In defense of the Anti-Defamation League

Boston Globe

2 days ago

This controversy isn't isolated. Here in Massachusetts, the American Jewish Committee (on whose board I serve) has
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But that line of attack misses the deeper, more troubling reality: Today's
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To be clear, criticizing a government is fair game. We do it here in the United States all the time. No one says you hate America just because you oppose its foreign policy. And no one — certainly not the ADL — is claiming that all critics of Israeli policy are antisemitic, or that Jewish people who disagree with Israeli leaders are betraying their own. What the ADL is saying is that many people today are using opposition to Israel as a fig leaf for antisemitic prejudice. And the selectivity of that outrage is telling.
Some argue that Israel draws special scrutiny because it receives US aid. That's a fair concern — taxpayer dollars deserve oversight. But we
Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. One can disagree with Israeli policy and still affirm Israel's right to exist and defend itself. But when people obsessively single out Israel for condemnation — while ignoring other regimes that commit atrocities — it's time to ask why.
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We have learned to listen when members of the LGBTQ community call out homophobia. We don't dismiss Black or brown communities when they say something is racist. Jewish communities deserve the same respect. With 5,000 years of surviving hatred, they know what antisemitism feels like. So does the ADL, which has spent more than a century tracking it. When it raises the alarm, it isn't overreacting. It's experience.
No Bostonian wakes up in the morning wondering whether the train to work might explode, or whether Fenway Park might be bombed simply because someone wants Massachusetts wiped off the map. But Israelis have lived under that kind of threat since 1948. That's why I stand with Israel — and with the ADL. As a Black woman who converted to Judaism, I don't agree with every Israeli policy. But I strongly and unapologetically support its right to exist, to defend itself, and to live free of terror.
Rather than criticizing the ADL for refusing to let political critique become a cover for bigotry, we should be applauding its courage. Opposing Israeli policy isn't antisemitic. But obsessively targeting the Jewish state should raise a red flag for all of us.
At a time when antisemitism is rising in America and around the world, the ADL is not stifling debate. It's doing exactly what it was founded to do: protecting Jewish people from hate, no matter how it disguises itself.