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Hating Israel Isn’t New; How the CIA and State Department Undermined the Jewish State
“Teddy Roosevelt’s great-great-great grandson is an anti-Israel protester at Princeton,” blared a New York Post headline on May 4, 2024.
The Post reported that Quentin Colon Roosevelt, an 18-year-old freshman, and descendant of the 25th President, is an anti-Israel activist at the Ivy League university. But far from being hip and new, Quentin’s brand of anti-Zionism is old hat — he is merely continuing a long family tradition of anti-Israel activism.
There is an abundance of literature on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s views on Jews and Zionism, the belief in Jewish self-determination. Both FDR and his wife Eleanor had made antisemitic remarks. In a private conversation in 1938, then-President Roosevelt suggested that by dominating the economy in Poland, Jews were themselves fueling antisemitism. And in a 1941 Cabinet meeting, FDR remarked that there were too many Jewish Federal employees in Oregon. In his final days, FDR promised Saudi leader Abdul Aziz Ibn al Saud that he would oppose the creation of Jewish state in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland.
FDR is the president who led the United States to victory against Adolf Hitler. He also employed Jews in high-ranking positions in his government. But he is also the president whose administration failed to save more Jews fleeing Nazism, and who refused to bomb the railway tracks leading to Auschwitz and other death camps where millions of Jews met a ghastly end. Accordingly, it makes sense that his beliefs regarding Jews have been the subject of books and belated study.
Less examined, however, is the Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelt clan, and their beliefs regarding Zionism. In part, this is easily explained by the unique place that FDR holds in American history. He is the only president to serve four terms, and presided over both the Great Depression, World War II, and arguably the beginning of the Cold War. His branch of the family, the Hyde Park Roosevelts, were Democrats and remained active in public life for decades after his 1945 death.
At first glance, the Oyster Bay Roosevelts were more of a turn of the 19th century affair. They were Republicans, and their scion was Teddy Roosevelt, a war hero turned governor of New York state who, thanks to an assassin’s bullet, found himself as the nation’s leader in 1901.
The famously ebullient Roosevelt helped redefine the country’s idea of a president, and served as an inspiration for his cousin Franklin. But Teddy largely presided over an era of peace and tranquility, not war and upheaval.
Teddy was a philosemite. He was the first occupant of the Oval Office to appoint a Jewish American to the Cabinet. He championed the rights of Jews, both at home and abroad, and was harshly critical of the numerous pogroms that unfolded in czarist Russia.
As Seth Rogovoy has noted, Roosevelt’s “special relationship with Jews was forged during his time serving as police commissioner in New York City, a post he assumed in 1904.” When an antisemitic German preacher named Hermann Ahlwardt gave speeches in the city, Roosevelt assigned a contingent of Jewish police officers to guard the man.
Roosevelt was also a Zionist. In 1918, shortly after the Balfour Declaration, he wrote: “It seems to me that it is entirely proper to start a Zionist state around Jerusalem.” He told Lioubomir Michailovitch, the Serbian Minister to the United States, that “there can be no peace worth having … unless the Jews [are] given control of Palestine.” Six months later Roosevelt died in his sleep.
Not all his descendants would share his belief in Jewish self-determination, however.
Two of Teddy Roosevelt’s grandchildren, Kermit and Archie, served their country in the CIA during the early years of the Cold War. Both were keenly interested in Middle East affairs, and were fluent in Arabic. Both were well read and highly educated, authoring books and filing dispatches for newspapers like the Saturday Evening Post, among others.
They were also prominent anti-Zionists.
Kermit Roosevelt, known as “Kim,” played a key role in anti-Zionist efforts in the United States and abroad. He was not, by the standards of his time, an antisemite. But he was ardently opposed to the creation of Israel.
As Hugh Wilford observed in his 2013 book America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East: “the anti-Zionism of the overt Cold War foreign policy establishment is well known” but “less widely appreciated is the opposition to Jewish statehood of the individuals responsible for setting up the United States’ covert apparatus in the Middle East.”
This began with the OSS, the CIA’s precursor. And it included men like Stephen Penrose, a former American University of Beirut instructor, and Kim Roosevelt’s boss during his wartime service in the OSS.
“Documents among Penrose’s personal papers reveal him engaged in a variety of anti-Zionist activities at the same time that he was commencing his official duties with the OSS,” Wilford notes.
Like many of his fellow Arabists, Penrose was the son of American missionaries who, failing to convert the native population to Christianity, sought to foster Arab nationalism instead. Penrose described himself as a “chief cook” who was “brewing” opposition to Zionism. He became one of Kim Roosevelt’s mentors.
In a January 1948 Middle East Journal article entitled, “Partition of Palestine: A Lesson in Pressure Politics,” Kim called the 1947 UN vote in favor of a Jewish state an “instructive and disturbing story.”
Roosevelt believed that the US media was unduly supportive of the creation of Israel, and claimed that almost all Americans “with diplomatic, educational, missionary, or business experience in the Middle East” opposed Zionism.
Kim’s pamphlet was reprinted by the Institute for Arab American Affairs, a New York-based group whose board he sat on. He also began working with the Arab League’s Washington, D.C., office and “turned elsewhere for allies in the anti-Zionist struggle, starting with the Protestant missionaries, educators, and aid workers.”
This nascent group soon received financial support from the American oil industry, which maintained close links to Kim’s OSS/CIA colleague, William Eddy.
As Wilford noted, the Arabian consortium ARAMCO “launched a public relations campaign intended to bring American opinion around to the Arab point of view.”
In addition to missionaries and big oil, Kim gained another important ally in the form of Elmer Berger, a rabbi from Flint, Michigan. Berger served as executive director of the American Council for Judaism, an anti-Zionist group that, among other things, opposed the creation of a Jewish army during World War II at the height of the Holocaust. Berger and Roosevelt became drinking buddies and close collaborators on their joint effort against the Jewish State.
Kim eventually became “organizing secretary” for a group called The Committee for Justice and Peace. The committee’s original chair, Virginia Gildersleeve, was both a longtime friend of the Roosevelts of Oyster Bay and the dean of New York City’s Barnard College, which today is part of Columbia.
Gildersleeve was “also a high-profile anti-Zionist” who “became involved with the Arab cause through her association with the Arabist philanthropist Charles Crane and the historian of Arab nationalism George Antonius.”
Crane, a wealthy and notorious antisemite, had lobbied against the creation of a Jewish state since the beginning of the 20th century, even advising then-President Woodrow Wilson against supporting the Balfour Declaration.
By 1950, the Committee had managed to recruit famed journalist Dorothy Thompson to their cause. Thompson was reportedly the basis for actress Katharine Hepburn’s character in the 1942 movie Woman of the Year. A convert to anti-Zionism, Thompson’s extensive network of reporters and celebrities proved crucial to Kim and Berger’s efforts to rally opposition to the Jewish State. In a 1951 letter to Barnard College’s Gildersleeve, Thompson wrote: “I am seriously concerned about the position of the Jews in the United States.” People, she claimed, “are beginning to ask themselves the question: who is really running America?”
Another ally emerged that year: the Central Intelligence Agency.
The CIA began funding the Committee, as well as its successor, the American Friends of the Middle East (AFME). Beginning in June 1950, Kim’s correspondence with Berger began making veiled references to the ACJ head taking on “official work” in Washington. This, Wilford believes, is a reference to working with the CIA. Indeed, the well-connected Kim and Archie Roosevelt had known top CIA officials like Allan Dulles since childhood.
With support from figures like Eddy, AFME also began encouraging Muslim-Christian alliances — ostensibly to counter Soviet influence, but also to attack the Jewish state. This led to some awkward alliances, including with Amin al-Husseini, the founding father of Palestinian nationalism and an infamous Nazi collaborator.
Husseini had ordered the murders of rival Palestinians, incited violence against Jews since the 1920s, and had led forces, equipped with Nazi-supplied arms, to destroy Israel at its rebirth in 1948. Now, along with the Secretary General of the Arab League, and Saudi King Ibn Saud, he was meeting with Eddy to discuss a “moral alliance” between Christians and Muslims to defeat communism. Kim himself knew Husseini, having interviewed him for the Saturday Evening Post after World War II.
AFME lobbied for the appointment of anti-Zionist diplomats and in favor of Eisenhower administration efforts to withhold aid from Israel. And both Berger and Thompson pushed for favorable coverage of the new Egyptian dictator, Gamal Nassar, who would wage war on the Jewish state for nearly two decades. Initially, they were successful, with TIME magazine writing that Nasser had the “lithe grace of a big, handsome, all-American quarterback.” Of course, there was nothing “all-American” about Nasser, who would become a Soviet stooge.
AFME officials like Garland Evans Hopkins would draw rebukes after claiming that Jews were bringing violence against themselves — a staple of antisemitism. Hopkins claimed that Zionists “could produce a wave of antisemitism in this country” if they continued acting against “America’s best interests in the Middle East.”
AFME itself would eventually lose influence, particularly after its boosting of figures like Nasser was revealed as foolhardy. Berger would go on to advise Senator J. William Fulbright (D-AR) in his efforts to get pro-Israel Americans to register as foreign agents.
In 1967, as Arab forces gathered to annihilate Israel, Berger blamed the Jewish State, accusing it of “aggression” and its supporters of “hysteria.” Top ACJ officials resigned in protest. That same year, Ramparts magazine exposed CIA support, financial and otherwise, of AFME.
Kim and Archie Roosevelt, however, would continue their careers as high-ranking CIA officers before eventually starting a consulting business and making use of their extensive Middle East contacts.
For some college protesters, attacking Israel — and American support for Israel — might seem new and trendy. Yet, both the CIA and big oil were precisely doing that, decades ago, forming alliances with anti-American dictators, antisemitic war criminals, the press, Protestant groups, academics, university administrators, and fringe Jewish groups claiming to represent “what’s best” for American Jewry.
As William Faulkner once wrote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis
The post Hating Israel Isn’t New; How the CIA and State Department Undermined the Jewish State first appeared on Algemeiner.comhttps://www.algemeiner.com/.
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‘Antisemitism Crisis in America’: Swastika Graffiti Again Appears Across New York City Boro
Swastikas graffitied in Forest Park in Queens, New York City over the weekend. Photo: Screenshot.
Antisemitic vandals in Queens, New York City are painting the town Nazi red, having added over the weekend two new incidents of swastika graffiti to a spree of hate crimes targeting Jewish institutions and homes across the borough.
As seen in photographs shared on social media, the unknown suspects graffitied some eleven swastikas at Highland Park and Forest Park for locals to discover on Monday — just one week after perpetrating the same crime at four Jewish owned properties in Rego Park and Forest Hills.
“This is yet another hateful incident meant to intimidate Jewish New Yorkers and divide our city,” New York City Council speaker of the house Julie Menin said in a statement posted on the X social media platform. “We want to be clear: we cannot and will not accept this as normal.”
The vandalism wave came just as the New York City Police Department (NYPD) announced that an ongoing surge in antisemitic hate crimes in the metropolis, which is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, continues unabated.
According to newly released data the agency published on Monday, Jews were targeted in 60 percent of all confirmed hate crimes last month, despite making up just 10 percent of the city’s population.
In April, the police confirmed 30 antisemitic incidents out of 50 total hate crimes in the city. As for all reported/suspected hate crimes, 38 out of the total of 65 targeted Jews.
The NYPD had previously reported suspected, but unconfirmed, hate crime incidents. In February, the police began reporting confirmed incidents instead. And then after receiving scrutiny, the department began reporting both suspected and confirmed hate crimes in March.
Regardless of the methodology, the majority of all hate crimes in New York City this year have targeted Jews, especially the Orthodox community, continuing a surge in antisemitism that has swept the city after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023.
In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November 2024, for example, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery. In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn.
In November, just days after the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, hundreds of people amassed outside a prominent synagogue and clamored for violence against Jews.
The change in New York City’s climate since Mamdani’s election is palpable, Jewish advocacy groups have said. On his first day in office in January, Mamdani voided the city government’s adoption of the IHRA definition, lifted the ban on contracts with companies boycotting Israel, and modified key provisions of an executive order directing law enforcement to monitor anti-Israel protests held near synagogues.
“Mayor Mamdani pledged to build an inclusive New York and combat all forms of hate, including antisemitism,” a coalition of leading Jewish groups said in a statement addressing the changes enacted by the new administration. “But when the new administration hit reset on many of Mayor Adams’ executive orders, it reversed … significant protections against antisemitism.”
Mayor Mamdani has denounced the swastika graffiti as a “deliberate act of antisemitic hatred” and said that he has assigned the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate it.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Time Zone’ — poetry by Jake Schneider
צײַטזאָנע (אַטלאַס)
פֿאַר די ייִדיש־שרײַבערס פֿון יאָר 2100
אַן עסײ־פּאָעמע געשריבן אין יאַנואַר 2026
12:00
טײל פּאַסאַזשירן דרײען צוריק די זײגערלעך
בײַם אָפּפֿלי, אַנדערע בײַ דער לאַנדונג.
רובֿ פּאַסאַזשירן אָבער טראָגן מער נישט
קײן זײגערלעך און װאַרטן ביז די מאָבילקעס
פֿאַרבינדן זיך מיט דער נײַער צײַט.
די צײַט באַשטײט פֿון פֿאַרבינדונגען.
אױף די עקראַנען: מאַפּעס מיט גרענעצן.
אונטער די פֿענצטער: אַנאָנימע פּײזאַזשן.
אײן עראָפּלאַן מיט דרײַ צײַטזאָנעס:
אָפּשטאַם, צילאָרט און פֿלימאָדוס.
1:00
פֿעטער אַרטשיבאַלד דער אַװאָקאַט
גלײבט נישט אין זומער־זײגער.
אָפֿט קומט ער אָן אַ שעה פֿריִער
פֿאַר אַ זיצונג מיטן ריכטער.
זײַנע שפּעטע װעטשערע־געסט, װידער,
קריגן בלױז אַ שטיקל פּעקאַן־פּײַ.
לױט דער באָבען לײענט ער באַריכטן
הין און קריק, אױף זײַן הױדע־בענקל.
2:00
אין ברוקלין האָט די מאַמע ע״ה בדעה
צו שענקען מײַן זומער־לאַגער אַ זונזײגער,
גיט זי אַ קלונג רבֿ קונדא ז״ל,
דעם דירעקטאָר און דערצײלער.
צו קאַלקולירן אַן אַקוראַטן װײַזער־שאָטן
דאַרף מען קודם די פּינקטלעכע פּאָזיציע.
אפֿשר לעבן דער הײַזקע װוּ ער דערצײלט
יעדן שבת זײַנע אַלטע משפּחה־מעשׂיות?
דװקא דאָרט װוּ מיר קינדער פֿאַרלירן
נאָך מנחה דעם חשבֿון פֿון די שעהען?
3:45
כינע־צײַט װערט טראַנסמיטירט
פֿון צײַט־צענטער אױף באַרג לישאַן
פֿאַר אַ ראַדיאָ־עולם פֿון װיגורסטאַן
אַזש ביז כּמעט ביראָבידזשאַן.
צענטראַל־מערבֿ־אױסטראַליע־צײַט
¾8 שעה נאָך לאָנדאָן־װעלטצײַט
פֿירט זיך אין פֿינף אָפּרו־סטאַנציעס
אױפֿן שאָסײ פֿון קײַגונע קײן גרענעצדאָרף.
אַן אַטלאַנטישער קאָנטײנער־שיף
פֿאַרמאָגט מער נישט קײן שיפֿגלאָק.
דאָס באַשליסט בלױז הער קאַפּיטאַן
װען אַ נײַע צײַטזאָנע הײבט זיך אָן.
די אַװיאָנען פֿון „פּאַװע לופֿט“ טיקען
צום טאַקט פֿון די סטואַרד/קעס הערצער:
אָט פֿאַרלעשן זײ די קאַבינע־ליכט;
איצט פֿירן זײ דאָס שפּײַזװעגעלע.
4:00
אין „גאַלעריע צײַטזאָנע“ געדױערט
אַ מינוט כאָטש הונדערט סעקונדעס.
אַ באַזוכערין פֿון אױסלאַנד װערט אומזיכער:
אין װאָסער יאָרהונדערט איז זי אַרײַנגעפֿלױגן?
די װענט באַמאָלענע מיט אַלטנײַע אותיות,
אױסגעפּוצטע מיט חוצפּהדיקע אַנאַכראָניזמען.
אַ מאָל פֿאַרבעט מען געסט פֿון דער װײַטנס
אױפֿצוטרעטן װירטועל אױף דער לײַװנט,
נאָר ס׳איז שטענדיק שװער זיך צו אײניקן
אױף אַ סינכראָנישער שעה פֿאַרן זום־קלונג
װײַל טײל האַלטן די גאַלעריע פֿאַר פֿאַרבײַ,
אַנדערע דװקא פֿאַר דער צוקונפֿט.
5:00
צײַטזאָנעס, אַזױ װי לשונות, קענען זיך
טוליען, איבערשנײַדן, אײַננעסטיקן:
צען שפּראַכן אין אײן צען־דירהדיקן הױז;
צען שפּרפּאַכן אין אײן מוח. פֿון דרױסן
באַמערקט אַ פֿאַרבײַגײער די פֿענצטער,
סײַ די ליכטיק װאַכע און סײַ די פֿינצטער
פֿאַרחלומטע. װאָסערע לשונות הערן זיך
דערינען? װיפֿל איז דאָרט דער זײגער?
איבער די הײַזער פֿליט אַן אַװיאָן
מיט פֿאַרמאַכטע פֿענצטער־רולעטן,
פֿאַרלאָשענע מאַפּעס און קאַבינע־ליכט—
נאָר עטלעכע פֿון אױבן באַלײַכטענע ביכער.
6:00
אױף דער אונטערבאַן־ליניע אַכט
מאָנטיק זעקס אַ זײגער אין דער פֿרי
– צענטראַל־אײראָפּע־צײַט, פֿאַרשטײט זיך –
פֿאָרט אײנער אַ מידער
אַהײם פֿון קיטקאַט־קלוב
לעבן אַ צװײטער אַ מידער
װאָס זי פֿאָרט צו דער אַרבעט.
7:00
די צװישן־צײַטזאָנעס שטרעקן זיך אױס
פֿון דרעמל־קנעפּל ביזן צװײטן װעקער
פֿון ליפֿט־קנעפּל ביז דער אָפֿענער טיר
פֿון שלום־עליכם ביזן ערשטן קוש
פֿון זײַ־געזונט ביז דער קאַלטער גאַס
8:00
„פּאַװע לופֿט“ באָט אָן פֿאַרבינדונגען
צו אַלע צײַטזאָנעלעך פֿון ייִדישלאַנד.
כאָטש געװיסע פֿליִען הײבן זיך אָן
אין שװער צו דערגרײכן יאָרן.
אַבי עס בלײַבט אונדז עפּעס
אַ פֿאַרבינדונג צװישן די דורות.
9:00
די געשיכטע פֿון כּלל־צײַטזאָנעס
איז אַ מעכטיקע משפּחה־מעשׂה
פֿון סינכראָניזירטע אימפּעריעס
מיט כּלערלײ קונציקע זײגערס:
60 מינוט אין אַ שעה לױט די בבֿלים
12 שעה אין אַ נאַכט לױט די מצרים
24 שעה אין אַ מעת־לעת לױט די גריכן
7 טעג אין אַ װאָך לױטן רױמישן קײסער
12 חדשים מיט קײסערלעך רױמישע נעמען
דער בריטישער פֿלאָט האָט באַזיגט
דעם זונפֿאַרגאַנג און יעדן מערידיאַן
מיט זײַנע כּסדרדיקע כראָנאָמעטערס
װאָס טראָגן לאָנדאָן־צײַט װײַט און ברײט
נאָר די טראַנסקאָנטינענטאַלע אײַזנבאַן
האָט געדאַרפֿט שאַפֿן צײַט־פֿאַרבינדונגען
צװישן די שיפֿן און די רעלסן און די פּײסאַזשן.
4 זאָנעס איבער אַלע באַזיגטע געביטן.
24 זאָנעס פֿאַראײניקטע מיט טעלעגראַפֿן.
אין װאַשינגטאָן האָט מען באַשטימט
אַז דער טאָג הײבט זיך אָן אין לאָנדאָן;
אין זשענעװע האָט מען פּראָקלאַמירט
די „װעלטצײַט“ לױט אַ גענױער סעקונדע
אַן אַטאָמיש געמאָסטענע אין פּאַריז
10:00
דער טאָג
לױט סװאַטש־
הײבט זיך אָן
האַלבע נאַכט
לױט דער כּלל־צײַט
פֿון ביל, שװײץ
און צעטײלט זיך
אױף טױזנט „טאַקטן“
װעלכע גלײַכן
זיך פּינקטלעך
צו פֿראַנצײזיש־
רעװאָלוציאָנערע
דעצימאַלע מינוטן
די רעװאָלוציאָנערע
צײַט האָט טױזנטער
צײַטזאָנעס לױט דער זון
איבער יעדן דאָרף און שטעטל
סװאַטש־צײַט
פֿונדעסטװעגן
איז סינכראָניזירט
צװישן יעדן דופֿקדיקן געלענק
11:00
אין װאָרמס
טראָגט אַ ייִנגל אַ בוך.
זאָל „פּיפּער־
נאָטער לופֿט“
אים טראָגן בשלום
קײן מאָליעװ
און פֿון דאָרטן בשלום
קײן בערלין.
זאָל ער זיך אַראָפּ־
לאָזן װי אַ ראָזשינקע
אױף טעמפּלהאָפֿער פֿליפֿעלד
און װײַטער לײענען דאָס בוך
אױף טראַמװײַ נײַנאונײַנציק
אַזש ביז צײַטזאָנע —
11:59
דאָס בוך גופֿא
איז אַ פֿליפֿאַרבינד
איבער לשון־צײַט,
אַ צײַטזאָנעלע
פֿון אױגן־
ציטערנישן
צװישן
אָט און
איצט.
אָט—
נאַט אײַך
די בילעטן.
מיר װינטשן אײַך
אַן אײַנגענעמע
רײַזע.
The post ‘Time Zone’ — poetry by Jake Schneider appeared first on The Forward.
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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.”
The post Abe Foxman built the Jewish establishment. He died troubled by what it had become appeared first on The Forward.