Inside the Crisis at the Anti-Defamation League

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https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/inside-adl-anti-defamation-league-greenblatt-zionism-trump-gaza.html

archived link: https://archive.ph/gjZKw

For the past several years, and especially since the October 7 attack, Greenblatt and the ADL had insisted that surging antisemitic activity—thousands of violent incidents per year in the U.S.—was being driven largely by the political left. Greenblatt had emerged as a spokesperson for a large swath of American Jews alienated from their traditional liberal allies. For decades, the ADL argued that anti-Zionism could lead to antisemitism, but recently, the group had adopted the position Greenblatt more or less aired on Fox: that opposition to the Jewish state was the same thing as antisemitism, full stop. That tens of thousands of Jews were active in the pro-Palestine movement was not just put aside—it was taken as evidence that they were antisemites, too. Later, at the end of July, when the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza would finally come to the fore of the world’s attention and many long-standing supporters of Israel would call on the government to ease its grip on the territory, Greenblatt would maintain, in the words of a post on X, that “Hamas alone has power to end this tragedy.”

It’s unclear if Greenblatt’s antipathy toward Trump faded as the ADL’s perspective on the left shifted. But he unquestionably saw and took common ground with elements of the MAGA right. In March, when the Trump administration pulled $400 million in grants and contracts from Columbia University, Greenblatt tweeted, “We at ADL appreciate the Trump Administration’s efforts to counter campus antisemitism.” A few days later, when ICE agents began snatching pro-Palestine activists from their apartment buildings and off the streets, the ADL hailed the administration for its “broad, bold set of efforts.”

Inside the ADL, the change has been deeply controversial. Over the past six months, I spoke with more than 40 current and former staffers, donors, board members, interlocutors in government, and other allies. Seventeen of these people, all of whom were either previously employed by or closely affiliated with the organization, have chosen to quit or part ways with it in recent years. Critics say that rather than “calling balls and strikes” regarding what is and isn’t hate, to use a favored Greenblatt phrase, Greenblatt has seemed to bend the rules for those in power. When Elon Musk threw up a pair of straight-arm salutes on Inauguration Day—which many ADL insiders, including Greenblatt’s predecessor Abe Foxman, believed to be a Sieg heil—the organization’s official X account posted in Musk’s defense, calling the action an “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” and asked for a “bit of grace” for the billionaire. Confused ADL employees blew up the organization’s Slack channels. According to a source close to the ADL, Musk’s perceived support of the Jewish state factored heavily in the decision. As the source put it: “We heard numerous very positive and glowing things, publicly and privately, about what he’s done in Israel.” To this source, this was evidence that Musk had no “antisemitic tendencies.” In recent weeks, Grok, X’s generative AI chatbot, began disparaging Jewish-sounding surnames and proclaimed itself to be “Mecha Hitler.” (In a post on X, the ADL called the bot’s behavior “irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic.”)

Several liberal longtime donors to the ADL told me they have stopped giving to the group. Some said they would not be involved as long as Greenblatt remained in his position. After the Musk incident, Walter Jospin, a Georgia attorney whose family has donated around $1 million over the years, wrote to the ADL’s board, “Most of the past and present regional leadership and donors no longer have confidence in Jonathan. These episodes are embarrassing; Jonathan is making it so hard to support and defend ADL.” Steven Ludwig, a regional board member in Philadelphia and an ADL volunteer since the 1990s who resigned in May, wrote in his own letter that the group has been “silent when it is most needed,” failing “to stand up against the spread of hatred, the erosion of the rule of law, and the threat of authoritarianism.”