![]() Recently, you a gave a speech where you said, “Against the backdrop of rising anti-Semitic incidents, we will thank the G.O.P. That is consistent with an unfortunate pattern that’s emerged since 2016, where instances have been on the rise pretty much every year. We calculated in our most recent audit a thirty-four-per-cent increase in anti-Semitic incidents. 2020 stats-we don’t have 2021 yet-suggested hate crimes are up six per cent over all. We collect this information through our twenty-five offices across the country, as well as through lots of individuals and organizations. Law enforcement doesn’t care if a kid gets bullied at school, but we do. So let’s say acts of harassment, or bullying-that might not rise to the level of a hate crime. tracks hate crimes, meaning felonies and misdemeanors, reported through local law-enforcement agencies, that are crimes against an individual or an institution because of an immutable characteristic like faith, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin. Your group has released statistics indicating that anti-Semitism is on the rise in America. So I think this is exactly what the A.D.L. Again, I think the way we treat people of different faiths, the way we treat people who immigrate to this country or come as refugees, speaks entirely to who we are. When I stood up against the proposed Muslim registry, in 2016, or when I went to the border and I was a very loud opponent of the way they were detaining undocumented children and separating them from their parents, some people have said, These things aren’t Jewish issues. leadership said, No, it actually is our issue. who said, Why is this our issue? The A.D.L. came out in favor of immigration reform and did a lot of work in civil society in support of what became known as the 1965 Immigration Act. But our management in the nineteen-fifties said, Actually, this is our issue. getting involved? That’s not a Jewish issue. There were some among our volunteer base who said, Why is the A.D.L. Board of Education case and did so because our leadership in the nineteen-fifties, long before it was fashionable to fight for civil-rights issues, had come out strongly in favor of them, in favor of integration, in favor of desegregation. I think it is a creative tension or a healthy tension, but there certainly does exist the necessity of finding how those things interoperate. ![]() What is the challenge for an organization whose mission is both particularist and universalist? Is there tension there? So the organization has had this integrated approach-particularist and universalist at the same time-for more than a century. The founders believed in this idea that you might call intersectional, that the Jewish people could only be safe when all people were safe, and only when all minorities were free would the Jewish people truly be free. Its mission has not changed since our original charter was written in 1913: to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all.” It always had this mission, which is both particular and universal. It’s one of the oldest civil-rights organizations in the country. and how do you see it specifically since you took over? During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why hate crimes are increasing, the historical roots of anti-Zionism, and whether it’s bigoted to oppose a Jewish state. I recently spoke by phone with Greenblatt. One of those tendencies is anti-Zionism, which, in a recent speech, he referred to as “an ideology rooted in rage,” comparing it to white supremacy, and adding, “Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.” This comes at a time when a vocal minority of young American Jews has called for one secular, democratic state across Israel and the Palestinian territories. Amid a rise in anti-Semitic incidents documented by his group, and with hate crimes in general on the upswing, Greenblatt, a former special assistant to Barack Obama, has been speaking harshly about the tendencies he believes exacerbate anti-Semitism. Since 2015, Jonathan Greenblatt has served as the director of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization devoted to chronicling and fighting anti-Semitism in American society.
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