Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 16, 2017

Whereis theAnti-DefamationLeague?

As a new anti-Semitism caststhe Jewish stateas the cruelest of nations,and her Jewish supporters as racists, the ADL has been largely silent.The lies are spreadinnewspapers,churchesand college classrooms. On campuses,Jewish students are harassed and intimidated.Eventhe curriculain many public high schools and middle schoolsisbiased against Israel.Yet theADL, once the Jewishpeoplesdefense agency,seems unable or unwilling toeffectively fight back.

Case in point: LindaSarsour,a virulently anti-Israel Islamistwhois asupporterofterrorists,andadefenderof Sharia law,wasa featured speaker at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Healths graduation onJune 1.

Yet it was only after weeks of silence,andonlywhenupbraidedfor that despicablesilence,thattheADLfinallyissueda statementcriticizingSarsour. (Ms. Sarsour is an antisemite whofightsto bar Jewish women from the feministmovement unless they renounce Israel, and hastweetedthat,Nothing is creepier than Zionism.

And even theADLsbelatedcriticism ofSarsour, penned by its CEO, JonathanGreenblatt, was weak.The ADL statementrejectedSarsourssupport of BDS,butit supported CUNYsdecision toinvite her, citing her right to free speech.But, as former CUNY trustee JeffreyWeisenfeld haspointed out,allowing someone to speak and giving them one of the most honored platforms that a university can provideare twodifferent things. EvenAbe Foxman himself, the legendary ADL leader whoreportedlyselected Greenblatt as his heir, unblinkingly told reporters that CUNY should not have invited Sarsour.

The ADLs problem is that ithas never figured out what to do about the new anti-Semitismwhich is exactly whatSarsourrepresents.

When the enemies of the Jewish people were onlyNazis,neo-Nazis, Christian anti-Semites and skinheads, the ADL did just fine. They exposed, they warned, they scolded and they sued. In every city with a sizable Jewish population, the ADL functioned as the Jewish Civil Defense Department.

But sometime during the late 1960s,the virus ofanti-Semitismbegan to morph. Age-old accusations against the Jews and their religion were re-directed toward the Jewish state, and its Jewish supporters. Anti-Semitic smears were used to paintIsrael as the Jew among nationsan art that the United Nations has perfected. And much of this hate comes from liberals and leftists, along with the traditional anti-Semites (white supremacists, neo-Nazis, etc.)

But the ADL and its donorsstuck in the past, like old generals fighting the last warcannot or will not adjust.

The ADLwas born on the progressive side of politics, fighting right-wing Jew-hatred, and supporting social justice. The group haschosen to stay there, even whenin my viewthe threats from the left now eclipse those of the right in their intensity and reach.And so the ADL keptsending those (fundraising) postcards with swastikas found inbathroom stalls in Iowa, and campaignedagainst Pat Robertson, whom itpainted as thesamesort of right-wing threat that we all once kneweven though many people now believe that Robertson andChristian evangelicals areIsraels, and the Jews, best allies.

And asit ignores anti-Semitism from the left,the ADL hassimilarlyshrunk from confronting Islamic Jew-hatredthe biggest threat to Jewish life on the planetfor fear of being labelled Islamophobic by its left-wing allies.Some scholars now describe the new anti-Semitism as being propelled by a Red-Green Allianceof radical leftists and radical Islamists. The ADL hesitates to defend the Jews against either threat.

Morton Klein, of the Zionist Organization of America, and others like him who pressured the ADL to condemn Sarsour were right, and they deserve creditfor shining a light on the Sarsour/ADL scandal. ADLsweakness on this controversyis emblematic of its failure to adopt to the new anti-Semitism. And it is a timely reminder to American Jewry of the need for a new, and bold, leadershipthat is up to the challenge of confrontingthese dangerous times.

Charles Jacobs is the founder of Americans for Peace & Tolerance. This article was originally printed in The Algemeiner.

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