After for most of its existence defining third rails for others, the Anti-Defamation League has apparently bitten off more than it could chew, as billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has threatened to sue the group over revenue lost due to its campaigns aimed at dissuading advertising on the platform by corporations. As someone who has monitored and criticized the ADL over the years for its speech policing and politicized extremism reporting, this was a long time coming. But it also is no reason for celebrating, because even those like myself that are Jewish and disagree with the ADL's purpose and approach towards fighting hate have to contend with the false assumption that the ADL represents all Jews in America and worldwide.
The impetus for this backlash against the ADL was a campaign by the video creator Keith Woods to #BantheADL from X (or Twitter as it was once known). And while most media characterizations assert that Woods is an Irish white supremacist, I don't find his beliefs to be as much of an issue as the fact that the ADL in a January 2023 bulletin found it necessary to monitor his channel which has a following of about 53 thousand subscribers and mostly focuses on topics of ancient philosophy mixed in with contemporary politics. If it was not him the ADL would be seeking out another content creator with intolerant or hateful views on social media and attempting to portray them as the next great threat to the survival of the Jewish people. They are not solving any problem; rather, as Musk himself points out, the ADL may be responsible for causing more Jew hatred instead of successfully combating it.
Like some of my readers, I have plenty of reason to be concerned about how this is going because I am a Jewish person who, unlike Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL leadership, lives and works in places where I may be the only one in the whole facility. I also have reason to fear violence against members of my family and friends in the community that are visibly Jewish by someone who is genuinely radicalized. This is why one criticism that I level at the ADL is that it not only fails at its mission of combatting online hate, but also at one that I find more important: Informing and warning the public about actual occurrences of violence, and distinguishing them from mere expressions of prejudice. History is replete with examples of those who have been attacked as retribution for the actions of someone else. In other cities such occurrences are commonplace, like New York where the NYPD estimated that one anti-Jewish attack or act of vandalism occurs every 36 hours. This doesn't mean that I spend every waking moment dreading such incidents, but I do stay abreast of local reports and advisories about them and try to avoid situations that may present vulnerable openings to such attacks. In order to do so, I often rely on news articles, social media posts, and sometimes literally just word of mouth. These all run the risk of being either inaccurate or exaggerated, and our local ADL could help by stepping into the breach and cancelling out the noise. Instead its news and updates page only includes bulletins on new hirings and promotions in the organization or press releases echoing the reports of the national organization.
So the ADL, an organization with tens of millions of dollars in value and access to persons at the highest echelons of power is setting as its priority policing speech on online forums ahead of the security and welfare of the community it purports to represent. What should be surprising is that the anger is only coming from users opposing its censorship and politicized messaging and not from the Jewish community itself, for the ADL's actions serve not only to usurp the role of speaking on behalf of Jewish Americans, but even acts to repress the views of those of us that would push back. The ADL's appropriation ofthe role of Jewish voice in the public square is not new and is particularly obnoxious when it concerns social issues that are not under the purview of its stated mission to "stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all". For example as many critics are now pointing out the ADL has for a long time weighed in on the issue of abortion laws (or "reproductive rights" as abortion advocates call them). While recent pronouncements by the likes of CEO Jonathan Greenblatt have held abortion to be a "Jewish value", the organization has claimed that it has pursued abortion access rights policy since 1980. This is a gross abuse of the ADL's position in that it cannot deign to speak on behalf of all of the many denominations and streams of the Jewish American population. The Orthodox Jewish educational group Aish HaTorah for example provides a nuanced opinion that affirms that the "right to choose", just like the "right to die" for those seeking assisted suicide, is antithetical to Jewish teachings while stipulating that in critical situations the life of the mother and her health takes precedence over that of the unborn child. The role of women in society is itself a topic where there is wide divergence. When in a Reform temple a woman may preside as rabbi, read from the Torah, and marry another woman, whereas in many mainstream Orthodox congregations it is held that men may not even listen to a woman singing, the claim that there is a consensus opinion on any topic that the ADL represents on behalf of all Jewish Americans is laughable. So when the ADL proclaims that "reproductive rights are a Jewish value" is the same type of arrogance used by "reverends" like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who would claim to speak on behalf of black people.
This is the latest blow up of many that the ADL has taken part in over the years, and now actual anti-Semites are using this controversy as a new engine to gain followers as a result of the group’s stupidity. Under Greenblatt the organization's focus has been lost, as it has branched away from its original purpose. One of the worst lowlights is still an episode from 2017 when the group aided CNN in unearthing the identity and social media history of a person who posted a meme that humorously insulted the network. Focusing nowadays on "extremism" of other types and not just Jew hatred, the ADL maintains a page on their glossary of terms on Pamela Geller, an anti-Islam activist who is herself Jewish and has been the target of assassination plots in Texas and Massachusetts. Their description mentions none of that, only that she is a bigot and extremist. Other topics just seem to be a total waste of time and resources: The ADL also monitors "incels" or involuntary celibates as they are called, including their slang terms like "dog pill". There is a page on Duncan Lemp, a man killed by police during a no-knock warrant raid on his Maryland house, because some activists of the "boogaloo" movement have used him as a martyr. None of these topics have anything to do with reducing hatred and violence towards Jews, nor arguably anyone else.
This saga also serves as a reminder to me of why we need a Jewish free speech movement, the Jewish Alliance for the First Amendment (JAFFA) as I would call it. All that I ever hear whenever the ADL embarrassing itself is from Jewish individuals that gripe that the ADL doesn't represent them. But that's where it all ends, with hand wringing and sour faces. Such dissent does not become meaningful unless we come together, commit to organizing, and confront the ADL. I invite you to join me in doing so. Please email me at razorsharpreport@protonmail.com if you are interested.