groups as HIAS, J Street, T’ruah, Jewish Voices for Peace and The National Council of Jewish Women, who still badger and beg their Jewish benefactors for cash while serving the interests of anti-Jewish causes and movements. … In NYC where violent attacks against Jews perpetrated by blacks is on the uptick, the ADL recently rewarded the city $250,000 to train kids not to hate. Would it not have been better to spend that cash focusing on teaching, specifically black kids, not to hate. Why waste funds on white kids who don’t participate in violent attacks on Jews or blacks? Is he fearful to pinpoint blacks as singularly in need of assistance to be peaceful? And then the ADL along with 600 other brain dead “Jewish” groups signed a full page ad in the NYT in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement whose charter calls Israel a genocidal state, that supports the BDS movement that calls for our cops to be attacked and killed in the streets. Have these ADL geniuses read the BLM charter or walked in their processions to hear their chants of, “What do we want?…Dead cops!” Is the ADL supporting murdering cops, wiping out police departments or defunding them?”]

Our Commitment to an Inclusive, Supportive Environment Remains Strong, Luke Wood, Office of Student Affairs and Campus Diversity, San Diego State University, May 11, 2021 [“Dear SDSU Community, Earlier today, we were notified of a social media post by an SDSU student promoting antisemitic language and disparaging members of the Jewish community. I joined several other university officials working with the San Diego State University Police Department (UPD) to quickly assess the situation. … We were in contact with SDSU’s University Senate chair today to request that our Senate take action via policy modifications, resolutions and other efforts to counter antisemitism on campus and in our community. The Senate Executive Officers immediately reviewed, and have referred this to the Senate Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for action at their next meeting. … Our university launched the Presidential Task Force on Addressing Antisemitism last month, which will soon begin meeting. The group is charged with making recommendations for protocols on responding to incidents of antisemitism, hate and bias toward members of SDSU’s Jewish community, and toward the Jewish community as a whole. … In March, our university also announced an enhanced partnership with two local organizations: the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Hillel. Together, we have a shared goal of creating a more inclusive community for Jewish students, faculty and staff. The ADL will work closely with SDSU’s Center for Inclusive Excellence to develop an innovative professional learning community for faculty and staff on recognizing and responding to antisemitism, bias and hate in the classroom and in co-curricular spaces.”]

A Member of the Anti-Defamation League’s Diversity Council is Embroiled in an Anti-Semitism Scandal: The Anti-Semitism Watchdog Has Nothing to Say About It, Alana Goodman, Washington Free Beacon,June 11, 2021 [“The Anti-Defamation League, which bills itself as an anti-bigotry watchdog group, is curiously silent in the face of anti-Semitic remarks from an employee of a key member of its corporate diversity council. Google, which reassigned a top employee last week after a Washington Free Beacon report on his anti-Semitic remarks, is among a handful of corporations that work with the ADL on diversity issues. “We thank these corporations and others who stand with us to help us build diversity,” a recent ADL report said, recognizing Google as a partner in its efforts. Google came under fire last week for the anti-Semitic remarks made by its then-diversity chief, Kamau Bobb, who said in a 2007 blog post that Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war.” Bobb is still working on Google’s tech education initiatives, although he was removed from his diversity role after the Free Beacon reported on his comments. … The ADL’s silence follows criticism that the group has taken a biased and partisan approach under director Jonathan Greenblatt, who joined the organization after serving as an aide to President Barack Obama. The group criticized Facebook—which is not listed as a member of its corporate leadership council—for its failure to permanently ban President Donald Trump from the platform due to his “hate and disinformation” posts and also vocally condemned Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. … Writing in the Jewish News Syndicate in 2018, Jonathan Tobin described Greenblatt’s opposition to Kavanaugh as “the act of a reckless partisan who doesn’t even feel the need to maintain the pretense that the group he leads has a higher purpose than diving into the daily political scrum.””]

DougCo parents show CRT the door, Editorial, Denver Gazette, June 9, 2021 [“Critical Race Theory made the leap from academic jargon to political talking point in 2020. It even picked up its own acronym, CRT. And most recently, it has started to get the scrutiny, and push-back, it deserves. That’s especially so in public schools in Colorado as across the country. … And in Colorado, Douglas County parents have risen up against CRT in their children’s schools. The Douglas County School District pays the Anti-Defamation League for the use of its “No Place for Hate” curriculum. No Place for Hate defines racism as “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people” and warns students that “microaggressions” and “seeking out like-minded people” could lead to genocide.”]

No Place for Hate: Just the Facts Please, Jim Fabiszak, Coronado Eagle & Journal, June 18, 2021 [“Recently there has been a plethora of debate surrounding the implementation of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) No Place for Hate Program (NPFH) at CUSD schools. The following are “just the facts” according to the 2020-2021 No Place for Hate Coordinator Handbook & Resource Guide, “An ADL Education Program.” … This guide is the single resource which CUSD coordinators and parent volunteers are to follow in the implementation of NPFH. From this guide: “Move On From Kindness. Schools Need to Foster Social Justice” and “ADL highly encourages schools to move beyond kindness to social justice” (page 20); “The first step is to facilitate students’ learning about the issues in a rigorous and complex way, and then to get them involved in action, advocacy and/or activism” (page 21); “Be mindful that the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’ come with a set of expectations and gender norms about how people express their identity. For many, these terms are limiting and confining so gender-neutral options are preferable” (page 24); “Systems of Bias: RACISM: The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people” (page 52). Based on these statements of fact, it is (at the minimum) unclear what Superintendent Mueller’s basis for stating in last week’s print Coronado Eagle that regarding NPFH, “CUSD is not aligning any efforts or adopting curriculum from any outside organization and has no intention to indoctrinate students in any way.” If you believe this ideology is divisive and facilitates an environment which will further erode our community and pit students versus other students and parents, I encourage you to tell the School Board to end NPFH immediately and visit the local website wetheparentscoronado.org for further information.”]

Mtn. Brook Schools To Disassociate With Anti-Defamation League, Michael Seale, Patch, June 22, 2021 [“In its statement Tuesday, the system said Mountain Brook Schools will not use the “No Place for Hate” framework and will disassociate with the ADL.”]

The Jewish Stake in the Battle Against Critical Race Theory, Jonathin Tobin, Jewish Journal, June 23, 2021 [“The pushback against woke education indoctrination is being falsely labeled as a politicized attack on free speech. Why are national Jewish groups on the wrong side of this battle? What’s the latest racist threat to American democracy? According to a host of liberal publications, it’s the nationwide push to prevent the imposition of critical race theory doctrines on public education. Articles in publications like like The New York Times, NBC and Axios claim grassroots efforts to stop local school boards from adopting curricula heavily influenced by radical ideas depicting America as an irredeemably racist nation are both racist in spirit and largely the work of right-wing conspiracy theorists who are being organized and funded by national conservative groups. Outlets like the Times, where support for critical race theory is a constant theme for writers like Michelle Goldberg and Charles Blow, claim that this growing activist movement is a noxious form of Trumpism whose aim is to demonize an important idea and the righteous educators seeking to shed light on American racism. Critical race theory opponents are being likened to book burners, censorship advocates and McCarthyite witch-hunters persecuting free thinkers. … What’s more, this is an issue in which the interests of the Jewish community are very much at risk from those who wish to label both the Jewish people and Israel as linked to “white privilege” and the effort to oppress “people of color.” But rather than joining in opposition to those trying to make critical race theory and the associated intersectional ideas that delegitimize the Jewish state, the organized Jewish community and its leading groups are either absent from the fight or, as in the case of the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, on the wrong side of it. … It is unfortunate that this issue quickly became politicized but in a country where politics has infiltrated every sector of society perhaps that was inevitable. By the end of last summer, it became one in which Republicans and conservatives were lining up behind Trump’s executive order against imposing critical race training in government agencies, and Democrats and liberals immediately and wrongly assumed they should defend these programs. As the country became even more polarized by the presidential election and its aftermath, it also became apparent that the spread of critical race theory in school curricula was not some marginal phenomena but happening across the nation without debate or proper vetting. … It is imperative that Jews join the movement to stop the twisting of American education in such a way as to undermine the cause of liberty, as well as endanger Israel and the Jewish community. That those who are supposed to be defending the Jews feel more comfortable accepting the partisan conventional wisdom about race theory is both a scandal and a tragedy.”]

Mountain Brook backtracks on anti-bias training after parent criticism links to critical race theory, Rebecca Griesbach, AL.com, June 28, 2021 [“A recent smattering of anti-ADL surveys and flyers circulating around social media have warned parents about the organization’s No Place for Hate program planned for Mountain Brook campuses, charging that “controversial issues” surround the organization. Members of that group said they were not a “vocal minority,” noting that 625 parents signed a letter to the school board. “Everyone signing onto this letter endorses the original purpose behind ADL’s founding — fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry,” the letter states. “But ADL’s website reflects that its mission has expanded to many other politically controversial areas and the positions it has taken in those areas and the actions to promote such causes are at odds with the sincerely held beliefs of many, many Mountain Brook citizens …. Public school systems should strive to educate children while being politically neutral in its policies and programming.” … Krissie Allen was an English and American studies teacher at Mountain Brook High School who said she expressed interest in the board’s diversity committee but was turned away. She was also one of the hundreds of teachers who attended an anti-bias training, which she said “reduced everything down to gender and race” and left her worried about how its lessons on allyship and microaggressions would affect the classroom culture. “It does not help discussion and freedom of thought in the classroom to teach students that they have to be walking on eggshells,” Allen said.”]

“Jonathan Greenblatt is a Disgrace” (2min audio), John Podhoretz, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, June 30, 2021 [“The ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, is now being continuously portrayed — by influential and prestigious Jewish writers and thinkers — as the Democratic operative who hijacked the ADL for his party. Now Greenblatt finally opened his mouth about Ilhan Omar’s brazen Jew-hatred. This is what he said. Wimpy and whiney: “To accuse Jewish members of not being involved in ‘justice’ is ignorant of their records, and especially offensive when it’s an effort to distract from your own #antisemitic statements. Rep. Omar needs to lead with accountability, not denial — definitely not blaming the victim.” This is not how a Jewish leader responds to a powerful anti-Semite’s bigotry. Listen to Jonathan Podhoretz, “Commentary” magazine’s editor, ripping into Greenblatt for his weak statement.“]

The Jews Who Are Complicit in Jew-Hatred: It’s a feature, not a bug, of the horrors of the past month , Seth Mandel, Commentary, July/August 2021 [““Until the latest surge,” read a May 26 story, “anti-Semitic violence in recent years was largely considered a right-wing phenomenon, driven by a white supremacist movement emboldened by rhetoric from former President Donald J. Trump, who often trafficked in stereotypes.” This was nonsense: The most common street violence against Jews took place in New York and New Jersey, and it had nothing at all to do with Trump or “right-wing” politics. Par for the course for the Gray Lady, perhaps, but far more concerning was where the reporters seemed to be getting the misinformation. “This is why Jews feel so terrified in this moment,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told the paper. “For four years it seemed to be stimulated from the political right, with devastating consequences.” At the scenes of Jew-hunting that began in May, during the war between Israel and Hamas, Greenblatt lamented, “No one is wearing MAGA hats.”… If there’s one organization whose responsibility it is to prepare not just the Jewish community but the wider United States public and its government for emerging anti-Semitic threats, it’s the ADL. Instead, the head of the ADL has been spreading a cynical left-wing myth about anti-Semitism while threats to the Jewish community fester.”]

The ADL head’s disingenuous epiphany about left-wing antisemitism, Ruthie Blum, Israel Hayom, July 14, 2021 [“It’s a sad day when the head of the Anti-Defamation League receives accolades for acknowledging that anti-Semitism “also” hails from the left. If the person in question had been living in a cave until last week – when he published an op-ed in Newsweek called It’s Time to Admit It: The Left Has an Anti-Semitism Problem – he might be excused for having an epiphany about a phenomenon that has been obvious for decades. … But Jonathan Greenblatt hasn’t been in isolation for the past six years, when he replaced Abraham Foxman as CEO of the Jewish organization, established in 1913 by B’nai B’rith. On the contrary, he’s been as active a participant in American political culture throughout his current tenure as he was during his term in the White House as special assistant to former President Barack Obama. It is thus that Jews across the spectrum viewed the ADL’s announcement in November 2014 that he would be taking over the reins from Foxman in July 2015 as “dramatic.” … Greenblatt’s piece on Thursday, then, was more deserving of ridicule than praise. In the first place, it’s worse than presumptuous for someone who turned the ADL into a platform representing what the late Jewish leader Isi Leibler called “an echo chamber of left-wing Democratic politics” to warn readers about something that many of us have been saying and writing long before Greenblatt came along. Secondly, if we’re already on the topic of what it’s “time to admit,” let’s remember Greenblatt’s blatant violation of the ADL’s Internal Revenue Service status as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity, which is forbidden from engaging on political activity on behalf of or against candidates running for or serving in public office. And that’s not even getting into the massive donations the organization received – thanks to Greenblatt’s impeccable anti-Trump, pro-BLM credentials – from such paragons of radicalism as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).”]

No Place for Hate” Promise, Anti-Defamation League, 2020-2021 [What a ridiculous and deceptive pledge. First, it lulls parents and others who see it into believing the notion that ADL’s program at no point involves indoctrination in anything other than fairness, kindness, safety and happiness. Second, “hate” is not a concept well understood by primary school or even many middle school students if they have been well-protected and nurtured by their parents. Well, ok, some understand ‘hate for spinach.’ The unrelenting use of the word ‘hate’ by ADL naturally fosters fear, paranoia, and division, especially in conjunction with other emphasized tropes like “racism,” “white supremacism,” “white privilege,” etc. Why not retitle this, “A Place for Kindness” Pledge, put in a new avatar (a bunny?), and change the last line to “I want our school to Be Best”. Plagiarize ADL and Melania Trump in the same line! And then have school boards independently, with no reference whatsoever to ADL, adopt this as their own message. – S.Hurlbert]

The No Place for Hate® Pledge

Elementary School

I promise to do my best to treat everyone fairly.
I promise to do my best to be kind to everyone — even if they are not like me.
If I see someone being hurt or bullied, I will tell a teacher.
I will help others to feel safe and happy at school.
I will be part of making my school No Place for Hate.

Critical race theory has come to Alabama schools through the back door, Perry Hooper, Montgomery Advertiser, July 18, 2021 [“Several schools in Alabama, including schools in Mountain Brook and Huntsville, have been attempting to introduce critical race theory into our students’ curriculum through the backdoor. They have been attempting to implement the Anti-Defamation League’s “No Place for Hate” program. This program is being pushed nationwide onto local school districts by the leftwing National Education Association (NEA). The National Education Association, which the Alabama Education Association is an affiliate, adopted an agenda item at their recent convention that stated, “it is reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.” … As early as kindergarten students learn about the “Cycle of Inequality” and that racism means “the disrespect, harm and mistreatment of people of color based on ideas that white people deserve to be in charge”. Middle-schoolers “consider the extent to which dress codes unfairly target certain identity groups” and analyze their differences in the “Identity Iceberg.” High-schoolers explore how micro-aggressions are “pervasive in everyday life.” They delve into “The Pyramid of Hate” which states that oppression is prevalent in our society and seems to imply that not being “aware of privilege” can lead, on a continuum, to genocide.”

Over 1.4 Million Students Taught Radical Left Propaganda Under Guise of “No Place for Hate”, Joy Overbeck, Townhall.com, July 19, 2021 [“What if you found out your child was being taught in school that the police should be “reformed, transformed or abolished”? That Georgia’s new election laws that seek to restore election fairness and prevent fraud instead “restrict and suppress voting across the state”? Or that states must out of fairness allow transgender males to compete in girls and women’s sports? What if your four-year-old daughter was reading books suggesting that she may actually be a lesbian? These are just some of the “lesson plans” in an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) program called “No Place for Hate” (NPFH) that is being taught in about 16,000 schools across the nation. … In Douglas County, Colorado, where I live, this ripped-from-the-headlines extremist agenda was implanted by district administration into 34 schools (out of 89) — primary, secondary and high schools — in the 2020-2021 school year according to documents I obtained through several Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests. And it’s not just an agenda – it’s deliberate, highly-focused training designed to enlist young people from elementary school to high school into a radical army of woke social justice warriors. … How do schools get transformed into activist training camps for kids? Selling itself as a compassionate, altruistic, anti-bullying program to fight racism and “help your school create a more equitable and inclusive climate” which has become a dominant theme in the Strategic Plans implemented by state Boards of Education as well as individual school districts nationwide, No Place for Hate, like Critical Race Theory, instead peddles the left’s divisive political catechism known as “equity.””]

Parents Canceled by Their Own Children, Caryn Boddie, American Thinker, July 19, 2021 [“It happened that, as I was thinking about writing about my husband and me being canceled by our own children six months ago — we have been agonizing about not being able to talk to them or see our grandson for all that time — a thought popped into my mind: blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Weeks ago, while struggling with how to understand what has happened, I picked up a copy of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Then I looked at a book by David Horowitz entitled Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model. What I read convinced me that our family, more so our children, had been targeted. We, as a middle-class family who used to live together in the suburbs, were in the bull’s eye. Consider the last chapter of Rules, which was published in 1971. It is entitled “The Way Forward.” Alinsky writes, “Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America’s white middle class. That is where the power is[.] … Large parts of the middle class, the ‘silent majority,’ must be activated[.]” The left has been working on making the children of the middle class into radicals, turning them against their parents and their parents’ values for fifty years now, in multiple generations. All the things we middle-class parents believed in and called good, our children now call bad and false, and more than bad and false, worthy of destruction, especially if we parents are Christian and conservative, and even more so if we are Trump-supporters. Our cancelation is the fruit of the left’s strategy to remake America.”]

PayPal Working with ADL to Financially Blacklist and Spy on ‘Extremists’, Allum Bokhari, Breitbart, July 26, 2021 [“PayPal, the online payment processing giant, has announced it will work with the far-left Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to collect information on and cut off financial flows to so-called extremists, and that it will share the data it gathers with law enforcement, policymakers, and the rest of the financial industry.”]

PayPal to research transactions that fund hate groups, extremists, Anna Irera, Reuters, July 26, 2021 [PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL.O) is partnering with non-profit organisation the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to investigate how extremist and hate movements in the United States take advantage of financial platforms to fund their criminal activities. The initiative will be led through ADL’s Center on Extremism, and will focus on uncovering and disrupting the financial flows supporting white supremacist and anti-government organizations. It will also look at networks spreading and profiting from antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Hispanic and anti-Asian bigotry. The information collected through the initiatives will be shared with other firms in the financial industry, law enforcement and policymakers, PayPal said. …. As part of the new initiative, PayPal and ADL will also work with other civil rights organizations, including the League of United Latin American Citizens. “We have a unique opportunity to further understand how hate spreads and develop key insights that will inform the efforts of the financial industry, law enforcement, and our communities in mitigating extremist threats,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO.”]

Get ADL Out of Coronado and Other Public Schools Now, Stuart H. Hurlbert, The Coronado Times, July 28, 2021 [“As a decades-long activist in matters of civil rights and racial discrimination, I have been aware of the gradual transformation of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from being a civil rights organization strongly focused on antisemitism, the defense of Israel and other issues of specific importance to the Jewish community, to being an organization now more focused on pushing some agendas of the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party. … Two events this Spring prompted me to do a deeper dive on ADL. … I learned of how CUSD had teamed up with ADL and has been pushing the No Place for Hate (NPFH) program on all Coronado students, to the consternation of some board members and many parents. … For any objective reader, three major conclusions may seem warranted after close perusal of these materials:— First, ADL, like its CEO, is very ideologically narrow and hyper-partisan and promotes some of the worst ideas of the radical left.— Second, the NPFH program on the surface has a very nice veneer to its introductory materials that talk about “kindness” and “bullying;” but if you follow link after link down into the abyss, you will find an abundance of the same contentious, ideological, partisan ideas, prescriptions and misinformation that ADL promotes more openly outside its programs for K-12 students.— Third, it is a betrayal of its fiduciary duty for any administrative or governing entity of a public institution to partner in any way with partisan organizations like ADL or to advocate for imposition of the political preferences and practices of such organizations on public agencies and institutions or, worst malfeasance of all, on students.”]

Forget using PayPal if your views run afoul of this left-wing group, Jonathan Tobin, New York Post, July 29, 2021 [“Big Tech’s censorship partnership with the left establishment is expanding in ominous directions. The Silicon Valley giants have now partnered with the hyper-partisan Anti-Defamation League to help them decide what content Americans get to read online — and even which Americans get to transfer money digitally. … This month, we also learned that PayPal has tapped the ADL to lay out criteria that will allow that payment-services giant to essentially shut down any group it labels “extremist.”…. This might not seem all that alarming to Americans who remember the ADL of an earlier era, a venerable organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism and upholding bedrock civil-rights principles. But under the leadership of Jonathan Greenblatt, a Team Obama alumnus, the ADL has turned into an arm of the progressive movement and a dogged enemy of conservatives. How doctrinaire and lefty is the new ADL? Consider that when former President Donald Trump tapped Mike Pompeo to serve as secretary of state, Greenblatt’s outfit published a 5,000-word screed framing the former congressman and CIA director as a bigot. Pompeo’s “crime,” to the ADL’s mind? Denouncing Islamist radicalism throughout his career — in terms identical to the ADL’s own, earlier anti-Islamist sentiments. Pompeo is a mainstream, responsible conservative. An organization that smears him as a hater, then, isn’t exactly the soundest judge of what qualifies as extremism.”]

Get Ready for the ‘No-Buy’ List: First Big Tech censored speech, now they want to shut deplorables out of the financial system, David Sacks, Common Sense with Bari Weiss, Substack, July 30, 2021 [“When I helped create PayPal in 1999, it was in furtherance of a revolutionary idea. No longer would ordinary people be dependent on large financial institutions to start a business. Our democratized payment system caught fire and grew exponentially with millions of users who appreciated its ease and simplicity. Traditional banks were too slow and bureaucratic to adapt. … But now PayPal is turning its back on its original mission. It is now leading the charge to restrict participation by those it deems unworthy. First, in January, PayPal blocked a Christian crowdfunding site that raised money to bring demonstrators to Washington on January 6. Then, in February, PayPal announced that it was working with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to ban users from the platform. This week the company announced it is partnering with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to investigate and shut down accounts that the ADL considers too extreme. … The reclassification of political opponents as hate groups has been enabled by expansive redefinitions of terms like racism, segregation and white supremacy. When “segregation” can be used in The New York Times to describe a 70% Asian school like Stuyvesant; when the notion of color-blindness is considered racist by influential intellectuals like Ibram X. Kendi; and when “white supremacy” has been used to describe any support for any policy that can result in disparate outcomes, then a broad range of organizations can be lumped in with truly vile ones. Until now, these over-categorizations were largely a case of rhetorical hyperbole in academic debates. Thanks to Big Tech, they are now being operationalized.”]

The Anti-Defamation League and Hillel are now working together to document antisemitism on campus, Ben Sales, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 2, 2021 [“Over the last year, Jewish college students took it upon themselves to combat antisemitism at their schools. Now, two major Jewish organizations are working together to play a stronger role in fighting antisemitism on campus. Some of the student activists documented incidences of antisemitism at colleges nationwide, often submitted anonymously, while others have taken a confrontational tone on social media. With some portraying themselves as the ideological successors to early Zionist activists, the students often argue that anti-Zionism and antisemitism overlap. In a new partnership, Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League are aiming to take a more traditional approach to the same issues — one that they say will not always treat anti-Israel activity as antisemitism. Hillel and the ADL will together create a college-level curriculum on antisemitism and jointly document antisemitic incidents on campuses in the United States. …. In addition, the ADL has documented white supremacist propaganda campaigns on campuses nationwide.”]

1,500+ rabbis say ADL no longer competent to identify, let alone combat, antisemitism, Coalition for Jewish Values, August 3, 2021 [“Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) took renewed aim at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today, after the ADL announced a partnership with Hillel International, the Jewish college organization, to document antisemitism on American campuses. While such an effort is noble and worthwhile, the ADL, CJV points out, demonstrated that it lacks the moral clarity to properly identify antisemitism, let alone combat it.”

I Share The Community’s Concerns, Brian Flick, Coronado Eagle & Journal, August 17, 2021 [“The Superintendent [of Coronado Unified School District] decided to double down, as the Poker expression goes, on San Diego County of Education’s Equity Committee and the Anti-Defamation League’s No Place for Hate (NPFH) program. … The statements made by the Superintendent about the No Place for Hate program are egregiously incorrect. First, it is not a voluntary program. … Second, it will not cultivate respect, kindness, and inclusivity. A parent testified during the May 20 school board meeting that in her former school district, NPFH created dissension and disrespect for opposing opinions that coalesced into bullying and instilling fear in students with opposing views. … Third, feedback from our community about the importance of and impact on school climate has not been overwhelmingly positive. How could it be? The public for all intent does not know much about the program and its impact has not been measured. It began under the cover of COVID and was not “revealed” to the public until a December 2020 news article written by a student. … Fourth, CUSD is aligning efforts and adopting curriculum from the Anti-Defamation League (i.e., an outside political organization) and is indoctrinating students. CUSD has endorsed NPFH on both the district website and on all four school’s websites. … Fifth, there is a political agenda behind ADL’s efforts (and by association CUSD) and NPFH promotes and directs activism. From the ADL NPFH Coordinator’s handbook, which the San Diego Field office of the ADL uses to mentor CUSD teacher and parent volunteers, it states, “Although learning how to demonstrate kindness is an important part of a child’s psychological and social development, ADL highly encourages schools to move beyond kindness to social justice.”]

The ADL Is Incompetent and Unqualified to Document Campus Anti-Semitism, Rabbi Dov Fischer, Jewish Press, August 25, 2021 [“ADL emerged initially to defend German Jews in America, and soon they defended all as they became synonymous with Jewish legal defense. But this no longer is the case. As the years have marched ahead, the ADL increasingly has lost sight of its fundamental purpose. Expanding its mission to focus on opposing other forms of hate, the ADL evolved into more of a general all-purpose human-rights organization. That can be a good thing if implemented fairly. Unfortunately, the ADL’s demise as a Jewish organization was cemented in July 2015, ironically almost one hundred years to the day of the Leo Frank lynching, when they named Jonathan Greenblatt to be their new national director. Greenblatt, a hardened “progressive,” had just served as Special Assistant to the President in the Obama White House. He is an Obama acolyte through and through. From the day he arrived, Greenblatt converted the ADL into a markedly left-focused organization. Under Greenblatt, the ADL has focused almost exclusively on combating right-wing hate and also attacking conservative non-haters among Republicans, Fox News anchors, and the like – while giving virtually free passes to the Left.”]

An uninspired handbook on hate from the leader of a prominent civil rights organization, Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2021 [Review of “It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable–And How We Can Stop It,” by Jonathan Greenblatt] [“The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League suggests ways to respond to bigotry toward marginalized communities. Greenblatt champions the ADL’s work and causes in a “handbook against hate” that often reads like a promotional vehicle for the civil rights organization. In addition to adapting previously published ADL materials, he writes, “I’ve also borrowed text freely from ADL without attribution.” This approach works well when he is describing unique tools or resources developed by the ADL, such as its “Pyramid of Hate,” which posits that bigotry occurs in five progressively worse stages that can overlap: “biased attitudes,” “acts of bias,” “systemic discrimination,” “bias-motivated violence,” and “genocide.” But Greenblatt’s free hand with warmed-over text and ideas can lead to mind-numbing clichés and corporate jargon in chapters intended to offer practical tips on promoting tolerance or overcoming hate in a range of everyday situations: at work, at home, on social media, in communities or religious groups, and elsewhere. For example, the author writes that companies seeking to respond responsibly to hate “would do well to implement initiatives consistent with their core competencies and operational design.” Such tedious passages clash with Greenblatt’s biting comments on topics such as the Palestinian cause or the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement’s “anti-normalization” stance, which “essentially criminalizes Zionism.” The author’s discussions of the discrimination faced by Jews and others such as Black or transgender people can also elide differences in their lived experiences. More persuasive and enlightening accounts of the spread of hate—and worthy responses to it—have recently appeared in Géraldine Schwarz’s Those Who Forget and Mark Oppenheimer’s Squirrel Hill. Either book would make a better introduction to the alarming resurgence of antisemitism and other forms of bigotry in the U.S. and elsewhere. Readers could also return to Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy.”]

The “Default Hypothesis” Fails to Explain Jewish Influence, Kevin MacDonald, Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel, January 1, 2022 [“The role of Jewish activism in the transformative changes that have occurred in the West in recent decades continues to be controversial. Here I respond to several issues putatively related to Jewish influence, particularly the “default hypothesis” that Jewish IQ and urban residency explain Jewish influence and the role of the Jewish community in enacting the 1965 immigration law in the United States; other issues include Jewish ethnocentrism and intermarriage and whether diaspora Jews are hypocritical in their attitudes on immigration to Israel versus the United States. The post-World War II era saw the emergence of a new, substantially Jewish elite in America that exerted influence on a wide range of issues that formed a virtual consensus among Jewish activists and the organized Jewish community, including immigration, civil rights, and the secularization of American culture. Jewish activism in the pro-immigration movement involved: intellectual movements denying the importance of race in human affairs; establishing, staffing, and funding anti-restrictionist organizations; recruiting prominent non-Jews to anti-restrictionist organizations; rejecting the ethnic status quo as a goal because of fear of a relatively homogeneous white majority; leadership in Congress and the executive branch.”]

Horrible: There is no audience for this book, and it preaches worse hatred than it tries to cure, “Anonymous 2001”, Amazon Customer Review, January 11, 2022 [ Review of “It Could Happen Here,” by Jonathan Greenblatt] [“I was impressed with the author’s business experience (described inside the back cover) building and selling companies, and with his personal experience of visiting the town in East Germany where his Jewish grandfather had grown up, but no longer has any Jews at all. (“Judenfrei” would be the Nazi term for it.) That brief story is told on pages 1 to 3. I made it all the way to page 8. … First of all, the author bites off way more than he can chew. He tries to be all cures for all people. He should have stuck to what he personally understands, which in his case appears to be Jewish history and antisemitism. Instead, he cites his organization’s charter “to secure justice and fair treatment for all”. Now while that sounds great, it means all people in all situations everywhere around the world. It’s just monstrously too huge a goal for any one person, and probably even any one organization, to attempt. He quickly cites not just “Israel and Hamas” (about which he might have had a good chance of writing a decent chapter), but also “hate crimes against Asian-Americans… in large urban areas” (funny, he mentions the word “BLACK” elsewhere, without encoding it as “urban”), “Muslims in India, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Shia in Pakistan”, and “displaced peoples” in Africa, among other ethnic groups elsewhere. Reviving the 2016 campaign slogan about “racism [and antisemitism, he adds], Islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and more” (page 5), he quickly criticizes Eastern Europe, where “nationalist political parties… have riled up hatred against refugees and migrants” (page 6), then on the following page (page 7) says “Meanwhile, the increasing diversity of the American population heightened anxiety among some whites”. … My immediate objection, already clear and present for a few pages by then, is that situations vary so much from one part of the world to another that all these diverse groups cannot possibly be shoved together under one umbrella. Umbrellas work reasonably well for light rain with no wind, but don’t work too well in a tsunami or volcanic explosion or desert heat or tornado. Ditto with all these vastly diverse ethnic groups. The Spanish Inquisition torturing fellow Catholics is not the same as Eastern Europeans wanting to close their borders to uneducated and crime- and terrorism-prone African and Middle Eastern “refugees”. It’s their country, they get to decide who enters and who doesn’t. That’s very different from persecuting a fellow citizen who’s lived there peacefully for decades. He mentions “homophobia”, but again, there’s a difference between tormenting a quiet high school kid in class, versus the current outrage of men masquerading as women and stealing women’s hard-earned sports prizes and scholarships. … But all those sweeping overgeneralizations are not even what’s most outrageous about this book. The worst thing about this book: it reeks with the very hatred Greenblatt’s ADL claims to despise. Only, rather than targeting Jews or Blacks or Hispanics or gays, Greenblatt targets White patriotic Americans (or Eastern Europeans in their own countries).”]

The ADL Has Chosen a Side. And It’s Not the Jewish One, David Harsanyi, National Review, January 26, 2022 [“The organization’s championing of progressives has increasingly clashed with its stated mission of calling out antisemitism. … Not long after a slew of attacks on religious New York City Jews, the Anti-Defamation League’s new director of Jewish outreach, Tema Smith, declared, “One of these days we need to talk about how the Jewish community’s reactions to antisemitism coming from Black people is inherently tied to (implicitly racist) fears of Black violence. ”In the progressive hierarchy of victimhood, devout Jews — whose ancestors probably knew a thing or two about systemic bigotry — are the ones obligated to wrestle with their alleged, latent racism after being smashed over the head with a brick as they walked down the street minding their own business. Well, that is, if they ever regain consciousness. Once a champion of Zionism, the ADL now hires a Jewish outreach director who demands that her “community” give a proper hearing to those who defend the targeting of Jewish civilians through suicide bombing. “Here’s the thing,” tweeted Smith, “Jews *have* to be ok with Palestinians *explaining* why some turn to terrorism. … Does the ADL believe we have a responsibility to hear out every violent white supremacist’s thought process, as well? After all, the ADL spends a lot of time pressuring tech companies and other media outlets to censor speech that it deems hateful (like, God forbid, criticizing leftist banker George Soros). Do certain people get a special dispensation for rationalizing political violence? Smith is the perfect hire for the new ADL, a Democrat partisan outfit run by former Barack Obama appointee Jonathan Greenblatt, who’s spent years degrading the group’s mission of fighting antisemitism and building its social-justice agenda. (Greenblatt’s new book is yet another play on Sinclair Lewis’s paranoid novel, It Can’t Happen Here. “From Microaggression to Genocide” is one of the chapters, so you get the idea.)”]

The ADL’s new Jewish outreach director hates Jews, Daniel Greenfield, Jewish News Syndicate, January 31, 2022 [“After the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli Jewish teens by Hamas sparked Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” in the Gaza Strip, Tema Smith retweeted and praised an article titled, “There Are No Good Guys In The Gaza-Israel Conflict.” The article claimed, among other things, that, “Hamas—and the Palestinians as a whole—have desperately real and legitimate grievances against Israel.” … Now, the Anti-Defamation League has chosen Smith as its Director of Jewish Outreach. As a Jewish activist on Twitter quipped, “Whom do the Jews hire as Director of Outreach to the ADL?” It’s a valid question since Smith, in her own words, has said of her role, “I educate the Jewish community on race and racism as a speaker and writer.”

… Rather than educating anyone about the threat of anti-Semitism, she tells Jews they’re racists. The ADL’s idea of “Jewish outreach” is an identity politics hire who spends her time castigating Jews for opposing critical race theory and intersectionality because of its inherent anti-Semitism. … The ADL’s latest outrage comes after a series of horrifying moves by its boss, Jonathan Greenblatt, which include ties to anti-Israel activists and minimizing BDS. But the hiring of Smith outraged so many Jewish activists because it conveyed the ADL’s disdain for the Jewish community. Who, they wonder, is the ADL reaching out to by hiring her? But the ADL’s new constituency isn’t the Jewish community, it’s the anti-Israel left. Six years ago, Greenblatt wrote of BDS activists that “we should acknowledge the earnestness of their motives.” Five years ago, the ADL touted Rep. Ilhan Omar as “inspiring.” Four years ago, the ADL came out against security grants for synagogues. That same year, Greenblatt opened an ADL conference with a vocal defense of George Soros, and invited anti-Israel activists to the conference while a panel accused “some in the Jewish community” of labeling “almost all expressions that are deemed ‘anti-Israel’ as anti-Semitic.” Two years ago, Greenblatt and the ADL stood with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch against Israel. They cosigned a Black Lives Matter letter alongside anti-Israel hate groups like Jewish Voice for Peace. This was one of several anti-Israel letters the ADL had signed on to that year. … Smith cheered the idea that the Muslim murderer of Sarah Halimi, who had shouted “Allahu Akbar” after violently beating the retired kindergarten teacher and throwing her out of the window, was the real victim. On Twitter, Smith endorsed a claim that the “Jewish community press” are out to “maximize outrage and minimize understanding” of the Halimi murder case.” … Smith’s leftist politics and her identification as a black woman matter far more to the ADL than her position on any Jewish issues.”]

A Broad-Based Coalition of 22 Organizations Urge the Anti-Defamation League to Change Its Politicized Definition of “Racism”, Press Release, Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, February 2, 2022 [“Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER), along with 21 partner groups, sent a joint letter to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), condemning its re-definition of racism as “(t)he marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.” In the letter, CFER and other co-signing organizations argue that ADL’s redefinition is an “inflammatory mischaracterization of an historically and contemporarily consequential concept” and implore ADL to embrace an accurate and non-political definition. “The far left is waging a culture war by redefining and engineering fundamental concepts that we use daily, including racism, along political and ideological lines,” commented Frank Xu, president of CFER. “As a society, we must be on high alert and push back.”

Anti-Defamation League revised its definition of racism because it was ‘so narrow’, Nicole Chavez, CNN, February 4, 2022 [“The Anti-Defamation League has revised its definition of racism in the wake of the controversy sparked by “The View” co-host Whoopi Golberg’s comments on the Holocaust. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), announced the decision in an essay published this week, saying the organization’s definition had been incomplete, “ineffective and therefore unacceptable.” … Since 2020, the ADL had described racism as “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges White people.” … But Greenblatt said that definition was “so narrow” because the group and its founders believe that no one should be “persecuted, demeaned or discriminated against because of their identity,” which encompasses faith, race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin and more. As of Friday, the group’s new and “interim” definition states that racism “occurs when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity.””]

The Revolution Inside the ADL: How Jonathan Greenblatt is makin’ Whoopi, Seth Mandel, Commentary, April 2022 [“When Whoopi Goldberg said that the Holocaust was “not about race” but rather “two white groups of people” fighting, the actress and chat-show maven was shocked by criticism she received. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, reprimanded Goldberg the following day on her morning program, The View. One thing Greenblatt did not do was ask Goldberg where on earth she could have gotten such a preposterous and offensive idea. That’s too bad, because if he had, Goldberg could have responded like the teenager in the classic anti-drug ad from the ’80s when confronted by his father: “You! All right? I got it from you!” … The ADL’s pre-Greenblatt definition of “racism,” according to the Jerusalem Post, reads as follows: It is “the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, [and] that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics.”… Why did the ADL abandon that perfectly reasonable and clear definition? It did so, he wrote in a blog post, to “reflect that racism in the United States manifests in broader and systemic ways and to explicitly acknowledge the targeting of people of color.” … In the wake of l’Affaire Whoopi, an impression took hold that until the controversy, the ADL’s redefinition of “racism” had gone mostly unnoticed—and that the organization was caught off-guard by the attention it attracted once people started pointing it out on social media. That’s not the case. … In May 2020, a video surfaced showing teenagers drawing a swastika on the back of a teen in or near Mountain Brook, Alabama, home to a slight majority of the Birmingham area’s 5,000 Jewish residents. … According to the Atlanta Jewish Times, the combination of both these events led the Mountain Brook school district to convene a “diversity committee.” That committee recommended the involvement of the ADL. Into this tension-filled atmosphere, the ADL brought every divisive tool in its box. The district had been resisting the introduction into its curricula of ideas inspired by critical race theory, which reduce people to immutable characteristics, with a special focus on skin color. By the end of the ensuing school year, parents were fed up, writing up a 12-page complaint alleging that the ADL was “a highly partisan group that promotes views like Critical Race Theory” as well as late-term abortion and such culture-war fire starters as transgender accommodations for minors. … Eventually the Mountain Brook school severed its connection to the ADL. So no, the ADL’s leadership could not have been surprised to find itself mired in controversy relating to race politics, since it had just happened. Nor did it even attempt to hide its promulgation of critical race theory. “CRT helps us understand how and why racial injustice continues to persist in the U.S. despite the progress that has been made towards racial equity,” according to an explainer on the ADL’s website.”]

Anti-racist organizations must drop the ADL, Omar Zahzah, The Electronic Intifada, April 27, 2022 [“Earlier this month, Zionist organizations pressured the auto-insurance giant GEICO to rescind their invitation to Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour to speak at an internal event celebrating Middle Eastern and North African heritage month. GEICO had caved to a smear campaign launched by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and canceled the event. … Despite the ADL’s tendentious and frankly discriminatory approach to so-called “anti-racist” practice, the organization has evolved to a publicly recognized civil rights organization with significant influence over local curricula around the country and a prominent role in keeping out Arab-Americans from public life. The blurriness between the ADL and discriminatory law enforcement agencies is arguably also reflected in the organization’s fixation on “hate,” often a recurring framework within ADL materials. (To name but one example, the ADL’s website has a mini-lesson for high schoolers on what it terms “The Pyramid of Hate” that indicates “escalating levels of attitudes and behavior grow in complexity from biased ideas to discrimination.”) “Hate” may seem to be an innocent, if vague term, but in fact, this slippery and unsubstantiated concept is one of the key bridges between the ADL and the US intelligence community. In F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature, William J. Maxwell demonstrates how the FBI’s intelligence operations against Black radical organizations like the Black Panther Party were ironically facilitated by the Bureau’s initial work targeting the Ku Klux Klan.”]

Is Ron Johnson spreading the ‘great replacement theory’? He says absolutely not. The Anti-Defamation League calls it ‘subtle’, Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 19, 2022 [“Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is pushing back against criticism that he is promoting the “great replacement theory” — a conspiracy that white Americans are being systematically “replaced” by immigrants and minorities. But the Anti-Defamation League, which examined Johnson’s comments at the request of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said the Wisconsin senator was promulgating a “subtle” version of the more overtly racist and antisemitic rhetoric circulated by white supremacists. … This week, Johnson rejected the accusation he was engaging in the theory. He tweeted, “I’ve spoken extensively on the inhumanity of the Biden admin’s open border policies. Pushing the lie that criticizing this admin’s policies in any way supports ‘replacement theory’ is another example of the corporate media working overtime to cover up the Biden admin’s failures.” … “Sen. Johnson has never spoken about this racist theory and any attempt to characterize his criticism of President Biden’s inhumane open border policies or his pointing out Democrats’ own words supporting open borders for electoral gains is disgusting and an outright lie. This is yet another diversionary tactic by the corporate media working overtime to cover up for the disasters of the Biden administration.” Johnson has said or implied the administration is trying to change the makeup of the electorate several times in recent months.”]

The ADL’s leader starts talking the talk on left-wing anti-Semitism, Johanna Markind, Jewish News Syndicate, May 23, 2022 [“Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has started to sound like he’s serious about the struggle against left-wing anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, he still has a way to go. In the past, Greenblatt has downplayed left-wing anti-Semitism and tried to convert the once-lauded Jewish civil rights organization he leads into just another leftist political advocacy group. It’s only right to give him credit for his decision to change course and treat the threat in a more appropriate manner. But there are also several good suggestions for how he should address it. … Mr. Greenblatt, please stop your attempts to “balance” condemnations of the left with put-downs of right-wingers. It suggests the ADL is not serious about critiquing the left. After all, how many ADL exposés of right-wing anti-Semitism “balance” themselves with criticisms of left-wingers? Don’t be tepid or slow on denunciations of left-wing anti-Semitism. We’re encouraged that you criticized The Harvard Crimson’s publication of a pro-BDS editorial, but a tweet that it is “deeply disturbing” and cheers for faculty members and students who spoke out against it isn’t enough. The ADL exists to take point in controversies like this. Likewise, why are you so silent about President Joe Biden’s choice of Karine Jean-Pierre as his new press secretary, despite her track record of Israel-bashing? When a group that at least used to be the premier Jewish organization fighting hatred, discrimination and crimes against Jews is slow to recognize anti-Semitism and cautious about denouncing it, is it any wonder that college presidents, politicians and others are reluctant to say or do anything?”]

Beware the data on American right-wing violence, Megan McArdle, Washington Post, May 23, 2022 [“America has a problem with right-wing political violence. You need only look at the footage of Jan. 6, 2021, to see that. Or white-supremacist killings such as the recent shooting in Buffalo. Or misogynist killers such as Elliot Rodger, who went on a rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014. But just how big a problem is it? Bigger than other kinds of political violence? You might think the answer is clearly yes, but the data often cited to support this conclusion don’t say what most people think. The aftermath of the Buffalo massacre saw a spate of articles describing the menace of right-wing extremists. The New York Times’s David Leonhardt characterizes it as “a violence problem that has no equivalent on the left.” You might even have glanced at the reports these articles often cite from the Anti-Defamation League. Over the past decade, the ADL has counted about 450 murders committed by domestic political extremists, with 29 occurring just last year. It reports the overwhelming majority were committed by people with ties to various right-wing groups. … Seems straightforward, right? Well, yes — until you look at the underlying data. … The people citing these reports write about them as if they primarily document political violence — or “domestic terrorism,” as my own colleagues put it. That is to say, attacks that are motivated by someone’s political affiliation and at least tangentially related to some political goals. Certainly such attacks do happen, and far too often. Just in the past year, Nathan Allen, allegedly a white supremacist, killed two Black people in Massachusetts before being shot by police officers; “manosphere” devotee Lyndon McLeod went on a shooting spree in Colorado; and Aidan Ingalls opened fire on the South Haven, Mich., pier using a gun decorated with swastikas. But look closer and some of those cases aren’t as clear-cut as they sound in the gloss. McLeod appears to have killed people he knew from the local tattoo community for possibly unrelated personal grievances. Ingalls’s two random victims were White. … “One of the most striking features of white supremacist murders is the large proportion of non-ideological killings to ideological killings,” the ADL wrote in its most recent report. “Over the past 10 years, only 86 of the 244 white supremacist killings (35%) were ideological murders.” … After all those reports on the threat of right-wing violence, any new case with a tenuous link to the alt-right or the Aryan Brotherhood seems like part of a trend meriting wall-to-wall coverage. Meanwhile, a Black man driving into a parade after making anti-White remarks on Facebook is seen as a sick individual. There’s some danger that this becomes the policy equivalent of a self-licking ice cream cone: Media primed by nongovernmental-organization reports play up even glancing connections to racist or militia groups, which in turn guarantees that the next such report will feature a disproportionate share of cases coded as “right-wing violence.”]

How Jewish support for ‘anti-racism’ empowered anti-Semitism, Jonathan Tobin, Jewish News Syndicate, May 24, 2022 [“Two years after the moral panic set off by the death of George Floyd, American Jews need to confront the way the BLM movement and the ideologies that underpin it enable hatred of Jews. … American Jews and their leading organizations were very much part of this. They were, for the most part, eager to lend their voices to the chorus of those calling for addressing the problem of racism and to engage in soul-searching about the community’s alleged failure to confront prejudice in its own institutions. Major groups like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the Anti-Defamation League, as well as some of the major religious denominations, were also willing to lend support to a Black Lives Matter movement that had gone mainstream after spending its first years as a marginalized radical force. … Legitimizing such a movement may not have been the intention of the Jewish leaders who signed declarations supporting BLM. Racism is terrible and opposing it is laudable. But by going along with the mob mentality that embraced the “1619” lies and legitimized a heretofore radical BLM movement, that’s exactly what they helped foster. Some, like the ADL, are not only unrepentant, but doubling down on their rhetoric about “white supremacy” instead of focusing their considerable influence on combating the BLM movement. … The organized Jewish world needs to take a hard look at its mistakes and admit that its desire to play the fashionable “anti-racist” card strengthened forces that are inimical to Jewish interests, as well as to the cause of equality and racial harmony for American society.”

The ADL Murder Report That Cried ‘White Supremacist’, James Varney, RealClear Investigations, May 26, 2022 [“On the surface, the crimes would appear to have little more in common than their brutality. But the Anti-Defamation League includes these murders by white men of other whites in its tally of right-wing and white supremacist murders in its report, “Murder & Extremism in the United States in 2021.”“In 2021, white supremacists were responsible for more murders than any other type of extremist; in many years, they comprised an outright majority of the extremist murders that year,” the report said. “Indeed, over the past 10 years, white supremacists have committed 244 (55%) of the 443 killings that the ADL (COE) has documented” …. Critics cite significant problems with the ADL presentation. Like other organizations tracking extremism, the ADL rarely offers context to claims regarding extremist murders by comparing them to broader homicide statistics. During the same 10-year period cited by the ADL in its 2021 report citing 244 murders by white supremacists, there were at least 165,000 murders in the U.S., meaning those the group attributes to white supremacists accounted for .001% of such violent deaths in that decade. That statistic pales in comparison with those of major cities that have seen shocking increases in bloodshed, with recent annual murder totals breaking or nearing records set in the 20th century.” “

More Deceit from the ADL, Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, June 3, 2023 [“Major political and media figures argue that white supremacists are the biggest domestic terrorism threat to the United States. The Anti-Defamation League and its “Center on Extremism” (COE) are among the most powerful institutions pushing this view. However, its latest report on “Murder & Extremism in the United States 2021” shows only how absurd that view is. As we will see, of the 19 cases it cites, only one makes its case; the rest refute it. The entire report is detached from reality. The first “key finding” is that “extremists regularly commit murders in the service of their ideology, in the service of a group or gang they may belong to, or while engaging in traditional, non-ideological criminal activities.” …. So, what did 2021 add to the extremist crime wave that threatens American democracy? The ADL must be awfully disappointed to have to admit that “domestic extremists” killed only 29 people in 19 separate incidents. To put this in perspective, the CDC reports that in 2020, there were 24,576 murders. … Nathan Allen, who killed two blacks, is the only person in this report who seems to have been driven by political and racial motives. … This isn’t the first time American Renaissance has analyzed a laughable ADL report, but this year’s is even worse than usual. The ADL nonetheless concludes by urging support for the “PROTECT” plan, which calls for more money to fight “domestic terrorism” and control of content on the internet.”]