As antisemitism skyrockets across the West, the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations face an urgent choice: Act boldly, or risk the long-term safety of Jews in the West.
For this to happen, Greenblatt must go. He comes from the Obama White House and will never make “good trouble” on behalf of US Jews or take even more forceful tactics of necessary. He cannot shed his pre-10/7 mentality and is too worried about preserving his stature especially with progressives.
The ADL is a useless organization dedicated to its own preservation and that of the Democrat party. Its leadership has to go or the organization should just shut down and stop waisting money. Stand With Us is a much better protector of American Jews and especially our youth and our money should go to them!
StandWith Us may be better than the ADL, but how effective is it? What does it really do? How much does it spend? In Pgh., its visual "activism " consisted of standing on a corner every Sunday morning with the poorly worded "Bring them home" slogan. As if the responsibility for the Israelis being held hostage lay with Israel. Why not the likes of "set them free"? Do Jews march in the streets? On the campuses? Celebrate (other than Chabad) Chanukah in public? Are they active in looking at textbooks and classrooms - where increasingly robust curricula and teachers are asserting anti-Israel programs? Is ADL even using its considerable resources for the lawsuits that are being brought? No, even that battle is being waged by other groups. The big pocket groups - ADL, AJC, AJC - can't be reformed. They should disband and their considerable, undeserved resources need to be directed to more energetic, focused, active groups. Or just give up.
The ADL will not change direction or tactics. Its donors and funders are aligned with progressive causes and all efforts to support those causes take priority. The Jewish community needs new leadership and organizations that no longer swear fealty to one party or the other, but rather make the parties work for our votes.
I know most Jews will disagree but we also need more militancy. Antisemites know that Jews by and large are too civilized to defend themselves and rely on the organs of government to protect us. Hasn’t the time come for Jewish organizations and deep pocket funders to establish self defense and yes (and this will upset most Jews) arms training. Better to be trained and prepared than to realize you are ill prepared when you need to defend yourself. It is time to recognize that we are in the same position that the Jews in Europe were just prior to the fall of the Weimar Republic…attacked from growing numbers both left and right.
It is delusional to expect that the current ‘leadership organizations’ will reassess let alone modify their tactics and approaches. We must also recognize that unfortunately way too many American Jews are in denial as to how dangerous the situation has become.
Very prudent. One hopes you never have to use it, but at least you can be prepared. For too long we Jews with few exceptions have relied on the kindness and goodness of others to protect us, our children and grandchildren. Given the situation we are seeing in all the western world (Europe, Canada, Australia and the US) we can no longer assume that we will receive the protections citizens are due. I have always wondered if things would have turned out differently for European Jewry if they had been armed and willing to confront the Nazis before they came to power. I am tired of Jews always playing victim. Time to teach our children and grandchildren about the Jewish heroes who fought back. We need to regain the spirit of Joshua, the Maccabbees, Bar Kochba, the partisans who banded together and fought the Nazis in WW2 and the founders of Israel. If our children and grandchildren were taught Krav Maga they could teach the bullies a lesson they will never forget. Sadly there was a time the US had tough Jews, but no longer.
BINGO. There was a great book called Gangsters vs. the Nazis. True story, back in the 70s when I was in college, Meir Kahane of the JDL came and spoke at my school. The lecture hall was overflowing with students wanting to hear his message. I was sitting next to two blacks who were wearing Black Panther berets. Rabbi Kahane said we must not be victims and must fight back some times physically. One of the guys leaned over and said to the other "This guy has got it right...you can't let others walk over you".
Once the ADL got involved in advocating for non Jews supposedly oppressed, marginalized, or aggrieved in one way or another, I stopped contributing. They need to stay laser focused on Jewish only causes and without apology strongly support Israel and oppressed, marginalized, and aggrieved Jews throughout the United States and by association, in Europe, Australia, and Canada.
I would like to see a response to this essay from ADL. I may try to figure out how to send it to them. My father (Z"L) was a Holocaust survivor who supported ADL in his lifetime. He'd find the current state of ADL to be abhorrent.
One of the biggest problems is unwillingness to become "involved"; the truth is we are already in this fight! If Jews and Christians don't stand together you might as well start loading the box cars. If you think the "Loving" Left would show mercy you are either blind or crazy.
Stand ready together, don't cancel events, defend them! If they protest them and try to disrupt bash them right in the teeth! If they stab; shoot them with a shot gun. If they shoot at us take a flamethrower to them!
Does it make me sad to say these things, sure it does. I have also seen Islam in action in the South West Asia. A 12 Year girl had her nose cut off for the crime of learning to read! I have seen Islam justify strapping IED on to an 10 year old boy.
That's not Islamophobia... that's Islamofact!
There are people I know; Christians and Jews that I consider so valuable to our society that I would gladly trade my life for theirs. Honest, moral and capable professionals, professors and engineers that are creating the future that the Muslims would gladly kill for the crime of being Jewish...
Not on my watch! I took an oath and that oath did not end when I retired after 26 years of military and another 6 years of Defense work ended. There is hope, young Jews and Christians that are brave enough to infiltrate and spy on SLP and the other Muslim Brotherhood fronts that the Islamic Cult funds.
This country, this Constitutional Republic, is the shining light of the Western World!
The problem as I see it is that we as Jews in the 21st century cultural mix do not have one grass roots leader that has been pushed to the front as a authentic voice of the Jews concerns and actually fights for those concerns to be addressed. Where is our Jewish Jessie Jackson or Martin Luther King? Nowhere that's where. Instead we have doners that because they give some money to some Jewish cause or charity become self proclaimed "leaders" that in many cases are not even known to a vast cohort of Jews within the American Jewish community. In many cases they have money to give to everything under the sun except supporting full time Jewish education.
Folks we can talk this situation until we are blue in the face. But real action is sadly lacking when many of our institutions are lead by people who have no real skin in the game and are little more then folks with money who are seeking public adulation by advertising their pseudo involvement with the Jewish community.
A year or two ago I heard an interview with Greenblatt in which he said what the ADL does is it files lawsuits it expects to lose in order to document antisemitism. And I thought, seriously???? You’re satisfied with that? You take all those donations and that’s what you do with them??? You wimps. We need fighters and what we have are stenographers.
We need both writers (stenographers) and fighters. Our Searchlight Magazine here in the UK is a fantastic AntiNazi and AntiFascist organisation which does BOTH. Searchlight emerged from the Jewish ‘62’ street-fighting group. Documenting the Nazis and the Fascists here in Europe has in fact been superbly successful. So we need both. Check out www.searchlightmagazine.com
Yes, they documented the old ‘Triple Alliance’ of Extremists: David Dukes and his KKK, with the racist Black Nationalists, and the early Islamists under Gaddafi. We also monitored the support and Alliances from 2014 between The Re-formed Nazi Party and Hamas here in London.
It is incomprehensible that the author omitted the fact that the ADL's current head, Jonathan Greenblatt, spent many years of the payrolls of George Soros, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, all Jew- and Israel-detesters. If you argue that Clinton was not, then why was his most frequent guest in his eight years in the White House Yasir Arafat? Any Jew who donates even one dime to the ADL is a fool. Today, the ADL stands for nothing and accomplishes nothing.
Every diaspora Jew must read "Betrayal:The failure of American Jewish Leadership. It documents comprehensively how mainstream establishment Jewish organizations have abandoned their mission. For a generation, they have failed and are doubling down on their patronizing refusal to represent Jews today. Consistently the toadies appointed by super-moneyed donors to organizations align themselves with un-Jewish politics. It benefits them personally and socially to hobnob with the political- media- academic- entertainment doyens who are themselves in thrall to destructive ideologies and demagogues.
The book's compilation names names—the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Community Relations Councils, the Union for Reform Judaism and others, basically, a group of self-protective “cronys” all failed, unelected, donor-funded, of major American/worldwide Jewish organizations
Jews pour hundreds of millions into these organizations that have little or nothing to show for themselves. It is time to replace those failures with real leadership, real ideas, and real passion.
Estimates of more than 12,000 Jewish nonprofits worldwide—federations, agencies, synagogues, community centers—spanning every imaginable cause: education, social justice, Israel, community life. Billions of dollars. Endless panels. Countless statements.
And yet, in the face of an open, accelerating explosion of antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred, there is no unified strategy, no coordinated response, no real show of power. Just fragmentation, timidity, and institutional self-preservation.
We demand nothing of ourselves and excuse everything from our “guilt charities” so long as they sound compassionate and offend no one. They hoard resources, issue press releases, and congratulate themselves—while the situation gets worse by the day.
This is failure and it demands a reckoning.
Unity is not optional. Accountability is not optional. We must demand coordinated action and support it with more than checks and slogans. This requires sustained pressure, political muscle, legal force, and disciplined, unapologetic confrontation.
For this to happen, Greenblatt must go. He comes from the Obama White House and will never make “good trouble” on behalf of US Jews or take even more forceful tactics of necessary. He cannot shed his pre-10/7 mentality and is too worried about preserving his stature especially with progressives.
The ADL is a useless organization dedicated to its own preservation and that of the Democrat party. Its leadership has to go or the organization should just shut down and stop waisting money. Stand With Us is a much better protector of American Jews and especially our youth and our money should go to them!
Duly noted. Stand With Us. It's going on my list.
StandWith Us may be better than the ADL, but how effective is it? What does it really do? How much does it spend? In Pgh., its visual "activism " consisted of standing on a corner every Sunday morning with the poorly worded "Bring them home" slogan. As if the responsibility for the Israelis being held hostage lay with Israel. Why not the likes of "set them free"? Do Jews march in the streets? On the campuses? Celebrate (other than Chabad) Chanukah in public? Are they active in looking at textbooks and classrooms - where increasingly robust curricula and teachers are asserting anti-Israel programs? Is ADL even using its considerable resources for the lawsuits that are being brought? No, even that battle is being waged by other groups. The big pocket groups - ADL, AJC, AJC - can't be reformed. They should disband and their considerable, undeserved resources need to be directed to more energetic, focused, active groups. Or just give up.
Organizations usually work very hard on self-preservation instead of doing their intended job.
Yes, exactly.
The ADL will not change direction or tactics. Its donors and funders are aligned with progressive causes and all efforts to support those causes take priority. The Jewish community needs new leadership and organizations that no longer swear fealty to one party or the other, but rather make the parties work for our votes.
I know most Jews will disagree but we also need more militancy. Antisemites know that Jews by and large are too civilized to defend themselves and rely on the organs of government to protect us. Hasn’t the time come for Jewish organizations and deep pocket funders to establish self defense and yes (and this will upset most Jews) arms training. Better to be trained and prepared than to realize you are ill prepared when you need to defend yourself. It is time to recognize that we are in the same position that the Jews in Europe were just prior to the fall of the Weimar Republic…attacked from growing numbers both left and right.
It is delusional to expect that the current ‘leadership organizations’ will reassess let alone modify their tactics and approaches. We must also recognize that unfortunately way too many American Jews are in denial as to how dangerous the situation has become.
Totally agree! We bought a gun at age 70. (I was anti-gun all my life).
Very prudent. One hopes you never have to use it, but at least you can be prepared. For too long we Jews with few exceptions have relied on the kindness and goodness of others to protect us, our children and grandchildren. Given the situation we are seeing in all the western world (Europe, Canada, Australia and the US) we can no longer assume that we will receive the protections citizens are due. I have always wondered if things would have turned out differently for European Jewry if they had been armed and willing to confront the Nazis before they came to power. I am tired of Jews always playing victim. Time to teach our children and grandchildren about the Jewish heroes who fought back. We need to regain the spirit of Joshua, the Maccabbees, Bar Kochba, the partisans who banded together and fought the Nazis in WW2 and the founders of Israel. If our children and grandchildren were taught Krav Maga they could teach the bullies a lesson they will never forget. Sadly there was a time the US had tough Jews, but no longer.
Like the 1930's gangsters who taught the nazis a lesson during their Bund rallies. We need to return to that ethos.
BINGO. There was a great book called Gangsters vs. the Nazis. True story, back in the 70s when I was in college, Meir Kahane of the JDL came and spoke at my school. The lecture hall was overflowing with students wanting to hear his message. I was sitting next to two blacks who were wearing Black Panther berets. Rabbi Kahane said we must not be victims and must fight back some times physically. One of the guys leaned over and said to the other "This guy has got it right...you can't let others walk over you".
Love this.
Once the ADL got involved in advocating for non Jews supposedly oppressed, marginalized, or aggrieved in one way or another, I stopped contributing. They need to stay laser focused on Jewish only causes and without apology strongly support Israel and oppressed, marginalized, and aggrieved Jews throughout the United States and by association, in Europe, Australia, and Canada.
Exactly. Jews for Jews. There are enough other people to advocate for others.
ADL and other organizations got a lot of our money, had their meetings, preached coexistence and failed us. Time for a change.
ZOA with Morton Klein is the only jewish origanization the USA that has a clear mind and morality about reality of jews Israel .
Going on my list of who to donate to.
I lost faith in all of these organizations, ACLU, ADL, and the NAACP.
Yes, and Human Rights Campaign as well.
I would like to see a response to this essay from ADL. I may try to figure out how to send it to them. My father (Z"L) was a Holocaust survivor who supported ADL in his lifetime. He'd find the current state of ADL to be abhorrent.
fWIW, I have forwarded this essay to ADL and asked them to comment if they wish to do so.
One of the biggest problems is unwillingness to become "involved"; the truth is we are already in this fight! If Jews and Christians don't stand together you might as well start loading the box cars. If you think the "Loving" Left would show mercy you are either blind or crazy.
Stand ready together, don't cancel events, defend them! If they protest them and try to disrupt bash them right in the teeth! If they stab; shoot them with a shot gun. If they shoot at us take a flamethrower to them!
Does it make me sad to say these things, sure it does. I have also seen Islam in action in the South West Asia. A 12 Year girl had her nose cut off for the crime of learning to read! I have seen Islam justify strapping IED on to an 10 year old boy.
That's not Islamophobia... that's Islamofact!
There are people I know; Christians and Jews that I consider so valuable to our society that I would gladly trade my life for theirs. Honest, moral and capable professionals, professors and engineers that are creating the future that the Muslims would gladly kill for the crime of being Jewish...
Not on my watch! I took an oath and that oath did not end when I retired after 26 years of military and another 6 years of Defense work ended. There is hope, young Jews and Christians that are brave enough to infiltrate and spy on SLP and the other Muslim Brotherhood fronts that the Islamic Cult funds.
This country, this Constitutional Republic, is the shining light of the Western World!
Israel is the shining light of the Middle East!
This We'll Defend!
God Bless America and Israel!
We are "Sword of God Militia"
The problem as I see it is that we as Jews in the 21st century cultural mix do not have one grass roots leader that has been pushed to the front as a authentic voice of the Jews concerns and actually fights for those concerns to be addressed. Where is our Jewish Jessie Jackson or Martin Luther King? Nowhere that's where. Instead we have doners that because they give some money to some Jewish cause or charity become self proclaimed "leaders" that in many cases are not even known to a vast cohort of Jews within the American Jewish community. In many cases they have money to give to everything under the sun except supporting full time Jewish education.
Folks we can talk this situation until we are blue in the face. But real action is sadly lacking when many of our institutions are lead by people who have no real skin in the game and are little more then folks with money who are seeking public adulation by advertising their pseudo involvement with the Jewish community.
Thanks for the attempt, but the ADL will never change as long as it is rooted in the Democratic Party and the progressive movement.
A year or two ago I heard an interview with Greenblatt in which he said what the ADL does is it files lawsuits it expects to lose in order to document antisemitism. And I thought, seriously???? You’re satisfied with that? You take all those donations and that’s what you do with them??? You wimps. We need fighters and what we have are stenographers.
We need both writers (stenographers) and fighters. Our Searchlight Magazine here in the UK is a fantastic AntiNazi and AntiFascist organisation which does BOTH. Searchlight emerged from the Jewish ‘62’ street-fighting group. Documenting the Nazis and the Fascists here in Europe has in fact been superbly successful. So we need both. Check out www.searchlightmagazine.com
Are they documenting the muslims?
Yes, they documented the old ‘Triple Alliance’ of Extremists: David Dukes and his KKK, with the racist Black Nationalists, and the early Islamists under Gaddafi. We also monitored the support and Alliances from 2014 between The Re-formed Nazi Party and Hamas here in London.
It is incomprehensible that the author omitted the fact that the ADL's current head, Jonathan Greenblatt, spent many years of the payrolls of George Soros, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, all Jew- and Israel-detesters. If you argue that Clinton was not, then why was his most frequent guest in his eight years in the White House Yasir Arafat? Any Jew who donates even one dime to the ADL is a fool. Today, the ADL stands for nothing and accomplishes nothing.
Every diaspora Jew must read "Betrayal:The failure of American Jewish Leadership. It documents comprehensively how mainstream establishment Jewish organizations have abandoned their mission. For a generation, they have failed and are doubling down on their patronizing refusal to represent Jews today. Consistently the toadies appointed by super-moneyed donors to organizations align themselves with un-Jewish politics. It benefits them personally and socially to hobnob with the political- media- academic- entertainment doyens who are themselves in thrall to destructive ideologies and demagogues.
The book's compilation names names—the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Community Relations Councils, the Union for Reform Judaism and others, basically, a group of self-protective “cronys” all failed, unelected, donor-funded, of major American/worldwide Jewish organizations
Jews pour hundreds of millions into these organizations that have little or nothing to show for themselves. It is time to replace those failures with real leadership, real ideas, and real passion.
Estimates of more than 12,000 Jewish nonprofits worldwide—federations, agencies, synagogues, community centers—spanning every imaginable cause: education, social justice, Israel, community life. Billions of dollars. Endless panels. Countless statements.
And yet, in the face of an open, accelerating explosion of antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred, there is no unified strategy, no coordinated response, no real show of power. Just fragmentation, timidity, and institutional self-preservation.
We demand nothing of ourselves and excuse everything from our “guilt charities” so long as they sound compassionate and offend no one. They hoard resources, issue press releases, and congratulate themselves—while the situation gets worse by the day.
This is failure and it demands a reckoning.
Unity is not optional. Accountability is not optional. We must demand coordinated action and support it with more than checks and slogans. This requires sustained pressure, political muscle, legal force, and disciplined, unapologetic confrontation.
IT STARTS WITH US
Don't hold your breath waiting for the ADL which is still stuck in the past and is more committed to liberal causes than to Jewish ones.
It would require a complete overhaul of its membership.