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The Anti-Defamation League (or ADL) is an organization founded by B'nai B'rith in the United States whose stated aim 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." .
With an annual budget of over $40 million, the ADL has 29 offices in the USA and 3 offices in other countries, with its headquarters located in New York City. Since 1987, Abraham Foxman has been the national director in the United States. The national chair in the United States is Howard Berkowitz.
History
Founded in October, 1913 by Sigmund Livingston, the ADL's charter states,
"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."
Livingston established the ADL in direct response to the case of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager living in the state of Georgia who had been arrested and convicted in 1913 for the rape and murder of Mary Phagan (subsequent investigations proved that he was innocent of the crime) and then kidnapped from prison and lynched by a mob in 1915.
Goals
Fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry, and racism
The stated purpose of the ADL is to fight "Anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry (in the United States) and abroad, combat international terrorism, probe the roots of hatred, advocate before Congress, come to the aid of victims of bigotry, develop educational programs, and serve as a public resource for government, media, law enforcement, and the public, all towards the goal of countering and reducing hatred."
Historically, the ADL has opposed groups and individuals it considered to be anti-Semitic and/or racist, including the Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, Henry Ford, Father Charles Coughlin (leader of the Christian Front), the Christian Identity movement, the German-American Bund, and the American Militia movement.
The ADL publishes reports on a variety of countries regarding incidents of anti-Jewish attacks and propaganda. The neutrality of these reports is disputed by some groups, who deny that these incidents indicate anti-Semitism or in some cases that anti-Semitism even exists.
The ADL holds that a modern and common form of anti-Semitism is the idea that according to Jews all criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitism. This claim is then used to criticize Jewish groups as unreasonable. The Anti-Defamation League states:
- "Criticism of particular Israeli actions or policies in and of itself does not constitute anti-Semitism. Certainly the sovereign State of Israel can be legitimately criticized just like any other country in the world. However, it is undeniable that there are those whose criticism of Israel or of "Zionism" is used to mask anti-Semitism."
Fighting anti-Zionism
The ADL supports the Jewish state and has vociferously opposed resolutions like the 1975 United Nations resolution (revoked in 1991) that had equated Zionism and racism, as well as attempts to revive that formulation at the 2001 U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.
Defending religious freedom
One of the ADL's major issues is religious freedom for people of all faiths. In the context of public schools, the ADL has taken the position that because Creationism and Intelligent Design are religious beliefs, and the government is prohibited from endorsing the beliefs of any particular religion, they should not be taught in science classrooms: "The U.S. Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to believe the religious theories of creation (as well as other theories) but it does not permit them to be taught in public school science classes." Similarly, the ADL supports the legal precedent that it is unconstitutional for the government to post the 10 Commandments in courthouses, schools, and other public places: "True religious liberty means freedom from having the government impose the religion of the majority on all citizens."
Defending other religions
As its goal is to defend not only Jews, but also "all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens," the ADL has periodically made statements against misrepresentations of other faiths. For example, when the anti-Mormon film "The Godmakers" was produced, Rhonda M. Abrams, Central Pacific (San Francisco) Regional Director for the ADL wrote a critical review, including the following statement:
Had a similar movie been made with either Judaism or Catholicism as its target, it would be immediately denounced for the scurrilous piece that it is. I sincerely hope that people of all faiths will similarly repudiate "The Godmakers" as defamatory and untrue, and recognize it for what it truly represents—a challenge to the religious liberty of all. (Letter to Dr. Richard Lindsay, Director of Public Communications, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, May 25, 1984)
Tracking extremists
The ADL is well-known for its efforts to keep track of the activities of various extremist groups and movements. According to ADL Director Abe Foxman, "Our mission is to monitor and expose those who are anti-Jewish, racist, anti-democratic, and violence-prone, and we monitor them primarily by reading publications and attending public meetings. . . . Because extremist organizations are highly secretive, sometimes ADL can learn of their activities only by using undercover sources . . . function in a manner directly analogous to investigative journalists. Some have performed great service to the American people -- for example, by uncovering the existence of right-wing extremist paramilitary training camps -- with no recognition and at considerable personal risk." ("A League of His Own," letter to the editor, The Village Voice 38:20 (May 18, 1993))
The ADL regularly releases reports on anti-Semitism and extremist activities on the far left and the far right. For instance, as part of its Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N.), the ADL has published information about the Militia Movement in America and a guide to Officer Safety and Extremists. An archive of "The Militia Watchdog" research on U.S. right-wing extremism from 1995 to 2000 is also available on the ADL website.
In the 1990s, some details of the ADL's monitoring activities became public and controversial, including the fact that the ADL had gathered information about some non-extremist groups. (See "The ADL files controversy" below.)
Holocaust awareness
The ADL believes it is important to remember the Holocaust, in order to prevent such an event from ever coming to pass again. Along with sponsoring events and fighting Holocaust deniers and revisionists, the ADL has been active in urging action to stop modern-day "ethnic cleansing" and genocide in places such as Bosnia and Darfur, Sudan.
The ADL spoke out against an advertising campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) beginning in 2003 that equated meat-eating with the Holocaust. A press release from the ADL stated that "PETA's effort to seek 'approval' for their 'Holocaust on Your Plate' campaign is outrageous, offensive and takes chutzpah to new heights. Rather than deepen our revulsion against what the Nazis did to the Jews, the project will undermine the struggle to understand the Holocaust and to find ways to make sure such catastrophes never happen again." On May 5, 2005, PETA issued an apology for comparing the treatment of farm animals to the victims of the Nazi concentration camps. PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said she realized that the campaign had caused pain: "This was never our intention, and we are deeply sorry." (See also Animal rights and the Holocaust)
Other positions
The ADL honors individuals throughout the year for various reasons. On September 23, 2003 at its Tribute to Italy Dinner, the ADL awarded Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi the ADL's distinguished statesman award, an honor "conferred on world leaders who exhibit a commitment to furthering the achievement of regional and world peace, and who possess a special commitment to promoting human and civil rights." Berlusconi is also known for his staunch pro-Israel stance.
The ADL has also spoken out against red-baiting and McCarthyism.
In 2006 the ADL condemned Senate Republicans in the United States for attempting to ban same-sex marriage with the Federal Marriage Amendment and praised its demise, calling it "discrimination". That same year the ADL also warned that the debate over illegal immigration was drawing neo-nazis and anti-semites into the ranks of the Minutemen Project.
Relations with Arabs and Muslims
The ADL has not very often worked together with Arab-American and American Muslim civil rights groups, owing to disagreement concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, the ADL has on numerous occasions reached out to elements within the Islamic community and works to improve interfaith dialogue. The ADL has publicly condemned slurs and attacks against Islam. ADL publications on condemning bigotry towards Arabs, Muslims, Blacks and members of other minorities have often been used in synagogue adult education programs, and as part of Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim inter-faith dialogue.
The ADL is sometimes at odds with Arab and Muslim groups, particularly over issues involving Israel and anti-Semitism. For instance, the ADL regularly publishes updates to its web site reviewing and cataloging negative portrayals of Jews in Arab nations' media.
Arab and Muslim groups are often critical of the ADL as well. For example, in a minor flap in New Jersey in June, 2001 over a politician who spoke to a Muslim group, the group accused the ADL of "anti-Muslim McCarthyism" .
Another example of tensions between American Muslims and the ADL came about when the ADL issued a June 18, 2004 news release about the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Muslim Students Union: after the student group had invited speakers to campus who "made public declarations of support for Hamas, advocated suicide bombings and called for the destruction of Israel," group members chose to wear green graduation stoles bearing the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith. The ADL's press release noted that suicide bombers connected to the Palestinian group Hamas wear green armbands and headbands inscribed with the Shahada as a symbol of their movement, and stated: "We are troubled that members of the Muslim Students Union have chosen to display symbolism that is closely identified with Palestinian terrorist groups and that can be especially offensive to Jewish students." Controversy arose over the ADL's statement that "The Shahada has come to represent, in radical Muslim circles, support for martyrdom and terrorist groups." A news release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations denied that the stoles were expressions of support for terrorism, called the ADL's comments "bigoted statements", and demanded an apology; the organization's communications director Sabiha Khan said: "The ADL's hate-filled Islamophobic rhetoric labels all Muslims as terrorists, because every Muslim believes in the declaration of faith as the essence of Islam." The ADL released a clarifying statement saying the ADL has nothing against the Muslim statement of faith and that, "It was never our intent to offend anyone and we apologize to those who took offense."
There is a separate article on Projects working for peace among Israelis and Arabs.
Relations with African-Americans
Historically, some African-American organizations in America and the ADL have worked closely together in the American civil rights movement. However, since the 1970s relations have been less smooth, owing to diverging opinions on a range of issues including affirmative action, welfare and Israel.
The ADL has publicly criticized certain political, business, entertainment, activist and religious leaders and organizations in the black community:
- The ADL has engaged the Nation of Islam which it considers anti-Semitic, in public discourse since the 1984 U.S. Presidential campaign.
- In 1984 The Boston Globe reported that then ADL national director, Nathan Perlmutter, described Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. as anti-Semitic, after Jackson referred to New York City as "Hymietown" . However, the ADL later reconciled with Jackson and has worked with him on the issue of the Iranian Jewish community .
- During the 1990s ADL files scandal, it was revealed that the NAACP was among the hundreds of groups the organization kept information files on. In 1994, the ADL stated that they may ask corporations to stop funding the NAACP, when their leader at the time, Benjamin Chavis, developed a working relationship with Louis Farrakhan, whom the ADL considers to be anti-Semitic.
- During the 2002 election cycle, the ADL, in a letter to The New York Times, harshly criticized long standing Congressional Black Caucus member Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. According to an August 19, 2002 article in The New York Times ADL Director Abraham Foxman said, "it made sense that Jewish Americans would want to contribute to efforts to replace Ms. McKinney.
- In March of 2005, ADL National Director, Abraham Foxman called Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons's public campaign against anti-Semitism hypocritical, due to Simmons's long history of working with Louis Farrakhan.
However, the ADL also works to combat racism against all racial groups, including racism against blacks. In 1997, the National Center for Black-Jewish Relations of Dillard University, a historically black university in New Orleans awarded the director of the ADL, Abraham H. Foxman, with the first Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. - Donald R. Mintz Freedom and Justice Award.
In 2004 the ADL became the lead partner in the Peace and Diversity Academy, a new New York City public high school with predominantly black and Hispanic students.
In celebration of Black History Month, the ADL created and distributed lesson plans to middle and high school teachers about Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the US Congress, and an important civil rights leader.
The ADL files controversy
Since the 1930s the ADL has been gathering information and publishing reports on anti-Semitism, racism and prejudice, and on anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, racist, anti-democratic, violent, and extremist individuals and groups. As a result, the organization has amassed what it once called a "famous storehouse of accurate, detailed, unassailable information on extremist individuals and organizations." Over the decades the ADL has assembled thousands of files.
One of its sources was Roy Bullock, a person who collected information and provided it to the ADL as a secretly-paid independent contractor over 32 years. Bullock often wrote letters to various groups and forwarded copies of their replies to the ADL, clipped articles from newspapers and magazines, and maintained files on his computer. He also used less orthodox, and possibly illegal, methods such as combing through trash and tapping into the White Aryan Resistance's phone message system to find evidence of hate crimes. Some of the information he obtained and then passed on to the ADL came from confidential documents (including intelligence files on various Nazi groups and driver's license records and other personal information on nearly 1,400 people) that were given to him by San Francisco police officer Tom Gerard. (Richard C. Paddock, "New Details of Extensive ADL Spy Operation Emerge," Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1993, A1)
On April 8, 1993, police seized Bullock's computer and raided the ADL offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. A search of Bullock's computer revealed he had compiled files on 9,876 individuals and more than 950 groups across the political spectrum. Many of Bullock's files concerned groups that did not fit the mold of extremist groups, hate groups, and organizations hostile to Jews or Israel that the ADL would usually be interested in. Along with files on the Ku Klux Klan, White Aryan Resistance, and Islamic Jihad were data on the Jewish Defense League, the NAACP, the African National Congress (ANC), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the United Auto Workers, the AIDS activist group ACT UP, Mother Jones magazine, the TASS Soviet/Russian news agency, Greenpeace, Jews for Jesus and the National Lawyers Guild; there were also files on politicians including conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche, Democratic U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and former Republican U.S. Rep. Pete McCloskey. Bullock told investigators that many of those were his own private files, not information he was passing on to the ADL. An attorney for the ADL stated that "We knew nothing about the vast extent of the files. Those are not ADL's files. . . . That is all doing." (Meredith Jane Adams, "Anti-Defamation League may have broken records laws", Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1993) As for its own records, the ADL indicated that just because it had a file on a group did not indicate opposition to the group.
The San Francisco district attorney at the time accused the ADL of conducting a national "spy network", but dropped all accusations a few months later. In the weeks following the raids, however, a private class-action lawsuit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court against the ADL. The plaintiffs' attorney, former Representative McCloskey, claimed that information the ADL gathered constituted an invasion of privacy. The ADL, while distancing itself from Bullock, countered that it is entitled like any researcher or journalist to research organizations and individuals. Richard Cohen, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, stated that like journalists, the ADL's researchers "gather information however they can" and welcome disclosures from confidential sources, saying "they probably rely on their sources to draw the line" on how much can legally be divulged. Bullock admitted that he was overzealous, and that some of the ways he gathered information may have been illegal. (Meredith Jane Adams, "Anti-Defamation League may have broken records laws", Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1993)
The lawsuit was settled out of court in 1999. The ADL agreed to pay $175,000 for the court costs of the groups that sued it, promised that it would not seek information from sources it knew could not legally disclose such information, consented to remove sensitive information like criminal records or Social Security numbers from its files, and spent $25,000 to further relations between the Jewish, Arab and black communities. When the case was settled, Hussein Ibish, director of communications for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), claimed that the ADL had gathered data "systematically in a program whose clear intent was to undermine civil rights and Arab-American organizations," but ADL national director Abraham Foxman called the ADC's claims "absolutely untrue," saying that "if it were true, they would have won their case" and noting that no court found the ADL guilty of any wrongdoing. The ADL released a statement saying that the settlement "explicitly recognizes ADL's right to gather information in any lawful and constitutionally protected manner, which we have always done and will continue to do."
Criticism
Some critics allege the ADL willfully exaggerates the prevalence of anti-Semitism, especially among Muslims. The critics also claim that the ADL defines legitimate criticism so narrowly that even moderate analysis of Israel could be categorized as anti-Semitic. Criticism from the right also stems from criticism of Israel being attacked as anti-semitic and tracking of what the ADL considers extremist or racist groups which many on the right do not agree are racist or extreme and actually consider patriotic. For example the ADL lists opposition to income taxes as extremist with white supremacist elements.
For example, linguist and activist Noam Chomsky wrote in his 1989 book Necessary Illusions:
- "The ADL has virtually abandoned its earlier role as a civil rights organization, becoming 'one of the main pillars' of Israeli propaganda in the U.S.… These efforts, buttressed by insinuations of anti-Semitism or direct accusations, are intended to deflect or undermine opposition to Israeli policies, including Israel's refusal, with U.S. support, to move towards a general political settlement."
Michael Lerner, a prominent left-wing rabbi, has criticized the ADL on similar grounds:
- "The ADL lost most of it credibility in my eyes as a civil rights organization when it began to identify criticisms of Israel with anti-Semitism, still more when it failed to defend me when I was receiving threats to my life from right-wing Jewish groups because of my critique of Israeli policy toward Palestinians (it said that these were not threats that came from my being Jewish, so therefore they were not within their area of concern)."
The ADL has also drawn fire from some Orthodox Jewish leaders who charge it is more interested in promoting a dogmatic form of secularism than in promoting religious tolerance and in the process promoting anti-Christian bigotry and hatred. Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin has charged:
- "The most deeply held values of the ADL are a hatred of Judaism and Christianity—and a secularization of society."
Role in Cancellation of Speech by Tony Judt at Polish Consulate
The ADL, in addition to the American Jewish Committee, was criticized by a number of individuals for allegedly pressuring the Polish Consul General in New York to cancel a scheduled appearance by American academic Tony Judt at a non-profit organization that rents space from the consulate. In an interview with the New York Sun, the national director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, claimed that the group "had nothing to do with the cancellation" This was contradicted, however, by the Polish Consul General Krzysztof Kasprzyk who claimed in an interview with the Washington Post that calls by the ADL and the American Jewish Committee, made just an hour before the scheduled event, were "exercising a delicate pressure". In reference to the role of the ADL and American Jewish Committee in organizing the cancellations, Judt told the Washington Post: "This is serious and frightening, and only in America -- not in Israel -- is this a problem. These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone who might listen." Judt's criticism was echoed by Rabbi Michael Lerner, who said in an interview with the Washington Post: "There is an often organized and often spontaneous attempt to marginalize anyone in the Jewish world who offers a critique of Israeli policy. It's equated with anti-Semitism and Israel denial."
Denver defamation suit
The ADL's attempts to highlight anti-Semitism have not been without controversy. According to an April 13 2001 article in The Forward, a federal judge "lambasted the organization for labeling a nasty neighborhood feud as an anti-Semitic event" and upheld most of William and Dorothy Quigley's $10 million lawsuit for defamation. In 1994, Candace and Mitchell Aronson, Jewish next door neighbors of the Quigleys, contacted the Denver ADL office, claiming to have overheard cordless phone conversations of the Quigleys talking about putting pictures of oven doors on the Aronsons' home (a reference to the Holocaust), burning the Aronson children and wishing the Aronsons had been killed in a suicide bombing. The Quigleys and the Aronsons had been engaged in an escalating series of petty disputes prior to this incident. The ADL advised the Aronsons to tape the Quigleys (a tactic which had recently been made illegal). The ADL also labelled the Quigleys as violent anti-Semites in a press conference which led to felony federal charges being filed against them.
The Quigleys successfully sued the ADL for falsely portraying them as anti-Semites.
U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham wrote "it is not unreasonable to infer that public charges of anti-Semitism leveled by the ADL will be taken seriously and assumed by many to be true without question. In that respect, the ADL is in a unique position of being able to cause substantial harm to individuals when it lends its backing to allegations of anti-Semitism." The judge concluded that the ADL supported the Aronsons' accusations without investigating the case, or weighing of the consequences.
It was the first time the ADL has lost a court case.
Criticism of reporting on pagan symbols
The ADL publishes lists of symbols used by anti-Semitic groups. Included in these publications are several pagan symbols that were used by the Nazis and neo-Nazi groups, but are also today used by non-racist pagan religions.
Members of the neopagan religion Ásatrú protested that these symbols were wrongly used by hate groups, and should not be described as symbols of racism. Following an organized e-mail protest by Ásatrúar, the ADL clarified that these symbols are not necessarily racist. It has since amended its publications to categorize these symbols as "pagan symbols co-opted by extremists."
See also
- Jewish Council for Public Affairs
- Presidents' Conference
- Anti-Semitism
- Racism
- American Civil Liberties Union
- Southern Poverty Law Center
External links
- Anti-Defamation League website
- Judge Slams ADL for Hurting Couple Tarred As 'Anti-Semites'
- Nader vs. the ADL -Washington Post
- History of the ADL
- Spy vs Spite - SF Weekly's article on the ADL and its 'HateFilter'.
ADL position statements
- Anti-Defamation League statement: PETA's Appeal for Jewish Community Support 'The Height of Chutzpah'
- ADL Responds to Violence and Harassment against Arab Americans and Muslim Americans
- ADL Condemns Hate Literature Distribution at Honolulu Mosque
- ADL statements against racism and bigotry
- Advocating for Israel: An Activist's Guide
- ADL statement on criticism of Israel
Criticism
- How the Anti-Defamation League Turned the Notion of Human Rights on Its Head, Spying on Progressives and Funneling Information to Law Enforcement Village Voice, 1993
- "The Changing Role of B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League" by Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal, 1993
- "The Defamation League" by Jude Wanniski, 1999
- "The ADL Spying Case Is Over, But The Struggle Continues", by the plaintiffs in the ADL spying case. 2002
- "Jews Rise Against Ashcroft War 'It Shouldn't Be Happening Here'" by Nat Hentoff, 2002
- Judge rules that libel judgment against ADL stands (from Nation of Islam)
- ADL attempts to defame Florida Muslims (from Council on American-Islamic Relations)
- Necessary Illusions - segment on the ADL by Chomsky
- Anti-Defamation League Smears Finkelstein - ADL & Norman G. Finkelstein