During the evening of March 5, I joined other Jewish activists to pass out leaflets about the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) outside Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, the synagogue where I grew up and had my Bat Mitzvah over 50 years ago. My parents were both active in the synagogue — my father with the youth program and my mother with the library. So it was particularly painful for me when I heard that Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, was going to be speaking there. Let me explain why.
Donna Nevel is a community psychologist and Jewish social justice educator in South Florida. (Donna Nevel/Courtesy)
The ADL’s actions increasingly reflect the racist, repressive politics of the current administration. Its upcoming summit on antisemitism and hate taking place in New York on March 16 and 17 includes MAGA supporters among the invited speakers.
The organization is also infamous for targeting those — particularly Palestinians and Muslims but also Jews and others — who speak out for Palestinian justice. As the leaflet we passed out to those going into the synagogue to hear him speak stated: “The ADL has consistently targeted advocates for Palestinian human rights in a concerted and coordinated campaign to repress any speech that criticizes Israel’s current war on Gaza or its policy of oppression of Palestinians.”
While its visible alignment with the far-right may be new, the organization’s history of surveilling organizations standing for Palestinian justice is well-documented as is its consistent work to undermine social justice movements more generally.
As outlined in a primer about the ADL that was written for community groups and schools, “In August 2017, following the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, the ADL issued a “primer for law enforcement” advising cops to film and plant undercover agents among anti-racist protesters in order to use surveillance footage to prosecute them. The ADL’s actions in Charlottesville are part of its long history of surveillance of social justice movements, including civil rights, anti-Apartheid, immigrant, farmworker, queer, Palestinian rights, and labor movements.”
Also deeply harmful is the organization’s data that conflates antisemitism with criticism of Israel in a way that, according to a recent examination in Jewish Currents, “make[s] its conclusions substantially meaningless.” The organization was also widely condemned for excusing Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, and as former ADL employee Danielle Bryant wrote in New York Daily News, “By treating criticism of Israel as a threat while excusing white supremacists and hate groups, the ADL undermines the fight against antisemitism.”
For all of these reasons and more, our synagogues should not be placing trust in the ADL as a reliable source of information or as an advocate for our communities. The ADL does a grave disservice to the fight for justice and dignity for all our communities, and that very much includes the Jewish community as well.
Donna Nevel, a community psychologist and educator, is a Jewish social justice activist who grew up in Miami Beach.