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ADL enlists major law firms to launch pro bono network for antisemitism cases
(JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League is launching a nationwide legal service to connect victims of antisemitism with lawyers who are able to take their cases on a pro-bono basis.
The initiative comes as the ADL has increasingly turned to litigation as a tactic — the group says it has filed more lawsuits and legal complaints in the last years than in its previous 110 years combined.
Announced on Wednesday, the ADL Legal Action Network comes out of a partnership with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, one of the largest law firms in the country. In total, more than 40 firms have agreed to participate, collectively tapping a pool of 39,000 attorneys.
The network will accept online submissions involving discrimination, intimidation, harassment, vandalism or violence and use artificial intelligence to evaluate them. Tips that make it through the system will be referred to partner firms or the ADL’s in-house litigators.
“For decades, victims of antisemitism have come to ADL to receive frontline services,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. ”We are now dramatically expanding our capabilities to support more Jewish Americans by helping to provide direct access to legal support anywhere in the country.”
Gibson Dunn partner Orin Snyder called the network an “unprecedented legal firewall against antisemitism, extremism, and hate.”
The initiative comes as the ADL, which is flush with donations, retreats from some of its traditional advocacy and educational work while facing an onslaught from the right, including the cutting of longstanding ties to the FBI after the agency’s director, Kash Patel, said the ADL has been “functioning like a terrorist organization.” (The group has also faced criticism from the left.)
The group recently eliminated an online resource known as the Glossary of Extremism and Hate, which counted more than 1,000 entries after accusations of bias by conservatives. It has also, for example, eliminated a signature anti-bias training for students and school teachers that included a focus on racism and LGBTQ issues.
Greenblatt has said he is intentionally retooling the organization to prioritize countering antisemitism as American Jews report increased harassment and discrimination.
The legal network formalizes and expands the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line, which Gibson Dunn launched with the ADL, Hillel International and the Louis D. Brandeis Center in 2023. The ADL says CALL has received nearly 1,000 reports from 230 campuses and helped spur civil rights complaints and criminal cases. The new system extends that model beyond higher education to workplaces, public accommodations and allegations involving extremist organizations and individuals.
One example that originated with a tip is a federal complaint filed by the ADL and its partners in June alleging that a high school in the Boston suburbs failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitism.
The complaint said that Concord-Carlisle High School and Concord Middle School became hotbeds for abuse of Jewish of students, including “Nazi salutes in school hallways, students dividing themselves into teams called ‘Team Auschwitz; and ‘Team Hamas’ during athletic games, swastikas drawn in notebooks and on school property, and the use of antisemitic slurs such as ‘kike,’ ‘dirty Jew,’ and ‘go to the gas chamber,’” according to the ADL. School administrators allegedly downplayed or dismissed students’ complaints.
The district has said it takes antisemitism seriously and that it is cooperating with officials. It also said it is consulting with Jewish groups as it reviews its classroom policies and training programs.
Directing the expanded network is James Pasch, who was tapped in 2023 to head a new litigation division for the organization. In an interview, Pasch said the organization is deliberately making the courthouse a central arena.
“ADL does and has done, historically, three things incredibly well — we educate, we advocate and we investigate — and now we litigate,” he said. The aim, he added, is to “create life-altering costs to perpetrators who are committing illicit acts of antisemitism,” develop case law that better protects Jews, and give victims “a necessary outlet to tell their story in a complete way.”
Pasch said the ADL’s litigation team has grown into “like a boutique litigation firm inside ADL,” with roughly seven litigators plus support staff, while most large matters proceed with support from outside law firms. The expansion comes amid skyrocketing fundraising, which topped $170 million in annual donations, according to its most recent audited financial statements — a $65 million increase over its best year.
Pasch said settlements, or even the threat of a filing, can lead to immediate impact and set standards for other institutions.
The ADL’s case list since Oct. 7 ranges across campuses, K-12 districts, workplaces and terror-finance suits. The group filed federal actions seeking to hold Iran, Syria and North Korea responsible for allegedly supporting Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack; separate complaints invoke Title VI against universities and school districts over what the ADL calls failures to adequately respond to antisemitism. The organization has also backed a church lawsuit targeting intimidation by a white supremacist group.
The initiative comes as many large firms reportedly recalibrate their pro bono work under pressure from the Trump administration, which has elevated antisemitism as a signature priority. To avoid becoming targets over more politically sensitive matters such as immigration and asylum, some firms are reportedly steering clear of those cases. Partnering with Jewish organizations on antisemitism claims lets the firms align with an issue the administration has endorsed.
Under President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice has reorganized its civil rights division to focus on a narrow list of priorities, among them antisemitism. The department has launched probes into universities accused of mishandling last year’s protests over the war in Gaza, and last month brought charges against an alleged Palestinian militant who participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel before entering the United States as an immigrant.
Pasch said he welcomes federal efforts but added that increased government action is no reason for civil society to let up the legal pressure.
“This is a moment that will take an all-of-society approach from the government, to NGOs, to private business,” he said. “In legal cases, the Justice Department generally does not represent private individuals who are victims of antisemitism, but ADL along with our partners in firms have the ability to bring those cases to the forefront.”
The ADL is not the only Jewish group also ratcheting up litigation.
The Brandeis Center, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit dedicated to advancing “civil and human rights of the Jewish people” on Monday announced five new hires. The group is led by Kenneth Marcus, who is credited with pioneering the use of federal civil rights law — especially Title VI — to address antisemitism in education.
The pro-Israel group StandWithUs reports that its legal team has tripled in since the Oct. 7 attacks and has been publishing semiannual reports detailing new cases.
The increase in legal activity comes amid a broader debate about how to balance civil rights enforcement with free-speech protections. As part of settlement negotiations, the ADL has demanded that school districts and universities formally adopt what’s known as the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
But civil liberties groups and Palestinian-rights advocates have criticized the use of Title VI complaints tied to the IHRA definition because they say aggressive enforcement can stifle political discussions about Israel. The ADL and its partners counter that the cases target conduct — harassment, threats, discrimination — not viewpoints, and that filings have already yielded concrete changes on campuses and in districts.
In explaining how he selects what cases to pursue, Pasch said the criteria include whether a filing would disrupt harmful activity, strengthen or establish law, and give victims a full voice.
“We can’t heal the injured and we can’t bring people back from the dead,” he said. “But we can provide a voice and some semblance of relief for victims, whether that be policy change or monetary relief.”
The post ADL enlists major law firms to launch pro bono network for antisemitism cases appeared first on The Forward.
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Online Watchdog Group Exposes Viral Antisemitic, Arabic-Language Conspiracy Theory ‘Tired Islam’
A keyboard. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
An independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the spread of online antisemitism said on Monday it has identified a trending Arabic-language conspiracy theory on social media known as “Tired Islam,” which falsely accuses Jews of plotting against Arab and Muslim society.
CyberWell – a trusted partner of Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads), TikTok, and YouTube – explained that the fabricated narrative claims a Jewish or “Zionist” author named Jacob Dunne published a book titled “The Tired Islam,” which outlines a secret Jewish plan to destroy Arab and Muslim society. No such book exists in the US Library of Congress or elsewhere, according to CyberWell.
CyberWell founder and CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor said the trendy conspiracy theory “revives century-old religious antisemitism, tailored to go viral on today’s platforms” and “pushes the same antisemitic tropes that have historically led to mass violence against Jews, now wrapped in a pseudointellectual setting to appear credible and urgent.” She also described it as “a modern-day digital replica” of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the longstanding antisemitic text from the early 20th century that describes a fabricated plot by Jews for world domination. The “Tired Islam” narrative is often described as a continuation of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” according to CyberWell.
Videos on social media that promote the “Tired Islam” conspiracy often feature a series of fake “excerpts” from a fictional chapter titled “The End of the Arabs,” in the non-existent book. The “excerpts” include false claims about the alleged ways Jews want to demolish Muslim society, which include promoting feminism, attacking mosques, corroding family values, and using technology to control Muslim youth. The videos also display fake publication details for the book and falsely claim it is in the Library of Congress, which CyberWell has confirmed is not true. The videos often urge social media users to share the clip as a religious and moral obligation.
“Digital platforms are facing a moment of reckoning due to the continued poisoning and abuse of the information economy,” said Cohen Montemayor. “Antisemitic actors are using the virality of misinformation to inject age-old conspiracies into religious and political discourse. The fact that this narrative is being promoted as a ‘religious’ imperative makes it especially difficult to moderate and even more dangerous. We are watching, in real time, the formation of a new ‘Protocols’; but unlike 1903, this time the digital platforms governing content through Trust & Safety can still stop it before it spreads beyond control.”
CyberWell monitors social media in English and Arabic for posts that promote antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and violence against Jews and their allies based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Its analysts review and report hateful content to platform moderators.
The nonprofit organization said social media platforms are “consistently failing to intervene” and take action against the “Tired Islam” conspiracy theory despite its “clear violations” of hateful conduct policies and promotion of classic antisemitic tropes, conspiracies, and stereotypes about Jews. CyberWell said that in multiple cases, social media platforms concluded that content online tied to the “Tired Islam” theory does not violate the platform’s community standards. The organization also noted, however, that these platforms do not even have a consistent policy pertaining to the quoting of anonymous or forged texts.
“The ‘Tired Islam’ trend dehumanizes Jews and positions them as a collective enemy of Islam. Left unchecked, this will radicalize communities, incite division, and fuel religious hatred across borders,” said Cohen Montemayor. “Narratives like this could easily escalate into real-world violence, particularly if audiences are led to believe that their core belief systems and family values are under direct attack by a specific minority group. Comparable dynamics were observed in the lead-up to the Charlie Hebdo attack in France, where portrayals of perceived assaults on Islam contributed to radical extremist violence and terrorism.”
It has been 10 years since the Islamist terrorist attack at the Paris office of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. On Jan. 7, 2015, al Qaeda-linked gunmen and brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi stormed the Charlie Hebdo office and killed 12 people, including eight editorial staff members. A Muslim police officer guarding the offices was also shot and killed at point-blank range by the terrorists. Over the next two days, Amedy Coulibaly, who was tied to the Kouachi brothers, killed five people, including at a kosher supermarket, and claimed to be acting on behalf of the Islamic State group. All three gunmen were killed in police raids on Jan. 9.
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Legal Union Pays Six-Figure Settlement Over Antisemitism Accusations
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a bullhorn during a protest at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on March 11, 2025. Photo: Daniel Cole via Reuters Connect
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, one of America’s leading Jewish civil rights groups, notched a major court victory on Thursday which secured a six-figure settlement for a cohort of plaintiffs who alleged that their union fostered a hostile environment against Jewish and Zionist members during an outbreak of pro-Hamas sentiment set off by the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Per the terms of the agreement, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA), the union for New York public defenders, will shell out $315,000 in damages while admitting culpability in the events which precipitated legal action. The ALAA also agreed to institute new training courses on the rights of union members and accept a neutral third party’s oversight of other organizational procedures.
“We are seeing an increasing trend in labor union antisemitism, much as we have seen a similar increase on college campuses. In both cases, there is bitter irony,” Brandeis Center chairman and founder Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “Colleges are supposed to be islands of reason and tolerance. Labor unions are supposed to be advocates for social justice and workplace equality. To find the oldest hatred in such places is deeply antithetical to their mission.”
He added, “This settlement is a landmark in the fight against antisemitism in this sector. I am gratified by this outcome and resolved to support Jewish workers at any union around the country that is seeing this problem arise. Based on what we’re hearing around the country, there will be more of these cases coming.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the ALAA allegedly became a “cornucopia of classic modern antisemitism” in late 2023. Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, it passed a virulently anti-Israel resolution which made only a passing reference to Hamas’s atrocities and launched a smear campaign against Jewish members who opposed it. Following that, the union facilitated the filing of disciplinary, “formal charges” against Jewish and Zionist members, attempting to expel them from its ranks.
Antisemitic conduct in the ALAA took on other forms, the complaint alleged. Members commended Hamas’s violence, chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and denied that the terrorist group had murdered women and children. In one incident, someone allegedly asserted that Zionist beliefs would prevent Jewish attorneys from “zealously” defending Muslims, Palestinians, and Arabs and lead them to conspire against them and sabotage their cases.
More Jewish professionals are experiencing workplace discrimination, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
According to a study released in May by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department, antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish health-care professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate.
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish health-care professionals employed by campus-based medical centers reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author Alexandra Fishman said in a statement. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Another study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that 42 percent of Jewish faculty feel that the top US professional associations for academics, including the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), alienate Jews intentionally if they publicly align with Zionism.
According to the data, 25 percent resort to concealing their Jewishness due to the hostile environment, and another 45 percent say their colleagues lectured them on what does and what does not constitute antisemitism. The report also “reveals alarming patterns of marginalization, leadership failures, and systematic exclusion of Jewish members from their professional communities and academic homes,” the ADL said in a statement.
Some academic bodies, such as the American Philosophical Association and the American Political Science Association, were conferred high ratings based on Jewish faculty not reporting any “major incidents,” while others, including the American Anthropological Association and several others, were labeled as “major concerns” requiring significant remedial action.
“Antisemitic biases in professional academic associations are widespread and reveal a problem that goes far beyond traditional scholarly circles,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “When antisemitism and biased anti-Israel narratives are normalized within these influential spaces, they seep into curricula, research, and public discourse, quietly but profoundly shaping how students and future professionals interpret the world.”
He added, “By assessing these associations and how they are responding, we are delineating a path forward to ensure that academic spaces remain intellectually rigorous, inclusive and free of antisemitism, and accountable to the public they serve.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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German Auction House Cancels Sale of Holocaust Artifacts Following Outrage
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
An auction house in Germany canceled a sale of hundreds of Holocaust artifacts – including letters written by German concentration camp prisoners to their loved ones — that was scheduled to take place on Monday following intense backlash from an association of Holocaust survivors and government officials in Poland and Germany.
Radoslaw Sikorski, the deputy prime minister of Poland, announced on Sunday that the “offensive” auction was canceled after he and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul “agreed that such a scandal must be prevented.” Sikorski called for the Holocaust artifacts to be instead given to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
“The memory of Holocaust victims is not a commodity and cannot be the subject of commercial trade,” he said in a post on X. “Respect for victims requires the dignity of silence, not the din of commerce.”
The Auktionhaus Felzmann auction house in the city of Neuss planned to sell on Monday a lot titled “The System of Terror Vol II 1933-1945.” It included more than 600 items such as Gestapo index cards and other documents that belonged to perpetrators of the genocide against European Jewry. Also up for sale were personal documents “relating to the persecution and humiliation of individuals” that contained the real names of Holocaust victims, according to the International Auschwitz Committee, which unites organizations, foundations, and Holocaust survivors from 19 countries. The items have since been removed from the Auktionhaus Felzmann website.
Over the weekend, Christoph Heubner, executive vice president of the International Auschwitz Committee, called on the auction house to “show some human decency” and cancel the auction.
“For victims of Nazi persecution and survivors of the Holocaust, this auction is a cynical and shameless piece of marketing,” said Heubner. “It leaves them outraged and stunned. Their history and the suffering of all those who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis are being abused and exploited for commercial gain.”
Heubner added that personal documents relating to the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews belong to the families of victims. Those items “should be displayed in museums or in exhibitions at memorial sites and not be reduced to profit-making articles in a commercial context,” he noted.