I’ve been speaking out against ADL since before it was cool to speak out against ADL
Now everyone is talking about ADL. But I’ve been speaking out against ADL for years, frustrated how ADL took a good purpose – fighting antisemitism – and weaponized it for leftist political purposes under Jonathan Greenblatt. It will be interesting to see where the ADL-Twitter (X) dustup goes. But one thing is beyond doubt, Greenblatt needs to go.
The Anti-Defamation League, branded now as just ADL, is getting a lot of attention after its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt bragged on Twitter:
I had a very frank + productive conversation with @LindayaX yesterday about @X, what works and what doesn’t, and where it needs to go to address hate effectively on the platform. I appreciated her reaching out and I’m hopeful the service will improve. @ADL will be vigilant and give her and @ElonMusk credit if the service gets better… and reserve the right to call them out until it does.
I had a very frank + productive conversation with @LindayaX yesterday about @X, what works and what doesn't, and where it needs to go to address hate effectively on the platform. I appreciated her reaching out and I'm hopeful the service will improve. @ADL will be vigilant and…
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) August 30, 2023
The tweet itself was smug, but in itself cannot explain the firestorm that followed, including Elon Musk saying ADL had been trying to strangle the company, had cost is half its advertising revenue, and threatened to sue ADL for defamation.
Greenblatt’s tweet unleashed a torrent of animosity that had been building, including among people (like me) devoted to fighting antisemitism. Now everyone is talking about ADL.
But I’ve been speaking out against ADL for a long time, as have some other people frustrated how ADL took a good purpose – fighting antisemitism – and weaponized it for leftist political purposes under Greenblatt, much as SPLC weaponized the fight against racism for leftist political purposes. Both ADL and SPLC wield enormous power to ruin lives and businesses through putting people on “hate” lists, and leverage those lists to try to deplatform people and censor lawful political speech. These “hate” lists also are huge moneymakers for both ADL and SPLC, driving massive donations to these wealthy organizations.
Greenblatt has turned ADL into a vast political bully on a myriad of political issues that don’t touch upon antisemitism. It’s offensive, and does great harm to the fight against antisemitism that the charge of antisemitism has been so broadened that it means anything leftists like Greenblatt don’t like.
I’ve been quoted in the the New York Post, Inside the fight for ADL, which some Jewish critics call a tool of Democrats, and Fox News, Anti-Defamation League launches review of education content after Fox News Digital investigation:
The ADL’s post about “Engaging Young People in Conversations about Race and Racism” contained “key elements of critical race theory,” Legal Insurrection founder Bill Jacobson said.
The article discussed how the “flip side of white privilege is structural racism, which oppresses and marginalizes people of color through societal institutions like education, law enforcement, voting, employment and other systems” and encouraged teachers to show MTV’s documentary “White People” to students.
“Those concepts are accepted as fact as a starting point rather than open to debate. There are no counter-arguments presented,” Jacobson told Fox News Digital about the lesson plans he reviewed. “These lesson plans … reflect how ADL has lost its way. It substitutes racial justice dogma and ideology for fact-based analysis. This is not education, it’s manipulation.”
Legal Insurrection also has published articles about ADL’s partisanship almost since the day Greenblatt took over, including this 2017 guest post, Anti-Defamation League Gets Partisan, and the Damage May Be Irreparable.
More than anything, I’ve talked, and talked, and talked about the ADL problem, particularly with Jonathan Tobin of Jewish News Syndicate, including this December 14, 2021, broadcast which mostly concerned my Cornell Law School problems, William Jacobson: Boycotted for Publishing the Truth
Jonathan has written multiple articles and invited me to multiple podcasts to discuss the ADL problem.
ADL is ‘mired in leftist ideology’ (September 22, 2022):
The revelation that the school curricula being distributed by the Anti-Defamation League as part of their anti-hate programs are filled with critical race theory teachings is shocking, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin.
But when seen in the context of everything that has happened during the Jewish defense agency’s transformation in the last several years under CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, it’s hardly surprising, he notes.
According to Tobin, the critical race theory indoctrination being spread by the ADL illustrates that the vital Jewish defense agency has “betrayed its mission,” because “woke leftist ideas that legitimate racialist attitudes are linked to Jew hatred.”
He explains that the ADL is now “mired in leftist ideology in which it has bought into the BLM agenda of equity as opposed to equality.” By emphasizing ideas about race and privilege even though doing so “gives a boost to the lies about Israel being an ‘apartheid state,’” the ADL “undermines the interests and security of the people they’re supposed to be standing up for,” he says.
He’s then joined by LegalInsurrecution.com’s William Jacobson who explains that critical race theory is based on the idea that the American system is “completely corrupted, and completely racist, and … needs to be torn down.” Its goals, he says, are “the exact opposite of the American civil rights movement,” and seek to racialize society almost in the same way as apartheid-era South Africa.
More than that, he argues, it has become inextricably linked with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic ideas about Jews being white oppressors.
As Jacobson notes, the ADL has embraced all this because “it fits in with their left-wing narrative.” The organization, he says, has remade itself into a “social justice organization” and become “a functional arm of the Democratic Party.” In doing so, “They’ve burned bridges to anyone who is right of center. And that’s not healthy for the fight against anti-Semitism.”
Though the group still defines in terms of combating anti-Semitism, it has ceased to do so, becoming a mere part of the political back and forth in a divided society, in which they prefer to demonize former President Donald Trump and his supporters, he says.
Moreover, by involving itself in efforts to censor free speech on the Internet, the ADL fails to realize that the same tactics can be used by leftist elites to target Jews and supporters of Israel, he adds.
Why did the ADL just defend discrimination against Asians? (July 6, 2023):
There’s more than hypocrisy involved in American liberal attitudes about Israel’s justiciary and their attacks on America’s Supreme Court. According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the contradiction between their belief that granting unlimited power to Israel’s high court is synonymous with democracy and their efforts to undermine the independence of the U.S. courts is a matter of partisanship and ideology. But such inconsistency, especially when the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings are limited in scope and defend the Constitution while Israel’s top judges believe their ideas about “reasonableness,” should be the basis for law, which itself is a threat to the future of democracy.
Tobin is joined by law professor and LegalInsurrection.com founder William Jacobson to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions on affirmative action, free speech and curbing the power of the executive to cancel student debt for loans taken. Jacobson said that banning using race as a determining factor in college admissions is a direct rebuke of the effort to impose diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies throughout American society. Jacobson also described the court’s backing of the right of a conservative Christian to refuse to use her talents to design a gay wedding website as a defense of free speech, not discrimination.
The two honed in on the willingness of Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League to defend discrimination against Asians, as well as their opposition to the exercise of religious liberty by Christians. Jacobson’s answer is that they are now wholly committed to progressive partisan political positions rather than backing the principles they had formally supported.
“Follow the money,” said Jacobson. Their funding from corporations and groups backing leftist positions means “they might as well just be on the payroll of the Democratic National Committee.”
Jonathan and I even shared an entire webinar in February 2021 devoted to ADL, sponsored by The Jewish Leadership Project:
But wait, there’s more. I’ve also spoken on Breitbart Radio about ADL:
It will be interesting to see where the ADL-Twitter (X) dustup goes. But one thing is beyond doubt, Jonathan Greenblatt needs to go.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
More broadly, there’s the Holocaust industry in general.
Yes, there are the hustlers, and the ADL lost its way long ago, more along ideological lines, but there still exists an actual Holocaust industry, unfortunately, in this day and age. It’s also unfortunate when legitimate antisemitism is seen as a hustle.
Who’s next in line to head the ADL, Al Sharpton?
In the spirit of Biden, McConnell, Feinstein and Fetterman, maybe they’ll dig-up Yassar Arafat to lead it.
True. But when it’s you making the comment, people here should understand that you are unable to distinguish between important Holocaust education and the use of the Holocaust as a bludgeon. You should not be commenting here at all.
Which genocides should have their own book sections for children? It doesn’t seem to be a thing.
I say it’s counterproductive, substituting an inherited moral victim claim for having to be moral yourself. People notice, hence counterproductive.
A somewhat courageous recent equivalent for blacks from Glenn Loury
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiXN-dWR_o
“The temptation of running from the inescapable necessity of demonstrating your competence both to your yourself and others by embracing this narrative of historical victimization and you think you get an exemption, I trump your performance card with my moral claim”
So as a way of increasing your importance without having to have a good idea to support it.
Emmanual Levinas, at the end of the preface to Existence and Existents, spotted it as a moral dead end right after the war
“These studies begun before the war were continued and written down for the most part in captivity. The stalag is evoked here not as a guarantee of profundity nor as a claim to indulgence, but as an explanation for the absence of any consideration of those philosophical works published, with so much impact, between 1940 and 1945.”
You try to disguise bullshit as intelligent discussion. Again, you are not worth my time.
Perhaps you are not sufficiently versed in history to understand why “the Holocaust” is unique among genocides and should be taught as such. The murder and attempted complete extermination of every Jew on earth between 1933 and 1945 was the only time in human history when the entire capacity of an advanced industrial nation was devoted to the murder of an entire people and the complete destruction of their civilization. In fact, toward the end of the war, military resources which in any sane nation would have been devoted to the military in the nation’s fight for survival were instead taken from the military so the agenda to exterminate every possible Jew would continue full speed ahead. Yes, this particular genocide should be taught to every child in school so they can understand what irrational hate can lead to.
And sadly, we seem to be heading in that same general direction again, and not just with Jews, but with Christians as well this time…
Hitler’s problem looked more like an internet thing. He complained that in early 20s discussions with Jews in Vienna he’d win an argument and then come back the next day and they’re refuse to acknowledge that he’d won, and began arguing the same thing again. He developed an anthropological theory from that, that Jews weaken a nation. That might be worth teaching. You can find it all over with different actors.
Or perhaps he doesn’t care.
Where did Hitler claim that he would win arguments with Jews who would later deny that? Was that in Mein Kampf or elsewhere?
Regardless, Hitler was not a reliable, honest reporter of information.
“The more I argued with them, the more I got to know their dialectics. First they counted on the ignorance of their adversary; then, when there was no way out, they themselves pretended stupidity. If all this was of no avail, they refused to understand or they changed the subject when driven into a corner; they brought up truisms, but they immediately transferred their acceptance to quite different subjects, and, if attacked again, they gave way and pretended to know nothing exactly. Wherever one attacked one of these prophets, one’s hands seized slimy jelly; it slipped through one’s fingers only to collect again in the next moment. If one smote one of them so thoroughly that, with the bystanders watching, he could but agree, and if one thus thought he had advanced at least one step, one was greatly astonished the following day. The Jew did not in the least remember the day before, he continued to talk in the same old strain as if nothing had happened, and if indignantly confronted, he pretended to be astonished and could not remember anything except that his assertions had already been proved true the day before. Often I was stunned. One did not know what to admire more: their glibness of tongue or their skill in lying.
I gradually began to hate them.”
cited by Kenneth Burke, _The Philosophy of Literary Form_, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s “Battle,” p.197
Hitler, the poor victim. Interesting to empathize with good old Adolf.
It’s worth empathizing with Hitler’s motives, to the extent that they’re powerful with anybody, in particular the motive to purification. Usually by way of scapegoat, which carries away evil when banished.
The cancel culture is purification, for instance. Everything the JDL wants to eliminate is purification. That was Kenneth Burke’s discovery in the rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle.
Purification dominates the internet. It’s clickbait, it’s everywhere.
Hence Hannah Arendt: virtue that goes public turns into the worst sort of evil.
Empathizing with Hitler’s motives. Got it. Sieg Heil!
Rank as to importance, both found in Hitler’s text
1. Being against Jews
2. Being for political purification
The Holocaust industry prefers the first, the second runs wild even today.
Thanks for the citation. The book can be found in Wikipedia.
Looks like the words of a bigot, justifying Hitler’s “victimhood” caused by those impure Jews, who made it all up. Sick!
OCD follow-up: I’m not saying I believe HItler’s claims,–I don’t–only that I appreciate being given a source.
Emmanuel Levinas, writing on Heidegger’s sympathy for Nazism, ends
It is impossible to be stinting in our admiration for the intellectual vigor of “Sein und Zeit,” particularly in light of the immense output this extraordinary book of 1927 inspired. Its supreme steadfastness will mark it forever. Can we be assured, however, that there was never any echo of Evil in it? The diabolical is not limited to the wickedness popular wisdom ascribes to it and whose malice, based on guile, is familiar and predictable in an adult culture. The diabolical is endowed with intelligence and enters where it will. To reject it, it is first necessary to refute it. Intellectual effort is needed to recognize it. Who can boast of having done so? Say what you will, the diabolical gives food for thought.
rhhardin: Holocaust industry?? You should probably go full tilt Holocaust denial like you do on other blogs where you post this shit. Go to hell and don’t come back. Please.
Reference? Holocaust misuse, to the moral disadvantage of Jews by Jews, would be the insight.
Be glad he didn’t say Holohoax like Elon’s darlings on X.
Greenblatt is cut from the same cloth as Rahm Emanuel and his brothers
mean, hateful leftists
This is prima facia evidence as to why these race hustling entities should be stripped of their tax exempt status. I’m all for removing tax exempt status from every institution, church, temple and trust. Do that and all this dark money stops immediately. FJB
All institutions? All churches? All temples? All trusts? What about those of each group that haven’t lost sight of their foundings? Those which genuinely help people improve themselves would be crippled by taxation. We need to be careful of lumping in the quiet, positive majority with the noisy, negative minority.
Let us not allow the taxation camel to stick his nose under the edge of the tent. We’ll regret it if we do.
.
Despite ADL having jumped ship, let’s not pretend that Musk is on the side of the angels. X has become a cesspool of every form of blatant Jew-hatred under his ownership. Not just antizionism or holocaust denial, but conspiracy theories blaming The Jews for everything from 9/11 to the Nazi movement, abetting the Holocaust in order to colonize Palestine, the Holdomor, the Bolsheviks, Labour’s losses under Jeremy Corbyn, campaigning to destroy the white race/Christianity, the slave trade, being Khazars, fabricating their history in the Middle East, concealing that ‘real’ Jews are the Black Hebrews, COVID, international banking, police violence in the US, pushing LGBT, being transphobic, being bloodthirsty, racial supremacy & more.
Let’s not forget that the biggest support for #bantheADL is coming from Neo-Nazis & similar Jew-haters on the right; Farrakhan supporters, Jew-hating anti-Zionists, BLM-types objecting to Jews’ supposed hyper-white privilege on the left; & Islamic Jew-haters. It is not coming from free speech advocates.
Taxes and tax exemptions are two sides of the same coin.
I hate Greenblatt. He is a fraud, a political hack and a grifter.
Makes him a perfect Democrat.
This is the cover that the ADL provides: “I can’t be an antisemite. I donate to the ADL.”
Greenlblatt has build this fraud into an industry.
The ADL has been looking for anti Semitism in the wrong places ( i.e. exclusively on the right ) and preserving a non existent absolute wall of separation of church and state while denigrating the free exerise of religion and contributing zero to Jewish continuity for decades. I
One can only imagine what the pre Musk Twitter/ADL files which would be a proper subject of discovery in any case brought by Musk contain
The leaders of all of these organizations that have gone crazy left have something in common. ADL, BlackRock, Disney, teachers’ union, etc. etc. etc.
My parents of blessed memory and many of my parents friends were very active in ADL-they would be ashamed of what ADL has evolved intol
ADL is and always has been a racist organization. It was formed to defend Leo Frank of any and all accusations that he murdered Mary Phagan. (I don’t think he did, I think it was accidental but he tried to cover it up,) It and the KKK were both formed at about the same time. The ADL didn’t get much traction until word came out of Europe that Jews were being persecuted, then it took off, They represent themselves as fighting antisemtism (which is whatever they define) but are actually a far left outfit aligned with the socialist/communist agenda. They and the SPLC are the two most racist organizations in America. They are both arms of the Democratic Party.
While not disagreeing with most of your comment, I am constrained to point out that the ADL was formed partially in response to the lynching of Leo Frank – in the mid-1910s … the KKK was founded in 1865, not even in the same century as the ADL …
The descent of the ADL into being just another leftist tool is sad, yet sadly predictable …
If enough of us work towards the worthy goal, we can inform enough people of the rotting of the ADL to where it can become as irrelevant as the KKK, a mere shell of a bogeyman dragged out to try to scare people from fact-based learning …
The Klan that was founded in 1865 died about 1877 with the withdrawal of the Yankee Army from the south. The Klan that existed in the time of the ADL was founded in 1915. The only commonality they had was the name and the names of the officers.
I think the article is something that needs to be mainstream but of course won’t happen–I think the comments are great .There are many groups that make headlines and fame because of their anti-anything, As they grow they decide what can and cannot be approved just like SPLC. My only statement is that I suggest that when your discussing anything that at some point you don’t include what the ADL/SPLC/TAG stands—many in the public come across articles and only get part of the information. Many of the population are just casual readers or even just casual people—MoeHowardwasright has a great idea.
Like Nietzsche said, or maybe it was Al Capone, every good cause starts off as a movement, then becomes a business, and eventually degenerates in to a racket. That’s because the opportunity for grift inevitably attracts the grifters, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it besides see it for what it is.
On the challenge of speaking out, W F Buckley once said, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
The Left has a multi-front effort to effectively establish a Ministry of Truth. The ADL is an example of such an effort.
My guess is there are about a thousand adl types running their big mouths for every antisemite. Just like a thousand race baiters for every racist, heck, maybe 10,000 to 1. Sooner or later issue becomes passé.
Foxman was no better. The ADL needs to be shut down. It long ago outlived its usefulness.
Just what I came to say.
The ADL is fueling antisemitism at a time of rising political, racial, ethnic, and religious conflict is reaching a very critical stage. I hope we are not looking at another Weimar or creatig a scapegoat for the horrendous failures of the organized criminal syndicate masquerading as the Democratic party with their herd of RINOS.
Yes, ADL took a good purpose – fighting antisemitism – and weaponized it for leftist political purposes under Jonathan Greenblatt. The original purpose was and is good as none of us should be against the religions that share the book, God’s Old Testament. Christians, Jews, and Islam have the idea that God so loves us that we are created in His image and we should love Him and love our neighbors in a similar way.
The present ADL is just pushes socialism, leftist ideas and seeks to put we citizens under a tyrannical government