The ADL Is Not a Fair Arbiter of Antisemitism
Two Articles This Month Unquestioningly Quote Its Report on Campus Climate, and Mislead Readers
After four protesters were arrested outside of Rutgers Hillel on the College Avenue campus during a talk by U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer on antisemitism, a local news outlet marred an otherwise straightforward report with these paragraphs:
Gottheimer’s visit follows the release of the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 Campus Report Card, which gave Rutgers a grade of D for combating antisemitism on campus.
The report documented nearly 300 reports of antisemitic discrimination at Rutgers between 2023 and 2024.
Nearly a week later, The New York Times followed suit.
In a story about antisemitic messages left in a Philadelphia bar, the paper inserted this two “nut” or context paragraphs:
Antisemitic episodes in the United States reached a record high in the 12-month period from October 2023 to September 2024, according to figures from the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights organization.
The group identified more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents — triple the number recorded during the same period a year earlier — which were split into categories including verbal or written harassment, vandalism and physical assault. More than 8,000 of those episodes involved cases of verbal or written harassment, according to the figures.
Context is important, but the context has to be accurate and, if from one side, must include the other. The ADL data, however, is presented straight, without any hint that the ADL has become little more than a cheerleader for the Israeli government.
As numerous groups have pointed out, ADL data conflates protest and criticism of Israel with antisemitism, which inflates the numbers and creates the false impression that Jews are imperiled in the United States, and especially on colleges campuses.
What follows is my argument in response to this uncritical use of ADL data and of the organization. It ran today in TAPnto New Brunswick:
I am writing you as both a longtime journalist and in my capacity as co-chair of the Joint Academic Freedom Committee of the adjunct faculty union and the Rutgers-AAUP-AFT to raise concerns about TAPInto New Brunswick’s coverage of the arrests of three student protesters and a fourth protester last week outside of a forum held at Hillel House that included U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer.
The story uncritically quotes both Gottheimer and a “report card” from the ADL — formerly the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai Brith — that describes a climate of fear and danger for Jewish students on campus, and in doing so the story tacitly endorses the lie that criticism of Israel is equivalent to antisemitism.
The ADL historically had been a Jewish civil rights and American Jewish defense organization. In recent years, however, it has redefined Jewish “civil rights” and defense to mean a full-throated defense of Israel.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, has been clear about this shift. In an interview with Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, about rising rates of antisemitism, he says: “It is not my belief that anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism, it is.” It is a fact, he says, and that “fact” allows him to ignore all other evidence or explanation.
This rhetorical sleight of hand allows Greenblatt and the ADL to dehumanize Palestinians and critics of Israel (even Jewish critics like me) — the exact thing he claims they are doing to Jews — and ignore decades of scholarship and the brutal and inhuman behavior of the Israeli government toward residents of Gaza and the West Bank.
The ADL purports to speak for American Jews, and I understand that the polling indicates wide support in the Jewish community for Israel. The ADL uses that to press a pro-Israel agenda, even though polling only measures popularity and not the accuracy of a statement.
In reality, the ADL has come under fire from an array of organizations and some of its own staffers for its hard-line stance on Israel. Last year, Wikipedia labeled the ADL “an unreliable source on antisemitism,” while the number of Jewish critics of the ADL has been growing.
There also is the progressive “Drop the ADL” campaign, which it describes as having “a history and ongoing pattern of attacking social justice movements led by communities of color, queer people, immigrants, Muslims, Arabs, and other marginalized groups, while aligning itself with police, right-wing leaders, and perpetrators of state violence.” So, while the ADL bills itself as a civil rights organization and a protector of Jews and other marginalized groups, it too often functions as cover for rightwing politicians.
As for Gottheimer, he has has staked out a position on Israel that is to the right of even the ADL, repeatedly equating organizations supporting a free Palestine with terrorist groups, denouncing protesters, and attacking our unions on numerous occasions, most recently after our members backed a resolution demanding divestment from Israeli firms and American firms doing business with the Israeli war machine.
The TAPInto story, however, presents the ADL and Gottheimer points of view without any of this context and without any response from those who would disagree. In doing so, the story on the Hillel protest acts as a tacit endorsement of their arguments. At the very least, TAPInto should have reached out to critics of the ADL and Gottheimer, though it is long past the time anyone should take the ADL seriously as an arbiter of antisemitism and threats to Jews.
Antisemitism is a real phenomenon. It is pernicious and is both damaging and potentially deadly. The man who murdered 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, for instance, espoused the antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory,” which claims that Jewish money is being used to increase immigration to literally replace white voters and enhance Jewish power.
Equally damaging and deadly, however, are the arguments offered by ADL and Gottheimer, because they seek to defend Jews by undermining the rights to free speech and assembly, dehumanizing Muslims, and lending cover to Israel’s government. Israel is waging a genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza and turns a blind eye to a violent settler movement in the West Bank. Criticizing that is not antisemitic. It is our moral responsibility to take this stand.