Phillips Philes PHLASHBACK: Remarks by President Trump at Hanukkah Reception and Signing of an Executive Order Combating Anti-Semitism Dec 11, 2019

Source: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-hanukkah-reception-signing-executive-order-combating-anti-semitism/

East Room

4:26 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. And a friend of mine, Tim Scott, from South Carolina — a senator — where are you, Tim? You’re — there he is. And I said, “You know what, Tim? You have a big vote coming up. I think you want to go back to the Senate.” So I will tell you, without, Tim, this wouldn’t have happened. Tim Scott, thank you very much. We love you. Go back to the Senate and vote. (Laughs.) (Applause.) Thanks, Tim.

Melania and I are delighted to welcome so many friends and families to this incredible house, the White House, to celebrate this, really, sacred season and a very special time. To everyone here today: Happy Hanukkah. (Applause.)

We’re delighted to be joined by Vice President Mike Pence and his incredible wife Karen. (Applause.) And if you’d both come up. Mike? Wherever you may be. Come on up, Karen. Please, come up.

Also, as you know, Ivanka and Jared have worked very, very hard in this whole — (applause) — endeavor and many other endeavors, I will tell you. They’re doing an incredible job, and I’m very proud that the Jewish faith is a cherished part of our family. Very proud of it. (Applause.)

I’d like to recognize Secretary Steven Mnuchin; Secretary Betsy DeVos; Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen — hi, Jeff; as well as Senators Tim Scott, who just left, and he’s a fantastic guy, and James Lankford. Where’s James? Where is James? James come up here, will you please, James? Did he have to go for the vote too? All right, tell him we mentioned his name. A lot of these people are voting on some very important things right now. I’m saying, “You know what? Get out and vote,” right?

And we have Representatives Doug Collins, Josh Gottheimer, David Kustoff, Elaine Luria, Max Rose, and Lee Zeldin, all here. Where are they? (Applause.) Raise your hands. Are you here? Come on up, if you want, fellas. Even the Democrat can come up. What the hell. (Laughter.) Come on up. Come on up. What a job they’re doing. Come on up. Nice to see you all. Hi. Good. Hi, Doug. That’s great. Hi, Lee. Good job, Lee. Wow. What a lawyer. I’d hire you anytime, Lee.

I also want to bring a friend of mine up. He’s a tremendous success in so many other businesses, but they only know him because he signs Tom Brady’s check every week. (Laughter.) And he’s a really — he’s a champ, he’s a winner. His wife, Myra, passed away a longer time ago than we think, Bob. That was a big — that was a big, tough time for you, and for me too, and for Melania. I just want to tell you, you’ve been a special friend of Israel. Nobody closer to Israel than Bob Kraft.

So, Bob, please come up. Please come up. (Applause.)

And, as usual, his team is mired in first place. Have you ever been in second place? Not too often. You know what I’d like you to do, Bob, while you’re here — because we could all learn from Bob; he’s a champ, he’s a winner — if you could say a few words about Israel. Please.

MR. KRAFT: Thank you. (Applause.) Well, thank you, Mr. President. I’m honored to be here at this time, at this event, because this is really a bipartisan issue. And I know previous administrations had tried to do something in this area. And we know that college campuses are a place where you bridge-build and you include people and have education, and not be something that is exclusive and drives people away and generates hatred.

So, I’m so proud that, at this time, we’re doing something that is so bipartisan. And my wife, a blessed memory, would be smiling now because she loved America first, and Israel, and wanted to build bridges between the two places and have tikkun olam. And I think this, more than anything, is going to help do that. So thank you very much. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Bob. Thank you. Thank you very much, Bob.

I also want to extend my appreciation to Israel’s Ambassador, a man who’s become a friend of mine, and terrific guy: Ron Dermer. Where’s Ron? (Applause.) Thank you, Ron, very much.

As we gather this afternoon, our thoughts turn to the grieving families in New Jersey. Yesterday, two wicked murderers opened fire at a kosher supermarket and killed four innocent souls, including a brave police officer who faced down the shooter and very bravely faced the shooter down.

With one heart, America weeps for the lives lost. With one voice, we vow to crush the monstrous evil of anti-Semitism whenever and wherever it appears. And we’re working very hard on that. (Applause.) And I can tell you that — that we have a lot of people in government working very, very hard on that, and we appreciate their work. It’s not easy.

Joining us on stage for this event are two great Jewish-American patriots: Army veteran Oscar Stewart and Border Patrol Agent Jonathan Morales. (Applause.) As many of you remember, both of these heroes were at the Chabad of Poway Synagogue when a killer opened fire.

And, by the way, Robert Jeffress, I see you right here. And what a tremendous faith leader you are and a tremendous man you are. Pastor, thank you for being here so much, also. We appreciate it. We have so many people and so many great faith leaders here, and I want to thank you all for being here. It’s fantastic. This is a great, great day. (Applause.) We appreciate it very much, Robert. Thank you very much.

They raced towards the gunfire and saved countless American lives. Oscar and Jonathan, thank you both for responding to the worst evil with the best of American valor.

This afternoon, we celebrate the miracle of Hanukkah. More than 2,000 years ago, a ruthless tyrant persecuted the Jewish people and desecrated the Temple of Jerusalem. But a group of Jewish patriots defeated a powerful army, rededicated the temple, and won back their right to worship God in freedom.

Recently, I received a remarkable letter from a 12-year-old boy named Austin Polonsky, from San Francisco, California. In the letter, Austin summed up the meaning of Hanukkah. He said, “On Hanukkah…it is a tradition to light the menorah and place it by the window. We do this to exemplify how we are not afraid to show who we are or what we believe in.”

In Austin’s letter, we [he] asked if he could celebrate Hanukkah with my family at the White House. And this year, we are thrilled to let you know that Austin is with us today. Where is Austin? Where is Austin? (Applause.) Come on up here, Austin. Come on up here, Austin. Good-looking guy. Good. Come on, Austin. Don’t be shy. It’s only Bob Kraft. (Laughter.)

You want to say a few words? Huh?

MR. POLONSKY: Uh, sure.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to say — come on, Austin. Come on, Austin. Let’s get with it, Austin.

MR. POLONSKY: Thank you for having me at the White House today. It was very unexpected. My mom pulled me out of school when the White House called, and I was in the middle of lunch. (Laughter.) Probably one of the first times I was ever speechless. (Laughter.) Yeah. Thank you for having me here.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. You can — (laughter and applause.) That’s — that’s a good — good job, Austin. (Applause.) Come here. Thank you, Austin. Great job. Thank you.

He didn’t know he was going to do that. You did a good job, huh? — (laughter) — considering we got you by surprise a little bit, right? Thank you. Stay with the First Lady. (Laughter.)

Do you know Bob Kraft and everybody onstage, right?

MR. KRAFT: A Trump yarmulke.

THE PRESIDENT: Is that a Trump yarmulke? Oh, it’s a Trump yarmulke. Wow, I like that. (Laughter.) Can I have that, Austin? I want that.

Across our country, Jewish Americans strengthen, sustain, and inspire our nation. As President, I will always celebrate and honor the Jewish people, and I will always stand with our treasured friend and ally, the State of Israel — that, I can tell you. (Applause.)

So, two years ago, I recognized the true capital of Israel, and we opened the American Embassy in Jerusalem. (Applause.) And we got it built. They were thinking anywhere, for one billion to two billion dollars. I did it for $350,000. You know that. (Applause.) We got a building that was in beautiful shape, in the best location — best location there is. And we got it done. We got it done. We had it opened in four months, and it’s right now opened.

And, I don’t know, maybe someday they’ll build a more expensive version of it, but it can’t get much better. Right, Robert? I think — and Ron can tell you, it can’t get much better than what we have. We have the best location. They were going out. They wanted me to sign an order for anywhere from $1 billion to $2 billion, and they were going to look for a piece of land, but they said land in Jerusalem is very rare and very expensive. I said, “Do you think we have a piece?”

And David Friedman, our great ambassador, did a fantastic job. (Applause.) You did a fantastic job. I said, “David, they want to spend $2 billion.” I said, “Go check it out. Let me see. Call me back.” And he said, “Sir, I think we can do it for about $250,000, maybe $300,000.” So we’ll save $1 billion. And we have a better location than any location we could have gotten, Ron, right?

And it’s been open now for a long time. So, it was great. And we used all Jerusalem stone. Friends of mine like Jerusalem stone. Over here, it costs a fortune. Over there, it wasn’t so expensive. (Laughter.)

I’ve also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. That was another big one. (Applause.) And I said to Bob, “So…” — Bob Kraft — I said, “So what was bigger, Bob? What we did for Israel in terms of Jerusalem and moving the embassy to Jerusalem, becoming the capital of Israel? Or the Golan Heights, which you’ve been looking to do?” For 52 years, they’ve been having meetings on the Golan Heights. Nothing happened until I came along.

I said, “Bob Kraft, which is bigger? Which is more important to the Jewish people?” He said, “Neither.” I said, “What does that mean?” He said, “What you did by terminating the Iran nuclear deal is bigger than both.” (Applause.) I think that’s true. (Applause.) I think that’s true, Jeff. You know? Could be true. I said, “I sort of agree with that.”

But today, we’re taking another historic action. In just a few moments, I’ll sign an executive order to combat anti-Semitism. This action makes clear — (applause) — that Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act — which prohibits the federal funding of universities and other institutions that engage in discrimination — applies to institutions that traffic in anti-Semitic hate. (Applause.)

So this is a very powerful document that we’re signing today. And it’s been a very big story over the last number of days, when they heard. As you know, they had almost universal support in Congress, and yet they didn’t get it done. And this has gone on for years and years. They’ve almost had universal support, but there was always a roadblock.

But this year, there’s no roadblock because I’m doing it myself. It’s much easier. (Applause.) And we have support from many in Congress. This is our message to universities: If you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject anti-Semitism. It’s very simple. (Applause.)

My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution, or silencing of the Jewish people. We have also taken a firm stand against the so-called Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS. You know that very well. (Applause.)

And, I have to tell you, Jared Kushner and Ivanka, they’ve been talking to me about this for three years now, maybe longer than that. But I go back about three years where it’s something that I could do about it, you know. In this position, we can do things about it. Before that, not — not quite as much. I’d be just like you: successful, doing nicely, but not for this. But they’ve been talking — from the beginning of the administration, they’ve been bringing this up. And we forcefully condemn this anti-Semitic campaign against the State of Israel and its citizens.

We are profoundly honored to be joined this afternoon by Rosalee Glass, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, the darkest chapter of human history. After the war, Rosalee came to America and started a drapery manufacturing business. Now she has written a book, starred in an award-winning film, and is going strong at the age of 102. (Applause.) Where is Rosalee? Where is — hi. You’re looking good. Thank you, Rosalee. Thank you for being here. It’s an honor. And you do — you really fill our hearts with open joy, Rosalee. So many people. And we know of your story.

In honor of Rosalee and the millions of Jews who suffered unthinkable persecution, we renew our pledge now and always: Never again. Never again. (Applause.)

Today, we thank God for the Jewish people, whose love and loyalty, brilliance and bravery, resilience and resolve, spirit and strength bless America and the world.

Before I sign the executive order, I’d like to ask Oscar to say a few words, and Jonathan will light the menorah. Thank you all very much. Thank you.

Oscar, please. (Applause.) Thank you, Oscar.

MR. STEWART: Thank you, Mr. President. Oh, boy, this is a great moment.

So what I want to say is: In Scripture, it teaches us that when the Jewish armies went to fight and to conquer the land of Israel from the Canaanites, it says the generals would speak to their men and say, “Leave, if you’re afraid.” I always wondered why it says this — that if you’re afraid, to leave — because God was fighting for them. So I came up with some of my own: It’s because you had no faith in God.

Well, today I stand with a group of people who have tremendous faith in God. And we are all of different faiths and we’re all here with one — with one thing in mind, and that is to end hate. And I am so proud to be standing here the day that this was signed. This is a momentous moment in my life.

And I want to thank the President and the First Lady for everything that they’ve done for Israel, but more important for what they’ve done for America. (Applause.) America is a nation of many, many people, and we need to remember whatever God you pray to, whatever religion you practice, we are all Americans and we need to love each other, and that will conquer hate. (Applause.)

Once again, thank you very much, Mr. President. I’m deeply honored.

THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic job. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And, by the way, I see Alan Dershowitz. Come on up here for a second, Alan. Wow. (Applause.)

And I’d like to ask my friends, the pastors, to come up here. You know, Robert — and I have to say this to the other pastors, some of whom have been very kind — all of them have been very kind: We’ve never had such evangelical Christian support.

Jeff, come on up. Jeff. Come on up here, Jeff. (Applause.) You’re the one that’s doing such a good job legally to make sure all of this happens. But Robert Jeffress — I didn’t know him, but he — I watched him. And I’d watch him on different shows, and I’d say, “I like that guy. Man, he talks really great about me. And I like people that talk well about me.” (Laughter.)

And he was saying, “You know, he may not be the greatest Christian I’ve ever seen. He may not know the Bible quite as well as the rest of us. In fact, he may not know it very well at all.” (Laughter.) “But that guy is a real leader. And he’s going to a job.” And I appreciated that statement. I don’t know if I should have, but I did. (Laughter.) And I think we have led because I think we’ve made more progress toward faith leaders. We got rid of the Johnson Amendment, which was a disaster.

So I’d like to ask if — Robert, if you could say a couple of words, and if I could also ask Alan Dershowitz to say, and then we’re going to sign a very important document. Okay? Robert, please. (Applause.) Thank you.

PASTOR JEFFRESS: It is true, I believe President Trump is the most pro-faith President in history — (applause) — when you look at what he has done for people of all faiths.
And, Mr. President, you know, Jewish and Christian believers alike believe what God said to Abraham in Genesis 12 — that God would bless those who bless Israel and He would curse those who curse Israel.

And I want to thank you, Mr. President, for being the kind of President who has the courage to stand up and be, when it comes to Israel, on the right side of history. But most importantly, you’re on the right side of God. And that’s why you are not going to fail, and we’re going to stand behind you 100 percent. (Applause.) Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Jared.

MR. DERSHOWITZ: Great. For 65 of my 81 years I have spent at universities all over the country and all over the world, there is no more important event in those 65 years to turn universities away from being bastions of hatred and discrimination than this executive order being signed today. (Applause.) It is a game changer. It will go down in history as one of the most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism.

Thank you, Mr. President. You did a great, great job. The people who helped you do this did a great, great job. And you will be remembered by history for all time for having signed this very important order. Thank you. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, should we do it?

AUDIENCE: Yeah!

(The executive order is signed.) (Applause.)

MR. KUSHNER: I just want to thank President Trump for all of his leadership on behalf of America. What we’ve seen the President accomplish over the last three years have been extraordinary.

When President Trump decided to run, there were a lot of people who weren’t sure what somebody who had never done anything in politics before would do. And I would say that all of our expectations have been greatly exceeded. (Applause.)

The plans that the team has put in place under the President’s leadership have produced economic miracles for this country. And I am confident that the best is to come. But what I believe is even more important is the President’s commitment to keeping all Americans safe, to keeping America free, to keeping America respectful of people of all faiths and religions. And the work that the President has done to ensure that is something that will have an impact for generations to come.

So I just want to thank you for your amazing leadership and for all that you do to protect so many people.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

MR. KUSHNER: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: And we’ll light the menorah. (Applause.) Will you do that?

MR. KUSHNER: I think Jonathan is going to do that.

THE PRESIDENT: How about that? We’ll light the menorah. Please.

MR. KUSHNER: Jonathan. I think you’re going to light —

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, Jonathan.

(Border Patrol Agent Jonathan Morales lights the menorah.)

THE PRESIDENT: So, everyone, thank you very much. Again, Happy Hanukkah. This has been a great day. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you very much.

END

Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism

Source: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-anti-semitism/

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. My Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti Semitic harassment in schools and on university and college campuses.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq., prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title VI does not cover discrimination based on religion, individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common religious practices. Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when the discrimination is based on an individual’s race, color, or national origin.

It shall be the policy of the executive branch to enforce Title VI against prohibited forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as against all other forms of discrimination prohibited by Title VI.

Sec. 2. Ensuring Robust Enforcement of Title VI. (a) In enforcing Title VI, and identifying evidence of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, all executive departments and agencies (agencies) charged with enforcing Title VI shall consider the following:

(i) the non-legally binding working definition of anti Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”; and

(ii) the “Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism” identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.

(b) In considering the materials described in subsections (a)(i) and (a)(ii) of this section, agencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment. As with all other Title VI complaints, the inquiry into whether a particular act constitutes discrimination prohibited by Title VI will require a detailed analysis of the allegations.

Sec. 3. Additional Authorities Prohibiting Anti-Semitic Discrimination. Within 120 days of the date of this order, the head of each agency charged with enforcing Title VI shall submit a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, identifying additional nondiscrimination authorities within its enforcement authority with respect to which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism could be considered.

Sec. 4. Rule of Construction. Nothing in this order shall be construed to alter the evidentiary requirements pursuant to which an agency makes a determination that conduct, including harassment, amounts to actionable discrimination, or to diminish or infringe upon the rights protected under any other provision of law.

Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 11, 2019.

FACT SHEET: President Donald J. Trump Is Committed to Combating the Rise of Anti-Semitism

Source: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-committed-combating-rise-anti-semitism/

Issued on: December 11, 2019

COMBATING ANTI-SEMITISM: President Donald J. Trump is issuing an Executive Order to further the fight against the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.

• President Trump’s order makes it clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to anti-Semitic discrimination based on race, color, or national origin.
• When enforcing Title VI against covered anti-Semitic discrimination, agencies will consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as well as the IHRA’s contemporary examples.
• The President is also directing Federal agencies to identify other ways the Government can use nondiscrimination authorities to address anti-Semitism.
• This action further demonstrates the unwavering commitment of President Trump and his Administration to combating all forms of anti-Semitism.

CONFRONTING RISING HATE: In recent years, Americans have witnessed a disturbing rise of anti-Semitic incidents and rhetoric across the country.

• In the past few years, there has been a disturbing trend of rising anti-Semitism in the United States.
• Anti-Semitic incidents have increased in America since 2013, particularly in schools and on college campuses.
• These incidents include horrific acts of violence against Jewish Americans and synagogues in the United States.
• Earlier this year, 18 Democrat Members of Congress cosponsored legislation in support of the anti-Semitic “Boycott, Divest, Sanctions” (BDS) movement.
  • In their resolution, these Congressmen and Congresswomen shockingly compared support for Israel to support for Nazi Germany.

TAKING ACTION: President Trump and his Administration have repeatedly taken action to combat hate and support the Jewish community.

• During this year’s State of the Union Address, President Trump promised to “never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism, or those who spread its venomous creed.”
• Since January 2017, the Civil Rights division at the Department of Justice (DOJ) has obtained 14 convictions in cases involving attacks or threats against places of worship.
  • The Division has also obtained 11 convictions in cases involving hate crimes against individuals because of their religious beliefs.
• DOJ has launched a new, comprehensive website providing a centralized portal for law enforcement, media, advocacy groups and others to access hate crime resources.
• DOJ’s Community Relations Service has facilitated 17 forums since September 2018 focused on protecting places of worship and preventing hate crimes.
• The President signed the JUST Act, strengthening Holocaust restitution efforts.
• The Trump Administration removed the last known Nazi criminal from the United States.

Email trail shows how anti-Israel zealots took over a mild-mannered scholarly organization By Jesse M. Fried and Steven Davidoff Solomon

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/email-trail-shows-how-anti-israel-zealots-took-over-a-mild-mannered-scholarly-organization

Washington Examiner
March 25, 2018

In December 2013, the American Studies Association adopted a boycott of Israel. The organization, which says it “promote[s] the development and dissemination of interdisciplinary research on U.S. culture and history in a global context,” banned ties to Israeli educational institutions.

The Israel boycott resolution was first approved by ASA’s leadership, known as the National Council. Then, due to low voter turnout, it was ratified by a mere 20 percent of the organization’s members.

Four distinguished ASA members have since sued the group and certain ASA leaders, claiming that the small turnout invalidated the vote’s result under the ASA’s bylaws and the District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act. The members also claimed that the boycott violated laws barring a nonprofit from acting outside its chartered purpose.

Even apart from these legal defects, the boycott is an embarrassment. It runs afoul of the principle of academic freedom; its adoption was immediately and harshly criticized by the distinguished 62-member Association of American Universities. And the exclusive focus on Israel smacks of anti-Semitism. The ASA has never boycotted any other country, either before or since.

But here’s the really interesting part: During the course of the litigation, lawyers for the plaintiffs uncovered information suggesting that the ASA’s anti-Israel boycott did not arise organically from within the organization. Rather, it resulted from a carefully planned hostile takeover by outside activists eager to use the ASA and its money to advance their hateful agenda.

Emails uncovered during the litigation point to a coordinated action led by organizers of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, working alongside Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the worldwide anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

One of the biggest ironies of the BDS movement is that Barghouti himself studied at Tel Aviv University — an institution he is trying to convince others to boycott — after growing up in Qatar and Egypt and later moving to Israel. He now chooses to live in Israel with his family while calling on the world to boycott his neighbors.

An important player in the effort to hijack the ASA seems to have been Jasbir Puar, an associate professor at Rutgers University. Her book claims that Israel deliberately maims Palestinians in order to control them. Puar has also reportedly peddled vicious lies about Israel stealing Palestinians’ organs for research, echoing the blood libels used to whip up hatred of Jews in the Middle Ages.

Emails disclosed in the ASA case show that Puar, after joining the ASA’s nominating committee, began to stack ASA’s leadership with USACBI supporters. Professor Sunaina Maira, a defendant in the case, wrote in late 2012: “Jasbir is nominating me and Alex Lubin for the Council and she suggests populating it with as many [boycott] supporters as possible.” Puar appeared to confirm the strategy in an email from the same time period: “I think we should prepare for the longer-term struggle by populating elected positions with as [many] supporters as possible.”

By the end of Puar’s term on the nominating committee in 2013, seven of the ASA’s 12 National Council members were USACBI supporters. “In my conversations with Jasbir, it’s clear that the intent of her nominations was...to build momentum for BDS,” wrote Lubin in late 2012.

The emails suggest that secrecy was a key component of this strategy to take over the ASA. As individual defendants were seeking election to leadership positions in late 2012, they discussed over email the need to hide their boycott agenda from ASA’s voters. “I feel it might be more strategic not to present ourselves as a pro-boycott slate,” Maira wrote. “I would definitely suggest not specifying BDS, but emphasizing support for academic freedom, etc,” wrote David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of California, Riverside.

Only one of those involved in the discussions, New York University professor Nikhil Singh, cautioned against such subterfuge, warning that a secretive attempt to win election and then surprise everyone with a boycott “may well backfire, because it will lack legitimacy.” Singh’s caution went unheeded. Only one USACBI supporter running for an ASA office revealed his support for an Israel boycott, and he lost. The others, who hid their support, won.

BDS leader Barghouti, who seems to have no prior connection to the ASA, appears to have personally guided USACBI efforts from his base in Israel. In the run-up to the boycott vote, the defendants secretly submitted materials for circulation to the membership to Barghouti and other USACBI leaders for their approval. Other emails reveal suggestions by ASA leaders that the boycott’s scope, and when an Israeli institution could be “unboycotted,” should both be determined by USACBI, not the ASA itself.

After USACBI supporters took control of ASA’s National Council, they moved forward with their boycott plans. To ensure things went their way, the defendants manipulated the vote, refusing to give opponents equal time to make their case, rushing to recruit pro-BDS graduate students into the ASA, and then freezing membership rolls to block opponents of the resolution.

All of this cost the ASA real money, discovery documents suggest. To pay for resolution-related expenses, and to offset revenue shortfalls resulting from reputational damage, defendants appear to have improperly invaded the ASA’s trust fund and removed about $300,000. In early March, the court permitted plaintiffs to amend their complaint to add a variety of new claims, including breach of fiduciary duty for misappropriation of assets.

The new evidence serves as a warning to other groups beset by Israel-boycott proposals: they are pushed by activists who happily sacrifice these organizations’ reputations and finances to bash Israel. It also suggests that anti-Israel efforts in academia do not reflect a vast popular movement.

Nor are these efforts a sign of shifting intellectual climate towards Israel in universities. Instead, if the ASA case is representative, BDS in academia is driven by a small group of Israel haters who manipulate and lie their way into positions of power, knowing their cause actually has little support on campus.

Jesse Fried is a professor at Harvard Law School. Steven Davidoff Solomon is a professor at Berkeley Law. Both authors advised the plaintiffs’ counsel in the lawsuit against the American Studies Association.

---

Publish the Names of Students and Professors Who Support Hamas Lynching and Rapes By Alan Dershowitz

Source: https://dersh.substack.com/p/publish-the-names-of-students-and

OCT 11, 2023

Student groups at many elite universities -- including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, CUNY -- have come out in support of Hamas at a time when its terrorists have raped, murdered and kidnapped women, toddlers, the elderly and other civilians, and have reportedly beheaded babies. The immoral groups that support such atrocities are composed of both students and faculty members. Many of these individuals hide behind their organizations' names and refuse to identify themselves. They do not want to be held accountable in the court of public opinion for their own despicable views.

The open marketplace of ideas, which I support, allows students to hold and express these views, but it also requires transparency so that the rest of us can judge them, hold them accountable and debate them.

There are, of course, rare occasions where anonymity is essential. For example, during the civil rights period of the 1960's, identifying members of civil rights groups endangered their lives. There is, however, no such fear here. Groups that oppose Hamas have not been known to advocate violence against those who support it. To the contrary, it is pro-Israel advocates who have been threatened with and suffered from violence.

The students who anonymously vote to support Hamas' recent attacks need not be fearful of anything but disdain and criticism. They should be willing to subject themselves to the marketplace of ideas. They should not resort to cowardly hiding behind the names of prominent organizations such as "Amnesty International at Harvard" -- one of the groups that said they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all" the massacres and rapes. They should be prepared to defend these immoral views.

Some students who belong to these organizations argue that they do not personally support Hamas' recent barbarities. They are free to say so and to dissociate themselves from the groups they voluntarily joined. Silence in this context is acquiescence. So is hiding behind anonymity.

Fellow students, future employers, and others should be able to judge their friends and potential employees by the views they have expressed. Teachers should not grade students based on their views. That is why anonymous grading is widely employed at universities.

As a university professor for 50 years, I would not grade down a student because she supported Hamas atrocities. Nor would I befriend or employ such a student. Freedom of speech is not freedom from being held accountable for one's speech. It is interesting that most of the counter-petitions protesting Hamas's activities contain the names of students and faculty, but that is far less true of petitions that support Hamas's atrocities. That is understandable because there is no reasonable defense for what Hamas has done. Those who support Hamas should be ashamed and shamed, and those who oppose Hamas should be praised. That, too, is part of the marketplace of ideas.

Today, too many students are judged by their "identity." Identity politics has replaced meritocracy. Being judged by one's support or opposition to Hamas barbarity is more justifiable.

Let the student newspapers, many of which are rabidly anti-Israel, publish the names of all students and faculty members who belong to groups that support and oppose Hamas. Hypothetically, if a club were formed at any of these universities that advocated rape or the lynching of African Americans, the newspapers would most assuredly publish the names of everyone associated with such a despicable group. Why is this different? Rape has become a weapon of war for Hamas, along with lynching, mutilation, mass murder and kidnapping. Expressing support for these acts, while constitutionally protected, is wrong. The answer to wrong speech isn't censorship; it is right speech, and transparency.

So let the names be published. Let the despicable students and faculty members who support Hamas stand up and defend their indefensible views, and let the marketplace of ideas decide who is right and who is wrong.

---

Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students By Steven Davidoff Solomon: Would your clients want an attorney who condones hatred and monstrous crimes?

Source: https://archive.ph/7Ruos and https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-hire-my-anti-semitic-law-students-protests-colleges-universities-jews-palestine-6ad86ad5

Wall Street Journal

October 15, 2023

Columbia students participate in a rally in support of Palestine at the university in New York, Oct. 12.
PHOTO: SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

I teach corporate law at the University of California, Berkeley, and I’m an adviser to the Jewish law students association. My students are largely engaged and well-prepared, and I regularly recommend them to legal employers.

But if you don’t want to hire people who advocate hate and practice discrimination, don’t hire some of my students. Anti-Semitic conduct is nothing new on university campuses, including here at Berkeley.

Last year, Berkeley’s Law Students for Justice in Palestine asked other student groups to adopt a bylaw that banned supporters of Israel from speaking at events. It excluded any speaker who “expressed and continued to hold views or host/sponsor/promote events in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.” Nine student groups adopted the bylaw. Signers included the Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, the Queer Caucus and the Women of Berkeley Law.

The bylaw caused an uproar. It was rightly criticized for creating “Jew-free” zones. Our dean—a diehard liberal—admirably condemned it but said free-speech principles tied his hands. The campus groups had the legal right to pick or exclude speakers based on their views. The bylaw remains, and 11 other groups subsequently adopted it.

You don’t need an advanced degree to see why this bylaw is wrong. For millennia, Jews have prayed, “next year in Jerusalem,” capturing how central the idea of a homeland is to Jewish identity. By excluding Jews from their homeland—after Jews have already endured thousands of years of persecution—these organizations are engaging in anti-Semitism and dehumanizing Jews. They didn’t include Jewish law students in the conversation when circulating the bylaw. They also singled out Jews for wanting what we all should have—a homeland and haven from persecution.

The student conduct at Berkeley is part of the broader attitude against Jews on university campuses that made last week’s massacre possible. It is shameful and has been tolerated for too long.

It’s time for the adults to take over, and that includes law firms looking for graduates to hire. The law firm Winston & Strawn revoked an employment offer for a student at New York University law school who wrote an open letter that pointedly refused to condemn Hamas’s attack. The letter denounced Israel instead and asserted that its “regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary.” The NYU law school dean had issued a tepid response to the massacres, but after the student’s anti-Israel screed caused an uproar, he made a second, more forceful statement condemning Hamas’s attack.

Legal employers in the recruiting process should do what Winston & Strawn did: treat these law students like the adults they are. If a student endorses hate, dehumanization or anti-Semitism, don’t hire him. When students face consequences for their actions, they straighten up.

If you are a legal employer, when you interview students from Berkeley, Harvard, NYU or any other law school this year, ask them what organizations they belong to. Ask if they support discriminatory bylaws or other acts and resolutions blaming Jews and Israelis for the Hamas massacre. If a student endorses hatred, it isn’t only your right but your duty not to hire him. Do you want your clients represented by someone who condones these monstrous crimes?

Mr. Solomon is a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Appeared in the October 16, 2023, print edition as 'Don’t Hire My Anti-Semitic Law Students'.

---

Harvard must condemn pro-Hamas students — and reckon with its history of antisemitism By Alan Dershowitz

Source: https://dersh.substack.com/p/harvard-must-condemn-pro-hamas-students

OCT 18, 2023

There’s an ongoing debate on university campuses about whether and how to respond to students who support, defend or even praise what Hamas terrorists deliberately did to innocent Israeli children, the elderly and other civilians.

On the one hand, there are free-speech and academic-freedom considerations.

As Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, put it in refusing to condemn the more than 30 student groups who blamed Israel alone for the Hamas horrors: “Harvard embraces a commitment to free expression.”

That would be acceptable if the university had a strict and consistent policy of never taking positions on issues that do not directly involve the university.

The University of Chicago has that policy. Harvard does not.

Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers reminded the current administration the school has forfeited that prerogative — to “pursue a policy of neutrality” — by speaking out on other issues such as the killing of George Floyd.

The testing question would be: What, if anything, would Harvard’s president have said if a group of Harvard clubs blamed the lethal firebombing of a black church on the burned black children or the NAACP?

What if they blamed the shooting-up of a gay bar on the lifestyles of the murdered gays?

Or the lynching of blacks on their “uppity” attitudes?

We know what the reaction of university administrators would have been.

At the very least, they would have exercised their own freedom of expression to condemn these groups in the strongest terms.

So we have two direct questions for President Gay (whom we respect):

1) Would you have refused to condemn student groups that took these despicable positions, citing their freedom of expression?

2) If you would have condemned such groups (as we’re confident you would have), how do you distinguish these groups from those you refuse to condemn?

Is supporting the mass murder of Jews any less deserving of condemnation than supporting those who burn churches, shoot gays or lynch blacks?

How then can you justify not condemning the Harvard groups?

Is it because you would be criticized for condemning pro-Hamas students but praised for condemning anti-black and anti-gay bigots?

That is not a principled basis for making a distinction. What then is the basis?

Certainly not Harvard’s sordid history, which is rife with racism and antisemitism.

For generations, Harvard excluded or limited the number of black and Jewish students. In the 1930s it honored German Nazis.

As recently as 1964, when one of us (Alan) arrived there, it discriminated against Jews in the selection of presidents and deans.

It welcomed recruitment on campus by corporations and law firms that openly discriminated against Jews.

To its credit, Harvard has tried to reckon with its history of anti-black racism.

It must now reckon with its history of antisemitism and its current application of double standards in tolerating Jew-hatred among elements of its student body, faculty and administrators.

It is no excuse to say the current Jew-hatred is directed at the nation-state of the Jewish people rather than at Jews as a group.

Hamas lynched, raped, beheaded and kidnapped Jews who lived in Israel.

It has murdered non-Israeli Jews in other parts of the world, and its charter is filled with anti-Jewish canards borrowed from the notorious antisemitic forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Hamas is a Jew-hating antisemitic terrorist group, and students who support it by shifting the blame from them to the Jews of Israel are complicit in Hamas Jew-hatred and must be held accountable.

Nor is it an excuse or justification that the offending groups comprise young students, some of whom claim they didn’t realize what they signed.

They knew they were signing an anti-Israel petition at a time Israeli Jews were being slaughtered.

The fact some may have signed it without reading it only goes to show the knee-jerk hatred of some students toward anything involving Israel or Jews.

They would never have signed a petition critical of gays or blacks without studying it carefully.

Harvard treats its students — both 18-year-old freshmen and 25-year-old graduate students — as adults, holding them responsible for what they write and sign. It does not excuse plagiarism even if negligent.

There is no basis for an exception here.

Students who supported this and similar petitions should be called out and criticized.

If they want to retract their signatures, they should do so publicly and apologize.

Silence is complicity.

Freedom of expression precludes the power to punish immoral speech.

It includes the right to condemn such speech.

Alan Dershowitz is professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and the author of “Get Trump,” “Guilt by Accusation” and “The Price of Principle.” Andrew Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.

President Biden's extraordinary hostility to Israel By Morton A. Klein

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/president-bidens-extraordinary-hostility-to-israel/ and https://zoa.org/2023/10/10448560-president-bidens-extraordinary-hostility-to-israel-israel-hayoms-mort-klein-op-ed/

October 5, 2023

Let's not be fooled. Extolling "ironclad friendship" between America are simply meaningless and phony words when Biden is enriching the Iranian terror regime with billions of dollars in funds and sanctions relief; pressing Israel to cede her sovereignty and security to a Palestinian terror state on "Auschwitz lines" that would render Israel indefensible.

President Joe Biden and his administration have been pursuing the same hostile-to-Israel policies promoted by the Obama-Biden administration.

Let's not be fooled. Extolling "ironclad friendship" between America are simply meaningless and phony words when Biden is enriching the Iranian terror regime with billions of dollars in funds and sanctions relief; pressing Israel to cede her sovereignty and security to a Palestinian terror state on "Auschwitz lines" that would render Israel indefensible; and sending over $1.5 billion to Hamas-allied UNRWA and to the Palestinian regime thereby freeing up funds for the Palestinian Authority to continue paying Arabs lifetime pensions to murder Jews and Americans.

These policies threaten Israel's existence and Jewish and American lives.

And that isn't all. The Biden administration took scores of additional actions that are hostile to Israel and/or Jews. Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and others wrote about these actions as they occurred. Here are a few highlights:

• Biden pressured Israel to surrender 330 square miles of natural-gas-rich maritime territory to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, thereby enriching Hezbollah with billions of dollars of revenue, and diminishing Israeli maritime security and resources. Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman decried that this deal gave 100% to Lebanon, and 0% to Israel.
• Biden's combating antisemitism strategy downgraded the excellent IHRA definition of antisemitism by embracing the dangerous NEXUS and JDA definitions that permit antisemitism masked as hatred for the Jewish state and Zionism. Biden's antisemitism strategy also failed to address major sources of antisemitism other than white supremacy; diluted antisemitism's uniqueness by lumping antisemitism together with "Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny"; and sought to incorporate other hatreds to dilute Holocaust education.
• Biden reinstituted Obama's anti-Jewish boycott of joint US-Israeli science and technology research, cooperation, and projects over the artificial 1949 ceasefire lines. The boycott discriminates against primarily Jewish institutions such as Ariel University. By contrast, Palestinian Arab institutions over the ceasefire lines are receiving US assistance. The US Office of Palestinian Affairs just announced a joint doctoral degree program with"Al Quds" University, located in Jerusalem and throughout the "West Bank."
• Biden has been using a potential game-changing Saudi-Israeli deal to demand Israeli concessions to the Palestinian Authority terror regime, including that a Palestinian state solution must be kept open.
• Biden's State Department sent US taxpayer funds to a partisan, main organizer of the divisive anti-Netanyahu, anti-judicial reform demonstrations that endangered security by closing down major roads and the airport. Biden and his ambassador to Israel Nides also pressured Israel's government and publicly spoke against the needed judicial reforms that Israelis voted for, thereby undermining Israeli democracy.
• Biden repeatedly pressured Israel to allow the US to re-open an illegal consulate for Palestinian Arabs in western Jerusalem, undermining Israeli sovereignty over her capital. The US State Department denied reports that the US had given up this effort and instead stated that the Biden administration is still "committed" to opening an (illegal) "Palestinian" consulate in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Biden opened a US Office of Palestinian Affairs ("OPA") in Jerusalem, which undermines Israel's sovereignty. A few days ago, OPA applauded UNRWA giving $3.6 million to terrorist hotbed Jenin.
• In his joint press conference with Palestinian Authority president/dictator Mahmoud Abbas, Biden called ordinary Israeli checkpoints, which are necessary for security, "indignities" against Palestinians.
• Biden undermined Israel's security and sovereignty by calling for the Palestinian Authority to share control of the Israel-Jordanian crossings; and by pressuring Israel to allow more access for Israel for Palestinians from Gaza.
• Biden rejoined the Israel-bashing UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), initially as an observer and then "proudly" as a full member. The Trump administration had quit the UNHRC because the UNHRC persistently attacks human-rights-loving Israel, and fails to act against real human rights violators.
• Biden pressured Israel to legalize massive illegal Arab building in Area C – the area of Judea-Samaria lawfully under full Israeli administrative control.
• Biden repeatedly praised antisemites and Israel-bashers Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. On May 18, 2021, Biden told Tlaib: "I admire your intellect, I admire your passion, and I admire your concern for so many other people. And it's my feelings from my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family are well. You're a fighter. And, God, thank you for being a fighter." On April 3, 2023, Biden said "Congressman [sic] Omar, I want to thank you for being here. You never stop working to level the playing field for everybody. . . . And on May 1, 2023, at the White House Eid al-Fitr party, Biden publicly told Jewhating Israel-bashers Omar and Tlaib that they looked beautiful.
• The Biden administration backtracked on US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. In a CNN interview on February 8, 2021, Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if the Biden administration would continue to "see the Golan Heights as part of Israel." Blinken only endorsed Israel's presence in the Golan for the time being, due to the Golan's importance to Israel's security, and said that the Biden administration would look at this again if the situation in Syria were to change.
• During a webinar with "Americans for Peace Now" (a radical group that supports BDS over the green line), Biden's former US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides bragged that his pressure stopped Jewish building in E-1, and wished he could stop all Jewish building in "East Jerusalem" (which includes the Jewish quarter) and Judea/Samaria. Nides also euphemistically called the Palestinian Authority's "pay to slay" payments to terrorists to murder Jews "martyr payments." Nides further declared: "' These martyr payments . . . have caused an enormous amount of problems because it gives the 'haters' an excuse not to support the PA based on the argument that it is 'paying for people who killed Jews.'" (Nides' thus stated that the terrorists and the PA are not the problem, but rather the problem is the people who oppose the PA's "pay to slay" payments.)
• Biden insulted Israel's prime minister by still not meeting with him at the White House, and by instead meeting opposition party leaders. During Biden's recent meeting with Netanyahu at the United Nations on September 20, 2023, Biden again pushed for a Palestinian Arab (terror) state; again pressured Israel to not make what Biden refers to as "unilateral measures" (meaning Jews building homes in the Jewish homeland); and again opposed and interfered with Israel's needed internal judicial reforms.

In addition, over thirty Biden appointees and nominees to top posts affecting Jews and the Jewish state have alarming antisemitic or hostile-to-Israel backgrounds. Many were also Obama-Biden administration officials. ZOA's "Biden Appointments Watch" webpage illuminates their backgrounds. A few examples:

• US Special Envoy to the Palestinians Hady Amr stated that he supports BDS and was "inspired" by the Intifada terror wars against Israel.
• White House Office of Legislative Affairs Deputy Director Reema Dodin has supported suicide bombings.
• National Security Council Senior Director for Intelligence Maher Bitar organized an anti-Israel conference and ran a session on how to demonize Israel.
• US Commission on Int'l Religious Freedom appointee Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum retweeted her wife's praise for antisemite Linda Sarsour and said Kaddish for Hamas terrorists killed while trying to murder Jews, causing pro-Israel members of her LGBT synagogue to leave.
• National Security Advisor Avril Haines falsely condemned Israel for terrorism and incitement.
• US Envoy to Iran Robert Malley (lead Iran negotiator; now under investigation for mishandling classified information) is an Iran apologist who opposes sanctions on Iran.
• ExtremistUS AID Middle East assistant administrator nominee (and senior advisor to State Dept. sanctions coordinator) Tamara Cofman Wittes condemned the Abraham Accords as a "Naksa." ("Naksa" is the Arabic for "setback" or "catastrophe": Palestinian Arabs use this term to describe Arabs' failure to annihilate Israel in 1967.)
• And Biden's nominee for the next US Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, who served as Obama's chief-of-staff and Treasury Secretary: lied that the Iran deal contained "incredibly robust" inspections and would guarantee that Iran "never" obtained a nuclear bomb, to promote the deal to the Jewish community; was the treasury secretary during Obama's transfer of $1.7 billion of cash to Iran; and publicly defended the worst-ever anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334. Res. 2334 labels the Jewish people's holiest sites including the Western Wall and Temple Mount, Hadassah Hospital, and Jewish Quarter as "occupied Arab land"; and says that the Jewish presence (and homes) in these historic Jewish lands has "no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law." Res. 2334 also promotes Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

With friends like these...

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. By Dov Fischer

Source: https://spectator.org/adl-jonathan-greenblatt-left/

April 16, 2021

ADL Director Jonathan Greenblatt speaks at 2017 National Council of La Raza Annual Conference, Phoenix, Arizona (Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)

Imagine that a group of prominent Catholic “human-rights activists” issues statements condemning the pope and the Vatican for their stands opposing gay marriage and abortion on demand. Actually, it happens all the time. Probably the two most powerful Catholics in America, who also double as two of the most powerful people in America — Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, both of whom go out of their ways regularly to tell us that they are devout Catholics — are two of the leading movers in the Western world for supporting gay marriage, all kinds of transgender theories and practices, and legalizing not only abortion on demand but even post-birth terminating of newborns whose parents did not intend to have them. And did we mention other prominent Catholics like, say, the Honorable Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he of abortion on demand for fetuses, COVID by his demand in nursing homes, and women by his command whenever? What — does that guy think he lives in a tree house where no one sees him?

What is a Jew like me — a fairly educated Orthodox rabbi who studied comparative religion during my undergraduate years at Columbia University, during an era when they taught real stuff — supposed to think about the authentic Catholic position on issues like these? Well, first I read my American Spectator colleague George Neumayr. I know he is real. I consider the extended conversations during private audiences I have enjoyed with the present and previous Catholic bishops of the Orange County, California, diocese where I live. I am reasonable. I know what’s what. And I commiserate because, as a Jew whose entire life has been rooted in authentic Jewish teachings, I know the frustration when impostors gain access to a complicitly fake Left mainstream media who willingly play the game to replace the authentic with the pale imitation.

Back in the mid-to-late 19th and very early 20th century, a huge rush of immigration was apace in America — from China, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Eastern Europe. Whereas there had been 250,000 Jews in America by 1880, an influx to the United States of 3.25 million Jews from Eastern Europe between 1881 and 1914 changed the complexion of American Jewry. We changed from a mostly westernized, non-religious or Reform Judaism-based German-descending community, centered significantly amid such Midwestern German Protestant populations as Cincinnati, into an East European community of New York–based immigrants who spoke little English, knew little of the West, and came with deep-rooted Orthodox Jewish religious practices or with no religion at all. When those 3.25 million arrived during those three frantic decades between the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and the start of World War I, they were greeted by the Jewish social welfare agencies that were just being created by the now-established German Jews who had preceded them here.

It was a strange love-hate thing. In those days, America did not heap benefits on destitute newcomers. Therefore, on the one hand, the established German Jewish agencies in America truly wanted to help their fellow Jews avoid starvation. They also did not want newspaper headlines about millions of newly arriving Jews draining the economy. On a deeper level, the landed and assimilated German-American Jews desperately raced to rid the immigrants of their religious beliefs and values that made them seem so “different.” The German Jews worried that the sudden appearance in America of millions of Orthodox Jews, with strange religious practices and wearing quaint clothes and sporting ancient hairstyles, would incentivize anti-Semitism to a degree hitherto unknown here. So they worked feverishly to assimilate the East European arrivals. Julia Richman, the superintendent of the New York City public schools in the Lower East Side, gave teachers orders to grab any child heard speaking Yiddish in the school hallways and to wash the child’s mouth out with soap. Minnie Lewis stood on street corners, offering children free cookies if they would let her cut their extended sideburns. Efforts were made to convert the young immigrant generation from their parents’ religious Orthodoxy to Reform Judaism, a theology akin to Unitarianism, where pork is eaten and intermarriage is boasted.

It really was quite love-hate. The German Jews built Jewish hospitals like Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City because Jewish doctors still were being barred from practicing elsewhere. And yet those same Jews then initially barred the children of East European immigrants from practicing at Mount Sinai. While German Jews who had business sense went into investing and finance, they tried persuading the East European immigrants to move to Vineland, New Jersey, and to the Catskill Mountains beyond New York’s boroughs to be farmers. That would get tens of thousands of East European Jews out of view, out of sight, out of mind — and also might counter the stereotype of Jews as financiers once the immigrants succeeded as farmers. To be sure, the German Jews did not send their own kids to farm in Vineland and in the Catskills. And the projects failed miserably. The immigrant Jews in Vineland ended up getting Ph.D.s in agricultural science and publishing magazines about farming, while the ones in the Catskills ended up turning their farmhouses into small restaurants, then bigger ones, and then into resort hotels where other Jews, denied other job or career opportunities because of discrimination, became stand-up comedians.

And so it went. To get the East Europeans out of sight, the German Jewish agencies even shipped ten thousand more of the immigrants from New York to Galveston, Texas. When other American men’s fraternities barred the wave of Jews who came in from Germany, they formed B’nai B’rith fraternal lodges. And then, initially, those lodges barred East European Jews. Many, though not all, historians believe the very epithet “kike” first gained currency in the German-American community. Yep, dem’s my peeps.

But when Jews came under anti-Semitic attack, that was a time to pull together. Jew-haters do not distinguish between East European Jews and German Jews, Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews. They just hate blindly and irrationally. The stereotypes are crazy and contradictory. Disgruntled tenants will complain about the Jewish landlord, and disgruntled landlords about the Jewish tenant. Haters among the communists, as typified by the worst Jew-hater of them all, Karl Marx, accused all Jews of being capitalists who live for mammon, a Hebrew word for money. (Marx did not regard himself as Jewish and hated Jews. His father had converted to Protestantism.) Haters among capitalists meanwhile accused all Jews of being communists. How confusing it must have been for such haters in the 1970s, as Jews emerged as the single most anti-Soviet demographic in America.

As Jews arrived in larger numbers, new forms of anti-Semitism emerged. Some were the subtle Gentleman’s Agreement version that kept Jews out of hotels and country clubs into the 1960s. Thus did the Republican Party lose a Jewish constituency that initially had backed it, just as Republicans likewise lost the Irish, Italian, and other ethnic Catholic classes for a century until Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter fostered some reorienting. When, amid the Great Depression, one famous “restricted” Beverly Hills country club decided that, with so many of their white-shoe Christian members going bankrupt, they needed finally to allow Hollywood Jews in as dues-paying members, Groucho Marx famously said that he would not join any club that wanted him as a member. Many think he was being cleverly witty Groucho, but he was not joking; he knew why they suddenly wanted him, and he wanted no part of that. He had no problem joining the Hillcrest country club that Jews established as their alternative.

In 1913 Atlanta, Georgia, anti-Semitism took a dramatic new turn. It was the Georgia of Tom Watson and the KKK. A young girl was found strangled in the basement of a local pencil factory. Without evidence to justify the accusations, just suspicions and unsubstantiated claims, a public hate campaign spurred by Watson, amid other factors, led to the arrest of the factory manager, a New York Jew who had moved down there to assume the job. After arriving, he had become president of the Atlanta B’nai B’rith. That Jew, Leo Frank, was put on a show trial and was convicted amid mob violence outside the courtroom. He was sentenced to death. The governor, John Slaton, whose name had been bandied about as potential vice-presidential material, heroically brought his rising political career to an abrupt end by commuting Frank’s sentence. His life and family threatened, Slaton had to leave Georgia for 10 years. Meanwhile, armed Jew-haters invaded the jail where Frank was being held, kidnapped him, and lynched him in August 1915 in Marietta, Georgia.

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.

For example, ADL presented data on anti-Semitism during the Trump presidency that defied reality. In one egregious case, they reported a 57 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents during Trump’s first year when other data showed a decrease. Notably, in blaming Trump’s emergence, they included in their tally some 150 bomb threats made to American Jewish institutions by a mentally disturbed Israeli Jewish teen who ultimately was convicted by a Tel Aviv court of phoning in thousands of such threats from overseas.

The demise of ADL as a Jewish organization and its conversion into a mouthpiece for Obama acolytes has been mourned for the past five years. Seth Mandel has written about it in Commentary. Liel Leibovitz, another leading American Jewish commentator, wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal. Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield exposed further details in David Horowitz’s FrontPage Mag. Likewise Andrew Harrod in Jihad Watch and the Orthodox Jewish online source Matzav. Most recently, Jonathan Tobin has written about ADL’s pronouncedly left bias and “overhyped statistics” in several articles in JNS, a national Jewish news service.

In an era of white supremacist hate and an extraordinary outbreak of rabidly anti-Jewish hate on the left, especially on college campuses with the Nazi-like BDS movement to boycott only the one country in the world with a Jewish majority, and even among Democrats in Congress like Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and others, it is regrettable that the Jewish community has lost a defense organization to the politics of unbridled progressivism. But that is the reality of the day. Just as devout Catholics endeavor to persuade non-Catholics that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are not who and what they say they are, so it now has had to fall on the Coalition for Jewish Values, representing 1,500 American traditional rabbis, to speak out against Greenblatt’s and ADL’s latest outrage, the totally unwarranted and unjustified attack on Tucker Carlson for his condemning Biden’s effort to import millions of new voters to “replace” the landed electorate by imbalancing future American elections. As Jeffrey Lord has explained thoroughly in The American Spectator, Carlson is absolutely correct. Voter “replacement” is exactly, precisely what the Biden–Pelosi–Schumer Democrats now are endeavoring to do, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s nine seats next in their sights.

One looks at the conservative red California that once dependably elected governors like Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian, and Pete Wilson. Or at Nevada and Arizona, dependably Republican until supplanted by the coordinated Democrat effort to open the borders and then to convince the likes of even a Reagan, and certainly Bushes, to grant mass amnesties and rapid “paths leading to citizenship” — i.e., paths leading to voting for the party that promises unlimited government payouts and services. Of course we now are watching, before our very eyes, a concerted effort to replace the electorate that was electing Republicans. And look where newcomers are being sent, all those unaccompanied children who are wrapped up by Biden’s administration in aluminum foil and placed initially in Obama–Biden cages — places like San Diego, one of the last redoubts of conservatism in California, and Texas, the red state with the most electoral college votes. Understandably, North Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has spoken out forcefully, telling Biden that she will not let her state be next.

How can anyone objective not see what is happening? The reason that Biden insists that the chaos at the border is not a “crisis” is plain to see: it is planned chaos, aimed at overrunning the system to leave no choice but to move millions of future Democrat voters ultimately into states where they can turn those tides as they have in the American Southwest. Along with aiming to add two new guaranteed Democrat states, thus four new Democrat U.S. senators, and packing the U.S. Supreme Court, it marks a concerted Democrat effort to turn the entire country into a California with one-party rule.

Yes, white supremacist haters in Charlottesville spoke of “replacement” theory, and they falsely and wrongly targeted the slogan with bigotry. But because a white supremacist says that it gets warm in the summer and cold in the winter does not mean that Tucker Carlson is racist for observing the same. If white supremacists oppose tax increases, that does not make it racism for normal people to oppose tax increases, too. If white supremacists protest being banned by Facebook or Twitter, that does not make Dennis Prager an anti-Semite when he blasts YouTube for taking down some of his fabulous five-minute Prager University segments, like their absurd censoring of his segment on the Ten Commandments on grounds that it violated YouTube standards by speaking of murder (“Thou Shalt — uh … — Not Murder”).

Jonathan Greenblatt’s and ADL’s attack on Tucker Carlson must be deplored by all fair-minded Americans. And, as 1,500 Orthodox rabbis have made clear — and has been reported across online news media but suppressed uniformly by the Left mainstream media — ADL does not speak for Jews and no longer even is a Jewish organization.

The ADL Is Undermining The Battle Against Anti-Semitism By Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: https://jewishleadershipproject.org/the-adl-is-undermining-the-battle-against-anti-semitism/

White Rose Magazine

June 10, 2022

ARE donors to the Anti-Defamation League aware of what they are funding?

Do they know that the organization created to fight prejudice and attacks against Jews is on the record supporting an ideology that grants a permission slip to anti-Semitism?

Do they know that the group still considered to be the gold standard for monitoring hate crimes is promoting the notion that Jews should be divided along racial lines—an explicit acceptance of radical theories that categorize Jews and the State of Israel as a function of “white privilege”?

Do they know that the organization committed to support Israel has, in recent years, often joined with those sniping at it and hired vicious critics of the Jewish state as staff members, like Tema Smith?

Do they know that a group that prided itself on nonpartisanship and building bipartisan coalitions against anti-Semitism has cast those principles to the winds and become part of America’s political tribal wars?

Do they know that the organization committed to support Israel has, in recent years, often joined with those sniping at it and hired vicious critics of the Jewish state as staff members?

Do they know that the organization that always considered defense of civil liberties essential to its mission has now joined hands with Big Tech companies to promote censorship of ideas and organizations?

Perhaps many of those still pouring money into the ADL’s coffers are aware of all this and are supportive of the sea change in the organization. The abandonment of core principles and its job of defending Jews places the ADL on the same side of those it is pledged to fight. This is one more casualty of the shift in culture that has produced toxic divisions tearing apart the fabric of American society.

Most of the many American Jewish organizations and institutions founded in the early 20th century have long since become obsolete. The Jewish hospitals created to find places for unhired Jewish doctors and the Jewish country clubs established to compete with the exclusionary non-Jewish facilities have long since become secular once those barriers evaporated.

The abandonment of core principles and its job of defending Jews places the ADL on the same side of those it is pledged to fight.

Many national organizations that once were considered essential platforms for speaking up for a beleaguered community are now mere shadows of themselves as they struggle to find a purpose as their constituencies changed or disappeared altogether.

But there is still one national Jewish institution that not only still has a job but arguably is faced with an even more daunting task and bigger responsibilities than it did when it opened its doors: the Anti-Defamation League.

Outraged over the anti-Semitic hate that fueled both the wrongful murder conviction of Atlanta businessman Leo Frank and his subsequent lynching in 1915, the B’nai B’rith organization established the ADL to deal specifically with the plague of anti-Semitism. The daunting challenges of a century ago—in the form of hate sponsored by auto magnate Henry Ford or populist preachers directly invoking age-old stereotypes about Jewish “aliens and power brokers”—have evolved to reach even wider audiences on the Internet. The delegitimization of the Jews and the Jewish state is louder than ever, and now has become a feature of the increasingly influential left-wing of the Democratic Party, which has embraced radical notions like intersectionality and critical race theory, opening the door to anti-Semitism.

That makes the ADL, which has become not only independent of its initial sponsor, but an organizational powerhouse with a massive fundraising machine, more important than ever. Its infrastructure of regional offices and large staff perform the task of monitoring acts of anti-Semitism at a time when attacks on Jews are not only on the rise but essentially mainstreamed under the guise of “criticism” of Israel. As open calls for Israel’s destruction and the stigmatizing of its supporters as racists and oppressors have become commonplace, an effective Jewish defense organization with the clout of the ADL ought to be a vital tool in combating this problem.

But the ADL is failing.

That failure can’t be measured financially since it is raising more money than ever before. Nor is it a communication problem, as the ADL retains its status as a go-to source for comments about Jewish issues as well as the ultimate arbiter in determining what constitutes anti-Semitism.

As open calls for Israel’s destruction and the stigmatizing of its supporters as racists and oppressors have become commonplace, an effective Jewish defense organization with the clout of the ADL ought to be a vital tool in combating this problem.

Yet, its failure is palpable.

Ever since its current CEO Jonathan Greenblatt succeeded longtime head Abe Foxman in 2015, the former Clinton and Obama administration staffer has largely discarded the group’s non-partisan stance.  Greenblatt has effectively turned it into just one more partisan advocacy group supporting Democratic Party talking points on a variety of issues, including those that have little or nothing to do with the defense of Jewish interests. As his grip on the organization solidified, the ADL also became an ally of ideologically driven Big Tech firms seeking to enforce censorship on the Internet. In this way, the ADL has fallen far short of the needs of an increasingly embattled Jewish community.

As worrisome as those actions are, in the past two years the problem has grown even worse. The ADL’s prioritization of its ties with left-wing allies has also led to decisions that not only undermine its core mission, such as the sanctioning of partisan weaponizing of the issue of anti-Semitism, but its willingness to endorse ideas that enable anti-Semitism and the delegitimization of Jews and Israel has, incredibly, placed it in the position of actually aiding and abetting the very forces it was created to oppose. As a result, it is not simply an example of failing Jewish leadership, but it is a group that now must be considered increasingly part of the problem rather than the solution to the dilemmas faced by American Jewry.  

The organization that Greenblatt inherited from Foxman, the ADL’s venerable leader who worked for the group for 50 years and led it for 28, was politically liberal on many issues but still scrupulously non-partisan. Moreover, though it had long since branched out into the business of educating communities on the dangers of all sorts of prejudice, it was still focused on its primary mission of combating anti-Semitism, including that which is directed at the Jewish state.

The ADL’s prioritization of its ties with left-wing allies has led to decisions that not only undermine its core mission, but has, incredibly, placed it in the position of actually aiding and abetting the very forces it was created to oppose.

Greenblatt immediately began re-orienting the organization to be more directly in line with his own partisan instincts. He had previously been a staff member of the Barack Obama White House, which was itself embroiled in a number of disputes with Israel and the Jewish community. President Obama’s determination to pursue a policy of appeasement toward Iran and its nuclear ambitions placed him in conflict with Israel—which viewed Tehran as an existential threat—and put him at odds with American Jews and certain members of Congress, who agreed with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opinion about the disastrous nature of the nuclear deal. In seeking to dismiss those arguments, Obama and his staff—including those who were orchestrating what former national security advisor Ben Rhodes called their media “echo chamber”—were at pains to spin the debate as one between a president pursuing his nation’s interests and a powerful lobby that was buying support in Congress, a trope of traditional anti-Semitism.

But far from seeking to confront his former colleagues, Greenblatt was more interested in using the ADL to critique Netanyahu. He went out of his way in 2016 to publicly oppose Netanyahu’s claim that the Palestinians’ desire to push Jews out of West Bank communities would amount to “ethnic cleansing.” According to Greenblatt, that was a wrongful use of Holocaust terminology. Yet he was guilty himself of using a similar analogy to criticize enforcement of American laws against illegal immigration.

There is, however, more at play here than mere hypocrisy. Though Greenblatt will occasionally criticize a Democrat for an anti-Semitic utterance or inappropriate Holocaust analogy, under his leadership, the ADL became focused on aiding the “resistance” to the administration of President Donald Trump, constantly accusing him of supposedly inciting or inspiring a rise in anti-Semitism on the far right. Indeed, the ADL became a prop for branding Trump a Nazi and/or anti-Semite.

While Trump’s intemperate and vulgar tone, as well as his willingness to attack opponents and critics was unorthodox, Greenblatt’s repeated attempts to connect the dots between his comments and far right extremists was rooted primarily in partisanship, not a defense of the Jews. That was apparent when it came to blaming the president for acts of violence against Jews, such as the attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, California. But it was also the case with respect to Greenblatt’s willingness to lend the ADL’s prestige to the false claim that Trump had somehow endorsed or expressed moral indifference to the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 because of a comment that was taken out of  context about “very fine people” being on both sides of the barricades there. Trump said there were such people who disagreed about the need to clear public squares of all memorials to Confederates and those killed in the Civil War, not in the confrontation with neo-Nazis.

In doing so, the ADL aligned itself with the political views of most of its donors. But in addition to committing itself to a misleading partisan narrative about Trump, Greenblatt also pushed the group into a confrontation with the Trump administration over issues that had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. For example, Greenblatt tweeted his opposition to the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court within seconds of the announcement, signaling that ADL would oppose any conservative.

The ADL condemned former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a man who was not only a friend to the Jewish community during his time in Congress and as director of the CIA but also helped to make historic breakthroughs for pro-Israel policies at the State Department. During his confirmation hearings, the ADL attacked him as a “bigot” for denouncing anti-Semitic Islamist radicals. That could be seen in the same context as Greenblatt’s reversal of Foxman’s opposition to the building of a Muslim community center and mosque in the Ground Zero area of Lower Manhattan where the 9/11 attacks took place. The ADL’s stance promoted the false narrative in which the real victims of the attacks were American Muslims, suffering from a mythical backlash.

The ADL also found itself closely aligned with Big Tech companies that it previously criticized for allowing anti-Semitism on social media. Though some of those firms, like Facebook, initially refused to go along with the ADL’s push for censoring hateful opinions, they soon found that the ADL was a willing partner when it came to justifying Silicon Valley’s shift toward censoring conservative opinions. The ADL’s efforts to steer those who logged onto hate websites to better sources of information actually led to another hate website that was spreading anti-Semitism. And its alliance with PayPal, intended to help weed out alleged radical groups, put it in the position of endorsing censorship more than actually fighting hate.

Despite the group’s claims to the contrary, the ADL’s leftist tilt caused it to be perceived as having shifted its priorities away from strictly Jewish issues. This led to even more dangerous problems than the disintegration of its gold-standard status as the ultimate authority on anti-Semitism. The spread of intersectional ideology—which lumps together all groups and peoples who claim to be oppressed because of their color or indigenous background and similarly views all of their opponents as linked by “white privilege”—has convinced many on the American left that the Palestinian war against Israel is somehow analogous to the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

This has led not only to attacks on Israel as a beneficiary of “white privilege”—the irony that a majority of Israeli Jews trace their origins to the Middle East or North Africa and are therefore “people of color” under the definition accepted by the left is lost on the Jewish state’s critics—but it has also provided fuel for a rising tide of anti-Semitism in which assertions of Israel’s illegitimacy are the primary line of attack. 

This has proved troublesome for the ADL because of the way Greenblatt has helped to steer it into a position where it is an important ally for a party whose left-wing—including its young rock stars of the congressional “Squad”—are not only anti-Israel but in the case of Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), are open supporters of the anti-Semitic BDS movement, which seeks Israel’s elimination. The group’s defense of Omar and Tlaib against criticisms from Trump about their anti-Semitism undermined their credibility in speaking up against the BDS movement while simultaneously earning them brickbats from the left.

Just as important, when the Black Lives Matter movement rose to prominence in the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd, the ADL was swept along with the rest of the country’s leftists into supporting its demands. The anti-Semitic connections of the radicals behind BLM and the vicious attacks on Israel in its platform should have placed the ADL first among the movement’s critics. But in the moral panic about race that has infected America’s leftist elites, the ADL felt compelled to endorse the movement, defend it against its critics, and, crucially, take a supportive position about the critical race theory indoctrination that was linked to the protests. 

In the past year, Greenblatt has felt compelled to note that anti-Semitism is a problem on the left as well as the far right, especially once incitement against Israel during the conflict with Hamas terrorists in May 2021 led to an outbreak of violent attacks against Jews in the United States. This incitement was led by left-wing Democrats like Omar, Tlaib, and their popular colleague Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who were appealing to intersectional ideology to justify their stance, libeling Israel and letting Hamas off the hook for firing thousands of rockets and missiles. The ADL was put in an awkward position, and was forced to push back against the delegitimizing smears heard on the floor of Congress, as well as from far-left and Islamist-friendly groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). 

Yet that didn’t cause Greenblatt or his group to rethink their endorsements of CRT. To the contrary, as was revealed after Greenblatt intervened to provide cover for “The View” host Whoopi Goldberg after she spouted racialist nonsense about the Holocaust in which she claimed it was merely a case of whites attacking other whites.

A definition of racism had been posted on the ADL website (in which racism was limited to prejudice against persons “of color”) that actually was similar to the gross comments for which Goldberg had to apologize with Greenblatt’s assistance. After the rise of BLM, the group’s definition was altered from one that stated that “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.” The new definition held that: “The marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”

As soon as the Goldberg controversy occurred, the ADL scrubbed the intersectional definition from its website and restored the old entry, although appending to it a lengthy note reportedly by Greenblatt, claiming that the group’s focus on the racism of whites was “true but not the whole truth.”

This Orwellian turn on the part of the ADL is noteworthy. Yet it’s also an element of another controversy in which it has recently become embroiled when it hired activist Tema Smith as its new director of Jewish outreach and partnerships. Smith has a long history as a bitter critic of Israel and left-wing Twitter troll. In an earlier time, it would have been unimaginable for a group that was as solidly pro-Israel and reflexively centrist as ADL to hire such a person, but she was the perfect job candidate for the Greenblatt era. 

The most serious problem with the hire is not what she might have posted on Twitter in the past but her current assignment. While outreach is important for the entire Jewish world in a time of rising assimilation and a Jewish population that is largely disconnected from the community and a sense of Jewish peoplehood, Smith’s brief is focused on “Jews of color.” That Jews who are not white sometimes face discrimination within the community is deplorable and should be condemned. Jews come in all different colors and from many places of origin (something that the non-Jewish Whoopi Goldberg doesn’t seem to understand). The idea of dividing Jews by skin color can never be accepted any more than bias against converts should be tolerated.

In its eagerness to get in on the fashion of racialist rhetoric on the left and in the Democratic Party, the ADL is embracing the cause of “Jews of color.” Yet in doing so, it and others on the left have lumped in a variety of communities including those Jews from Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and North African countries, most of whom do not identify with the term. As such, the ADL is not only undermining a basic concept of Jewish unity, it is also utilizing the same intersectional playbook used by Israel-haters to brand the Jewish state and its supporters as possessing “white privilege.”

In its eagerness to get in on the fashion of racialist rhetoric on the left and in the Democratic Party, the ADL is embracing the cause of “Jews of color.”

Jews should not be defined by skin color; no one should. The point of the civil rights movement was to discard the obsession with race that fueled segregation. America should aspire to a colorblind society, and yet CRT and intersectionality demand that it be treated as the most important element in defining any person. Joining with its left-wing allies to apply this idea to Jews across the board, the ADL is again undermining the cause for which it was founded and providing useful cover to those who are seeking to harm the Jewish people, here and in Israel.

At a time when both the statistics that the ADL compiles about hate and the tenor of the national conversation confirm that anti-Semitism is on the rise, the need for an effective Jewish defense agency focused on anti-Semitism is real.

Jews should not be defined by skin color; no one should.

The ADL now finds itself a rare Jewish organization with a mission that is at least as relevant to Jewish life today as when it was founded 109 years ago. That should make it a group whose continued efforts are not only necessary but deserving of support from the broadest cross-section of Jewish life. 

Far more important is the way the ADL’s embrace of BLM extremists and CRT gives a boost to the very forces on the left, who, because of their influence in Washington and among a younger generation of Democrats, now pose the most important threat to Jewish life in America. That is not merely a setback for ADL. It is an abandonment of the very purpose of its existence.

It is ironic that this is happening at a time when ADL’s influence and financial clout are greater than ever. But it is also a paradigm of how Jewish leadership is failing American Jewry’s best interests all the while claiming to be defending them.

The ADL Has Corrupted Its Mission and Betrayed the Jewish Community By Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/adl-has-corrupted-its-mission-betrayed-jewish-community-opinion-1728500

7/28/22

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, founded in 1913, originally declared, "The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience, and if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike, and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens."

It was established, that is, to combat Jew-hatred. If and only if the Jewish community is secure, it would then be appropriate to extend organizational resources to helping others in need. Put another way, a Jewish rights organization, founded by Jews, should rightfully focus on the plight of...Jews.

But for several decades at least, what is now called the ADL does not prioritize Jews. Its new mission is "To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all." The ADL has elevated efforts to serve what it perceives as marginalized communities to equal or higher priority than the Jewish community, as though it has already eradicated antisemitism.

It has not. Recent FBI statistics show Jews are subject to more hate crimes per capita than any other group of Americans; twice as likely to be targeted as Black Americans, more than twice as likely as Muslims, and 50% more likely than those who are targeted for their sexual orientation or gender identity.

There are many organizations devoted to supporting marginalized communities; there is only one, in theory, dedicated to protecting Jews. By expanding its efforts beyond the Jewish community, the ADL dilutes its impact at a time of surging antisemitism.

Even more egregious, some of the groups supported by the ADL are hostile to the Jewish community. In 2020, the ADL signed on to a statement, published in a full-page ad in The New York Times, endorsing the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Of course, Black lives do matter. But leaders of BLM and affiliated groups, under the umbrella of the Movement for Black Lives, have wholeheartedly embraced the antisemitic "Boycott, Divest, and Sanction" movement, slandering Israel as "an apartheid state" that commits "genocide." Even in defending the ADL's support for this organization, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt admitted that "some involved in the cause hold hateful ideas" and have "engaged in antisemitic rhetoric." Somehow, that wasn't a deal-breaker.

Later that year, a BLM rally turned into a riot in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Los Angeles, where many synagogues were graffitied with obscenities, Jewish businesses were looted and vandalized, and anti-Jewish epithets, including "F* the Jews," were shouted. Yet the ADL downplayed the antisemitic nature of these events, laughably contending, "There is no indication that Jewish businesses or institutions were broadly targeted for vandalism."

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt in 2014

In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991, Al Sharpton led mobs of Black residents in days of rioting as they looted stores, screeched "death to the Jews!," and attacked their visibly Jewish neighbors—even murdering a yeshiva student, Yankel Rosenbaum, following a car accident where a Hasidic Jew accidentally struck and killed a young Black boy. Sharpton's eulogy at the boy's funeral dripped with antisemitic tropes about Jewish money and power. In the three-plus decades since, Al Sharpton has never apologized for fomenting the infamous Crown Heights pogrom, but that didn't stop Greenblatt from mainstreaming him, appearing on his MSNBC television show multiple times.

The ADL should not be legitimizing Jew-haters, yet under Greenblatt the organization has created a technology initiative funded with $1.75 million from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's charitable foundation. Omidyar has also financed The Intercept, an Iran-apologist, radical left-wing news outlet that has at times defended Hamas and Hezbollah, antisemites in the British Labour Party, the Jew-hating leaders of the Women's March, and supporters of Louis Farrakhan. The Omidyar Network also funds anti-Israel professors like Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University, who has called American Jews "diehard Fifth Column Zionists working against the best interests of Americans," and has tweeted that Israel is responsible for "every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world."

Extremist imams in some mosques across the country can be found cursing Jews as "the most devilish ones on the Earth," who "specialize in the shedding of blood, in crime, and in killing." The ADL ignores this and actively works to increase immigration from Muslim-majority countries, which their very own studies show have the world's highest rates of Jew-hatred.

Islamist extremists, Black supremacists, anarchists, and left-wing groups where Jew-hatred is on the rise get scant attention from the ADL, which fixates on traditional right-wing bigots. This isn't surprising, given that Greenblatt is an alumnus of the Clinton and Obama administrations.

ADL leaders have hijacked the one-time stalwart Jewish defense organization to serve a progressive ideological agenda. This is a scandal that cannot be ignored—nor should it be tolerated. The ADL must return to its one-time "immediate object," which is to end Jew-hatred.

Sadly, other legacy Jewish organizations such the JCPA, as well as many Federations and Jewish Community Relations Councils, and even many of our synagogues, have also been commandeered to benefit the pet political causes of their leaders, rather than the people the institutions were formed to serve. Jewish donors, who anoint our American Jewish leaders, have permitted this "long march through Jewish institutions."

American Jewish elites are betraying the American Jewish community, and must be held accountable for their failures. The rest of us need to insist that the leaders fulfill their responsibility to the Jewish community, and to demand they do their jobs—or find new ones.

Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser are the founders of The Jewish Leadership Project.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.