For just a moment, it looked like the ADL might be turning back to its original mission: fighting antisemitism. Sadly, it didn’t last.
Last week, CJV praised the ADL for criticizing the New York Times’ series of antisemitic hit pieces targeting Hasidic schools, and then joining a list of traditionalist Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical and Mormon groups on an Amicus Curiae brief supporting accommodation for Sabbath-observant workers. Both of these actions deviated from the leftist, partisan course charted by former Obama staffer and current ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, and the praise was deserved. CJV President Rabbi Schonfeld said then that the ADL’s “actions over the past two weeks indicate not a new direction, but a bold move back to its original mission and purpose: fighting antisemitism.”
Our goal, of course, was to demonstrate that we would be happy to praise the ADL when praise was due, and to encourage further steps in the right direction. Those positive signs, though, proved short-lived.
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As described elsewhere, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) goes out of its way to welcome Jewish participation, including helping to facilitate a Sabbath program for attendees. Many religious Jews were among the attendees, including prominent legal analysts, editors, media hosts and producers, and representatives of Jewish organizations—including CJV Managing Director Rabbi Yaakov Menken.
None of this mattered to the ADL; instead, it claimed CPAC is rife with “anti-trans hate” because multiple speakers oppose the deliberate neutering of healthy people, including minors, in order to facilitate their “transition” into something which the nucleus of each and every one of the 100 trillion cells in their bodies declares them not to be.
And because the ADL couldn’t simply come right out and declare the Torah and the Bible to be built upon hate, it did the next best thing: it targeted an Orthodox Jew, Chaya Raichik, calling her an “anti-LGBTQ+ extremist” for her “LibsofTikTok” Twitter account—which merely shares with parents what teachers and activists declare publicly that they are “teaching” public school children.
Far from combating hate, the ADL has become a hate group itself.