Uncategorized
The historian who uncovered the ADL’s secret plot against the far-right John Birch Society
(JTA) — A historian leafing through files in an archive discovered how a Jewish organization helped bring down an influential far-right extremist movement in the United States in the 1960s and ’70s by going undercover and acting as self-appointed spies.
The discovery of the Anti-Defamation League’s covert operation targeting the John Birch Society is the basis of a chapter in a new book by political historian Matthew Dallek of George Washington University. Published in March, “Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right” is Dallek’s fourth book. It examines the roots of today’s emboldened conservative movement in the United States.
“Birchers” is a history of a group that at its height numbered as many as 100,000 members and “mobilized a loyal army of activists” in a campaign against what it saw as a vast communist conspiracy. He also examines how the Birchers’ mission to defend Christianity and capitalism morphed into a radical anti-civil rights agenda that groups like the ADL saw as an existential threat.
Dallek, who grew up in a Reform Jewish household in Los Angeles, recently sat with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to discuss the rise of the Birchers, how the ADL infiltrated their ranks and whether such tactics are justified in the name of fighting extremism.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
JTA: Before we get into the Jewish aspect of the book, meaning the chapter on the Anti-Defamation League’s relationship with the John Birch Society, let’s take a step back. Who are so-called Birchers? Why do they matter?
Mathew Dallek: The John Birch Society was a household name in the 1960s, becoming the emblem of far-right extremism. It didn’t have huge numbers, but it did penetrate the culture and the national consciousness. Its leader, Robert Welch, had argued at one point that President Dwight Eisenhower was a dedicated agent of a communist conspiracy taking over the United States. Welch formed the John Birch Society to educate the American people about the nature of the communist threat.
In its heyday, the group had about 60,000 to 100,000 members, organized into small chapters. They sent out literature trying to give members roadmaps or ideas for what they could do. They believed a mass education of the public was needed because traditional two-party politics was not going to be very effective at exposing the communist threat. They would form front groups such as Impeach Earl Warren [the Supreme Court’s chief justice] or Support Your Local Police. They tried to ban certain books that they viewed as socialistic from being used in schools. Some Birchers ran for school board seats and protested at libraries.
Critics feared that the Birchers were a growing fascist or authoritarian group and that if they were not sidelined politically and culturally then the country could be overrun. The Nation magazine wrote that Birchers essentially had given their followers an invitation to engage in civil war, guerrilla-style. Those fears sparked a big debate about democracy. How does one sustain democracy and, at the height of the Cold War and in the shadow of World War II, Nazi fascist Germany, and the Holocaust?
As you were researching, you came across a trove of historical internal documents from the ADL in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York. Why did you devote a chapter to what you found in those documents? What did those files reveal to you about the John Birch Society?
These papers are a goldmine. They’re this incredible and often detailed window into the far-right and, in particular, the John Birch Society. They show the ADL had an extensive, multi-dimensional counterintelligence operation that they were running against the Birch Society.
People knew at the time that the ADL was attending events where Birchers were speaking. But the ADL also had undercover agents with code names, who were able to infiltrate the society’s headquarters in Belmont, Massachusetts, and various chapter officers. They dug up financial and employment information about individual Birchers. And they not only used the material for their own newsletters and press releases, but they also fed information to the media.
Another layer is about a debate that’s been going on: Were the Birchers racist and antisemitic? The Birch Society always insisted that they did not tolerate white supremacy and didn’t want any KKK members. They said they accepted people of all faiths and races. And it’s true that they did have a handful of Jewish and Black members.
But what the ADL found was that a lot of hate was bubbling up from the grassroots and also leaking out from the top. The ADL was able to document this in a systematic way.
Some critics of the ADL today say the organization has strayed from its mission by focusing not just on antisemitism but on a wider array of causes. But from reading your work, it sounds like the ADL even then took an expansive view of its role, examining not just direct attacks on Jews but also how the political environment can jeopardize Jews. Am I getting that right, and why did the ADL devote so many resources to a group like the John Birch Society?
So, a few things: It’s the late ’50s and ’60s, and a civil rights coalition is emerging. Benjamin Epstein, the national director of the ADL, was friendly with Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court justice, and Martin Luther King. John F. Kennedy went to an ADL event and praised the ADL for speaking out very strongly in defense of democracy and pushing for the equal treatment of all Americans.
Isadore Zack, who helped lead the spy operation, at one point wrote to his colleagues that it was only in a democracy that the Jewish community has been allowed to flourish and so, if you want to defend Jewish Americans, you also have to defend democracy.
There certainly were other threats at the time, but the Birch Society was seen by liberal critics, including the ADL, as a very secretive group that promoted conspiracy theories about communists who often became conflated with Jews.
Would you consider the ADL successful in its campaign against the Birchers?
They were successful. They used surreptitious and in some cases underhanded means to expose the antisemitism and the racism and also interest in violence or the violent rhetoric of the Birch Society in the 1960s.
The ADL was at the tip of the spear of a liberal coalition that included the White House, sometimes the Department of Justice, depending on the issue, the NAACP, Americans for Democratic Action, labor unions, the union-backed Group Research Inc., which was tracking the far-right as well. The ADL was one of the most, if not the most effective at constraining and discrediting the society.
Clearly, however, the Birchers’ ideas never died. They lived on and made a comeback.
It’s somewhat ironic that you reveal the existence of this spying apparatus devoted to targeting an extremist and antisemitic group in the 1960s given the infamy the ADL would earn in a later era, the 1990s, for allegations that they colluded with police agencies in San Francisco to spy on and harass political activists. They eventually settled with the Arab American, Black and American Indian groups that brought a federal civil suit. I know you didn’t study these revelations, which are outside the scope of your book, but could you perhaps reflect on why undercover tactics were seen as necessary or justified?
It’s important to remember that in the mid-20th century, law enforcement in the United States was often led by antisemites or people who were much more concerned with alleged internal communist threats — the threat from the left.
From the ADL’s vantage point, one could not rely on the government entities that were by law and by design supposed to protect Jewish Americans. There was a sense that this work had to be done, at least in part, outside of the parameters of the government.
When I first discovered the ADL’s spying, I didn’t quite know what to make of it. But I realized they weren’t just spying to spy, they exposed a lot of scary things, with echoes in our own times — like easy access to firearms, a hatred of the government, a denigration and defamation of minority groups. And this was all happening in the shadow of the Holocaust and World War II. I became much more sympathetic; they were very effective, and they had a vision of equality of treatment for all Americans.
It’s obviously controversial. I try not to shy away from it. But they had a lot of good reasons to fight back right and to fight back in this nonviolent way.
That last thought brings to mind another, right-wing Jewish group that existed in this era of taking things into our own hands, that did use violence, explosives even.
You mean the Jewish Defense League, led by Meir Kahane.
Yes, exactly.
He was a Bircher. Toward the end of my book, I mention that he was a member for a while, under his alias Michael King.
Antisemitism is on the rise, and lots of initiatives are being organized to address it, both by existing groups like the ADL and new ones. The ADL’s budget has almost doubled over the past seven years. I am seeing Jews talk of fighting back and taking things into their own hands. And we are in this politically precarious movement in American history, all of which suggests parallels to the era you examined. What kind of wisdom can we glean from examining the ADL’s secret and public fight against the John Birch Society as people who care about the issues affecting Jews today?
A lot of liberals in the 1960s and a lot of the leadership at the ADL grasped the axiom that things can always get worse.
In 2015-2016, you’ll recall, there was Trump’s demonization of Mexican immigrants, and the so-called “alt-right” around him and his campaign and expressions of vitriol by people like Steve Bannon.
There was an assumption among a lot of Americans and among a lot of Jewish Americans that the fringe right — the antisemites, the explicit racists, the white supremacists — that there’s not a majority for them and they can never achieve power.
If you go back and you look at Trump’s closing 2016 campaign ad, it’s textbook antisemitism. He flashes on screen these wealthy Jewish international bankers, and he argues that basically, there’s a conspiracy of these global elites who are stealing the wealth of honest Americans. There’s also 2017, the white supremacists in Charlottesville, who said “Jews will not replace us” and Trump saying there are fine people on both sides.
The sense that democracy is incredibly fragile is not just a theory or a concept: It’s an actuality, the sense as well, that the United States has only been a multiracial democracy for not very long and a haven for Jews for not that long either.
The work that the ADL and the NAACP and other groups did to try to constrain and discredit as fringe and extremist still goes on today. It’s harder to do for all sorts of reasons today including social media and the loss of faith in institutions. But it still goes on. You see the importance of institutional guardrails including the Department of Justice that is prosecuting 1,000 Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
The last thing I’ll say is that one of the admirable things in the 1960s about the ADL and the liberal coalition it belonged to is that it built support for landmark legislation like the Immigration Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of ’65. And a coalition eventually fell apart, but it was powerful, reminding us why Jewish American groups should care about or focus on issues that don’t directly affect Jewish people.
—
The post The historian who uncovered the ADL’s secret plot against the far-right John Birch Society appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
University of Maryland Student Gov’t Teams Up With Anti-Zionist Group to Pass 4th Anti-Israel Resolution This Year
University of Maryland, College Park’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter honoring Hamas terrorists, whom it called “our martyrs,” on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Photo: Screenshot
The University of Maryland, College Park’s student government on Wednesday passed its fourth anti-Israel resolution in just this academic year alone, cementing a governing partnership with the extremist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Every member of the Student Government Association (SGA), notwithstanding one who abstained, supported the latest measure with a voting tally of 19-0-1, The Algemeiner has learned from sources close to the situation.
Previous resolutions, which include one passed on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, amassed as many as 28 votes but failed to achieve unanimous approval.
The latest measure calls on the school to divest from a range of defense contractors for working with Israel in accordance with the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the world’s lone Jewish state on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy Israel.
“[The University of Maryland’s] investments may include companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Elbit Systems, Caterpillar Inc, and RTX Corp, all companies that in some form or another, supply weapons, surveillance, technology, or infrastructure used in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and have been linked to human right’s violations in other regions,” the resolution states, seemingly admitting that its supporters are not certain of the contents of the university’s investment portfolio. “This framework shall apply to the investment of all USM-controlled funds subject to Maryland law.”
October’s Yom Kippur vote, which Jewish students could not attend, accused Israel of “apartheid and occupation.”
Other resolutions at the University of Maryland (UMD) lodged discredited claims of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against Israel, parroting atrocity propaganda confected by Hamas to influence the public’s perception of the war in Gaza prompted by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
In the days leading up to Wednesday’s vote, Jewish and Christian groups castigated the student government for what they described as being so easily captured by extremists who flagrantly signal their contempt for Jews by perpetrating hate incidents and using Jewish holidays as an occasion for promoting the destruction of the Jewish state.
“As a movement, we are trying to combat antisemitism. It is difficult when we have groups like BDS and UMD’s own student government outwardly discriminating against Jewish students,” said Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and Students Supporting Israel (SSI) in a joint statement, posted on the Instagram social media platform, on Saturday. “They have screamed at Jewish students and cornered them in rooms until police had to get involved. UMD’s student government is not interested in dialogue. They tell their followers not to speak with Israelis.”
They continued, “This form of extremism is hateful and discriminatory. We are calling for awareness and action from UMD to put an end to this.”
On Thursday, SSI president Uriel Appel told The Algemeiner, “The only surprising thing about SGA’s blatant attack on Jewish students on our campus is their zealous persistence on the matter.”
UMD, College Park SJP leading Muslim prayers. Photo: Screenshot
The University of Maryland, College Park’s SJP chapter is one of the most radical in the country. After the Oct. 7 attack, it held a “vigil” for Palestinian terrorists and other events which appeared aimed at pitting the Black and Latino communities against Jews. In its public statements, it has rejected a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called for the destruction of the Jewish state.
“UMD SJP unequivocally states that the Zionist state of Israel has no right to exist,” it said in a statement issued in July 2024. “Beyond being an apartheid state, the system of Israeli apartheid is a symptom of the fact that it is a settler-colonial ethnostate that seeks to use apartheid to facilitate its genocidal intent and ultimate goal of displacing indigenous Palestinians from their homeland.”
Student governments at other major universities are also pushing anti-Israel measures, as antisemitic incidents remain at high levels on campuses across the US.
As reported by The Algemeiner last week, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s (UNL) student government approved a BDS measure pushed by SJP. The student government, facing public scrutiny, ultimately amended the resolution to remove any mention of Israel and rename it the “Divest for Humanity Act.” The measure demanded divestment from armaments manufacturers to block “”complicit in the genocide and atrocities worldwide.” It passed by a wide margin after being doggedly argued against by Jewish students who were subjected to unfounded allegations about links to Israel.
SJP exalted its passing as a victory for its mission to foster a climate in which pro-Israel support in the US is untenable.
The vote came days after a right-wing social media influencer and University of Miami student upbraided her Jewish peers in a tirade in which she denounced them as “disgusting” while accusing rabbis of eating infants.
“Christianity, which says love everyone, meanwhile your Bible says eating someone who is a non-Jew is like eating with an animal. That’s what the Talmud says,” the online influencer, Kaylee Mahony, yelled at members of Students Supporting Israel who had a table at a campus fair held at the University of Miami. “That’s what these people follow.”
She continued, “They think that if you are not a Jew you are an animal. That’s the Talmud. That’s the Talmud.”
The Talmud, a key source of Jewish law, tradition, and theology, is often misrepresented by antisemitic agitators in an effort to malign the Jewish people and their religion.
Mahony can also be heard in video of the incident telling one of the “Because you’re disgusting. It’s disgusting.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
Uncategorized
France Continues to See Surge in Antisemitism, New Government Data Shows, Amid Rampant Hostility Toward Jews
Procession arrives at Place des Terreaux with a banner reading, “Against Antisemitism, for the Republic,” during the march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
Antisemitism in France remained at alarmingly high levels last year, with 1,320 incidents recorded nationwide, as Jews and Israelis faced several targeted attacks amid a relentlessly hostile climate despite heightened security measures, according to a newly published data.
On Thursday, the French Interior Ministry released its annual report on anti-religious acts, revealing a troubling rise in antisemitic incidents documented in a joint dataset compiled with the Jewish Community Protection Service.
Although the total number of antisemitic outrages in 2025 fell by 16 percent compared to 2024’s second highest ever total of 1,570 cases, the newly released report warns that antisemitism remains “historically high,” with more than 3.5 attacks occurring every day.
Over the past 25 years, antisemitic acts “have never been as numerous as in the past three years,” the report says, noting a dramatic spike following the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Les chiffres de l’antisémitisme en France en 2025 : un enracinement de la haine antijuive.
Le ministère de l’Intérieur a publié, ce jeudi 12 février 2026, les chiffres des actes antireligieux en France pour l’année 2025. Les données chiffrées concernant les actes antisémites… pic.twitter.com/PQXQfNwsqT
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) February 12, 2026
Even though Jews make up less than 1 percent of France’s population, they accounted for 53 percent of all religiously motivated crimes last year.
Between 2022 and 2025, antisemitic attacks across France quadrupled, leaving the Jewish community more exposed than ever.
The most recent figure of total antisemitic incidents represents a 21 percent decline from 2023’s record high of 1,676 incidents, but a 203 percent increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022, before the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to French officials, this latest report, which is based on documented cases and official complaints, still underestimates the true scope of the problem, largely due to widespread underreporting.
The first six months of 2025 alone saw more than 640 antisemitic incidents, a 27.5 percent decline from the same period in 2024, but a 112.5 percent increase compared to the first half of 2023, before the start of the war in Gaza.
The report also reveals a surge in physical attacks, totaling 126 incidents last year, with a striking 67.4 percent of all antisemitic acts aimed at people.
Of all recorded incidents, 30.5 percent of antisemitic outrages took place in private settings and 13.1 percent in educational institutions, but the true extent is likely higher, as these numbers do not account for school-related antisemitism reported by the French Ministry of National Education.
The latest data further indicates that anti-Israel rhetoric is fueling antisemitism, with one-third of incidents explicitly referencing Palestine or the war in Gaza.
The French government’s newly released figures come as the local Jewish community continues to face a growing climate of hostility, despite official efforts to increase security and curb the rise in anti-Jewish hatred.
In a shocking second antisemitic attack in less than a week, a 13-year-old boy in Paris was brutally beaten Monday by a knife-wielding assailant.
On his way to a synagogue in Paris’s 18th arrondissement, the schoolboy was physically attacked by a group of five individuals who beat him, pressed a knife to his throat, called him a “dirty Jew,” and stole his belongings, the French news outlet Le Parisien reported.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the victim was walking to a synagogue, clutching his kippah in his hand rather than wearing it for fear of being recognized, when five attackers confronted him. The group then stole his AirPods, sneakers, and coat, and forced him to empty his pockets.
The boy also told authorities that he was shoved, punched in the face, and threatened with a knife to his throat before his attackers stole his belongings, shouting antisemitic remarks throughout the assault.
In a separate incident over the weekend, three Jewish men wearing kippahs were physically threatened with a knife and forced to flee after leaving their Shabbat services near the Trocadéro in southwest Paris’s 16th arrondissement, European Jewish Press reported.
As the victims were leaving a nearby synagogue and walking through the neighborhood, they noticed a man staring at them. The assailant then approached the group and repeatedly asked, “Are you Jews? Are you Israelis?”
When one of them replied “yes,” the man pulled a knife from his pocket and began threatening the group. The victims immediately ran and found police officers nearby. None of the victims were injured.
Last week, a Jewish primary school in eastern Paris was vandalized, with windows smashed and security equipment damaged, prompting a criminal investigation and renewed outrage among local Jewish leaders as targeted antisemitic attacks continued to escalate.
Uncategorized
Antisemitism bills head to NYC Council Committee to Combat Hate
The New York City Council committee is moving forward with a series of bills aimed at addressing the rise in antisemitism, including a controversial proposal that would limit protests outside houses of worship.
The newly created Committee to Combat Hate is set to hold a hearing later this month on seven related bills introduced last month by Council Speaker Julie Menin, who is Jewish. The measures include a proposal to establish a 100-foot buffer zone outside synagogues and educational centers, increased funding for security measures, expanded education on online harassment, and improved reporting of antisemitic incidents.
Antisemitic incidents continue to account for a majority of reported hate crimes in New York City. According to the New York City Police Department, antisemitic incidents made up 57% of all hate crimes reported in 2025. The trend has continued into the new year, with more than half of all hate crimes reported in January targeting Jews or Jewish institutions, NYPD data showed.
Menin, who is the first Jew to lead the city’s legislative body, said last month that the council would vote on her five-point plan to combat antisemitism at Thursday’s meeting, hoping to pass it on an “aggressive and fast timetable.” A council spokesperson said the timetable has since been modified to align with the Feb. 25 committee hearing. After that hearing, the Speaker will decide when the bills go to the full council for a vote.
The panel is chaired by Councilmember Yusef Salaam, who is Muslim and has spoken about the need to confront antisemitism alongside Islamophobia. “When antisemitism rises, Islamophobia often follows,” Salam said at a news conference when the speaker announced her plan. “When Islamophobia is tolerated, antisemitism finds new grounds to grow.”
Before she became speaker, Menin privately promised Inna Vernikov, a Republican from Brooklyn, to create a subcommittee dedicated to combating antisemitism. Instead, she formed a task force, co-chaired by Vernikov and Eric Dinowitz, a Democrat from the Bronx and chair of the seven-member Jewish Caucus. The appointment of Vernikov drew criticism for her incendiary remarks on social media about Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Party’s approach to antisemitism.
Mamdani, a strident Israel critic who faces scrutiny from mainstream Jewish organizations over his response to antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests, said he broadly supports the package introduced by Menin but expressed reservations about the legality of the proposed 100-foot buffer zone around synagogues and other houses of worship. “I wouldn’t sign any legislation that we find to be outside of the bounds of the law,” he said.
On Wednesday, during a budget hearing at the state Legislature, Mamdani was questioned again about his response to antisemitic rhetoric, including the slogan “globalize the intifada,” that has been chanted at protests against the war in Gaza. “I strongly discourage the language, and I have not used the language,” Mamdani said.
Progressive groups that support Mamdani, including Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, called on council members to reject the buffer zone bill. “When houses of worship host non-religious political events, they are making a choice with the knowledge that they might be protested for doing so,” the groups said.
Mamdani has faced criticism twice for his response to protests outside synagogues hosting events about real estate investment in Israel. On Jan. 8, protesters outside a Queens synagogue featured chants of “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.” Though Mamdani quickly condemned the language, he had to follow up later to denounce Hamas.
Just after Mamdani’s election in November, he issued a mixed response to a demonstration outside Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue that featured anti-Israel and antisemitic slogans. He initially questioned the use of a sacred place for an event promoting migration to Israel. He later clarified his statement and said he would consider legislation limiting protests outside synagogues.
Critics said the response, which took nearly a day, was slow and undercut Mamdani’s repeated pledges to protect Jewish New Yorkers, and raised fresh questions about what kind of mayor he intends to be. New York City is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
The post Antisemitism bills head to NYC Council Committee to Combat Hate appeared first on The Forward.