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Abe Foxman built the Jewish establishment. He died troubled by what it had become
Abe Foxman never texted me Shabbat Shalom, and he didn’t always answer my calls. I couldn’t blame him, because I was often looking for something more from Foxman than his comment on current events.
Foxman, who died on Sunday, was a consummate insider who had become troubled by what he viewed as the cowardice of the very Jewish establishment he helped create during his five decades at the Anti-Defamation League. This dynamic fascinated me, and I sometimes pressed him articulate these concerns more candidly. But Foxman didn’t want to become a gadfly following his retirement in 2015 and picked his words carefully.
Occasionally, though, his frustration slipped through.
When I asked him a few years ago about the boom in new organizations created to fight antisemitism — more than 75 nonprofits with that mission have been created since he left the ADL in 2015— he lamented that it had become much more difficult for legacy organizations to say no to donors with political agendas because they could now take their dollars elsewhere.
“I had rules,” Foxman said. “Maybe that’s why they’re able to raise more money than I could.”
The erosion of rules that had once governed American society alarmed Foxman because he recognized that it was those norms — political correctness, trust in the mainstream media, bipartisanship — that had protected Jews.
“Antisemitism has always been here,” Foxman said on Israel’s Army Radio in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first term as president and after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally had opened the nation’s eyes to an emboldened antisemitic movement. “What has changed is a new permissiveness, a new legitimacy, a new emboldenment, as if it’s OK — or more OK — today to be an antisemite.”
Unlike many of the leaders who succeeded him atop the country’s most powerful Jewish organizations, Foxman drew a direct line between the rise of Trump and skyrocketing hostility toward Jews.
“Trump’s presidency — in spirit and in deed — has given succor to bigots, supremacists, and those seeking to divide our society,” Foxman wrote in his endorsement of Joe Biden. “He and his administration dehumanize immigrants, demonize the most vulnerable, and undermine the civility and enlightened political culture that have allowed Jews to achieve what no diaspora community outside Israel can claim in two millennia.”
Foxman slammed Jonathan Greenblatt, his successor at the ADL, and other Jewish leaders for failing to follow his lead during the campaign.
But Foxman had, in some respects, paved the way for the state of affairs that he later bemoaned.
Take his relationship with Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, who he met in the shvitz during one of Foxman’s biannual visits to a spa for billionaires, where each week-long stay cost nearly $9,000, paid for by an ADL donor. “I have come to know the man, not his image,” Foxman said after presenting Murdoch with a leadership award in 2010.
When I asked Foxman whether he regretted feting the founder of Fox News, which had almost certainly contributed to the erosion of political correctness and trust in the media that he later lamented, he cryptically brushed aside the concern: “Fox wasn’t Fox back then.”
And Foxman could claim impunity when it came to countering antisemitism in the way that he saw fit.
After the ADL found itself embroiled in a scandal over its close monitoring of political activists in the early 1990s, including activists against South African apartheid who were also critical of Israel, a Washington Post reporter wrote that Foxman “testily argued” to him that the ADL “has a right to do whatever it must within the law to combat antisemitism,” including receiving files the police said were stolen from the FBI.
Foxman also lobbied Congress not to recognize the Armenian genocide, worried that doing so would endanger Turkey’s Jewish community and damage the country’s relationship with Israel, before eventually reversing course. And, in what became the central allegation in longstanding complaints from the left that Foxman had stoked Islamophobia, he insisted that it was offensive to build a proposed mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan.
Foxman also deeply believed that Israel’s security was connected to the safety of Jews in the United States, and that animus toward Israel was often a veiled expression of animosity toward Jews, something he remained concerned about until the very end.
This willingness to play ball with billionaires and stake out controversial political positions intended to protect Jews or Israel — often blurring the line between the two — would help shape how the Jewish community evolved in the decades after Foxman became ADL director in 1987.
Foxman achieved his towering status partly through his gravitas and charisma, what Nicole Mutchnik, chair of the ADL board, referred to as his ability to be a “warm friend, advisor, spirited antagonist and hugger — all over lunch.”
But I suspect it also had to do with his ability to maintain what has become an untenable political stance: a deep belief that Jews must fight for civil rights without giving up particular Jewish concerns around Israel and antisemitism.
This meant investing in the ADL’s civil rights portfolio — voting rights, immigration, racial justice, LGBTQ equality — even as he defended Israel in ways that rankled many liberals inside and outside of the organization.
And it meant becoming a forceful voice against both Trump and Israel’s far-right turn in recent years, even as he complained about what he viewed as unfair criticism of AIPAC by progressives and Democratic politicians drifting away from support for Israel in recent interviews.
Foxman shared this commitment to both liberalism, and a connection to Israel that at least sometimes conflicts with that liberalism, with a plurality of American Jews giving the ADL arguably the strongest claim of any legacy organization that it actually represented the American Jews it claimed to speak for.
But despite Foxman’s success — praise for his legacy came from wildly diverse corners of the Jewish community — the current crop of Jewish leaders have not adopted his politics.
The largest establishment organizations, including the current iteration of the Anti-Defamation League, seem to have determined that a wider-ranging commitment to civil rights advocacy and vocal opposition to Trump is a nonstarter if they intend to continue advocating for Israel, at a time when much of the Democratic Party has turned actively hostile to the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, the progressive Jewish groups who remain most committed to civil rights work have largely abandoned Zionism as part of their missions.
This may be a more honest form of Jewish politics than what came before. But it has also left many Jews feeling politically homeless and played into the erasure of a political center that Foxman, and no shortage of Jewish historians, have insisted is integral to Jewish safety.
“We do well when we’re in the center,” Foxman told me shortly after I started this job. “And there is no center today.”
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Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention appeared first on The Forward.
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Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song
(JTA) — Boy George has withdrawn from his run as King Herod in London’s West End revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” days before he was due to take the stage and 24 hours after releasing “We Will Dance Again,” dedicated to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival in Israel.
The 80’s pop star was scheduled to appear at London’s Palladium starting Monday as part of the production’s rotating cast playing King Herod, the Judean king who is best known by Jews for his expansion of the Second Temple and to Christians for his efforts to stave off the arrival of a challenger — the story of which is reflected in the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Boy George will be replaced by actor Richard Armitage in the London production.
In announcing the cast change, Paul Kelmsley, the singer’s manager, did not directly mention the blowback the former Culture Club frontman was receiving for releasing a pro-Israel song but alluded to it.
“George has never been afraid to stand by his personal convictions, and I have always respected him for that,” he said. ”In this instance, I felt it was right to step aside, allowing the production to remain the focus, while ensuring everyone involved can move forward with mutual respect and goodwill.”
Boy George is defending his decision to release the song, saying he believes artists should be free to express their views even when they are unpopular. In “We Will Dance Again,” the singer rejects claims of genocide against Israel and proclaims, “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.”
Earlier Friday, Boy George lashed back at the vitriol he was getting online. “What is most shocking is the amount of gay folk attacking me, ” he posted on X. “If you support terrorism you can in the words of Divine ‘Take your toolkit and go f—_ a garage,’” he said, referring to a quote attributed to the taboo-breaking transgender artist.
“When I say ‘they want to kill every last one of us’ I am also talking about us queers, not just the Jewish community,” Boy George said. “When will you wake up?”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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