After last week’s fiery push on #BanTheADL on X, formerly known as Twitter, Jewish conservatives weighed in, claiming the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is not, in fact, “Jewish” at all but a leftist organization.
Senior Advisor to President Donald Trump and founder of America First Legal, Stephen Miller, told his half-a-million followers on X that we were tricked.
“ADL is NOT a Jewish organization,” he tweeted. “It is an ultra-left activist org that pushes radical transgenderism, border erasure, police dismantlement, and the demolition of free speech … conflating criticism of ADL with criticism of Jews is itself an antisemitic trope.”
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro also assured us that the ADL is a “progressive interest group” that “proclaims it is speaking in the name of Jewish causes.”
The ADL’s mission statement is, however, contradictory as it explicitly states, “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people …” and is based on “Jewish values.” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and his staff, primarily consisting of ethnic Jews, constantly tell the public that the organization does indeed represent the Jewish community.
Senior editor at The Federalist, David Harsanyi, also commented on the NGO, saying, “ ADL isn’t a ‘Jewish’ organization in any genuine ethnic or theological sense.”
He wrote the ADL “gives perfunctory attention (but mostly ignores) the threat and normalization of anti-Jewish sentiment …” Harsanyi, unlike the others, mentions the ADL’s push on identitarianism, noting school curricula and readings, including Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility.
He remarked that much of the ADL’s propelled racism is “inherently anti-Jewish.” Harsanyi reiterated his claims in the New York Post last Friday.
Padding the collective argument, Libs of Tiktok’s creator, Chaya Raichik, wrote in Human Events that the ADL targets Jews with its “far-left agenda.” She added, “They are only anti-defamation as long as you go along with their far-left viewpoints.”
None of what these Jewish conservatives said seems to be entirely accurate or even address the populace’s concern about the ADL. One cannot honestly refer to an NGO that supports Zionism as “far left” or “leftist,” especially one that defends Israel’s border policies.
Last week, Greenblatt made his rounds on corporate media condemning #BanTheADL as “antisemitic” and as being promoted by “white supremacists.” He also commented on the Elon Musk lawsuit, saying he was“deeply worried about the antisemitism affecting American Jews.”
We all anticipated it—the labels and victimization, but perhaps not conservative Jews being in lockstep preemptively self-defending rather than calling attention to the ADL’s extreme prejudices.
As a grand opportunist and currently in the corporate media spotlight, Greenblatt seized on the recent drama production outside Disney World consisting of thugs sporting Nazi gear.
One of them cosplayed a neo-Nazi look of “just out of prison,” covered in tattoos from head to toe. These “Nazis” also said they support President Joe Biden, which contradicts the running narrative of the Right.
Independent journalist and activist Laura Loomer claimed these “Nazis” are federal agents; whether that is true is another story. But if they were “FEDs,” the question remains: Why would the federal government push on the fear of white supremacy?
According to Pew Research, white voters are the most politically neutral and do not center themselves around race, making them easily pressured to take oppositional positions.
In 2014, paleoconservative and editor-in-chief of Chronicles Paul Gottfried once spoke of the Jewish NGOs as seeing themselves in “a common struggle against Nazism, which is linked to fascism, which is linked to the Right, and which is finally linked to white Christian society.”
Gottfried, a Jewish man, said it is to “extend guilt to the entire white Christian population.”
The ADL maintains Christianity as a threat through its hundreds of hate database entries and leaders’ comments, with even more entries on alleged extremism by white people.
As a non-protected class, white gentiles are essentially expected to take the criticism—any rebuke would be deemed “antisemitic,” just as with arguments over Zionism—a foreign policy matter.
Note that none of the aforementioned conservative Jews that “condemned” the ADL mentioned anything of this—just that the organization doesn’t represent Jews and is “leftist.”
This deflection with accusations is meant to shield from improper behavior, abuse and really any questions or conversations of influence. This is censorship.
This tactic has worked for the ADL and other Jewish nonprofits—for instance, you’ll struggle to find a US congressman or woman against Zionism, less the few progressives. They would be crossing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and as former President Barack Obama said in his memoir, “Those who criticized Israeli policy … risked being tagged as ‘anti-Israel’ (and possibly antisemitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election.”
Last year, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., stood against a lobbied Congress of 420 votes. The libertarian stayed true to the First Amendment, voting against a House resolution empowering the government to add extra protections against alleged antisemitism.
Massie Tweeted on Sunday, “... The bill promoted internet censorship & violations of 1A.”
This pure, unadulterated abuse of power has created a particular interest group immune to all criticism in public discourse and policy.
Not all Jewish people align with the ADL or other similar nonprofits, though. Orthodox Jews have railed against the NGO, including conservative commentator and attorney Ron Coleman.
He recently wrote an op-ed in Newsweek about the ADL, supporting Elon Musk. He said in 1987, he was a legal intern at the ADL and that the organization eventually moved towards censorship.
Like the others, he claimed it “moved further into the fringes of Left-wing lunacy,” however, noting the ADL falsely uses Jewish issues to defame and smear people.
Coleman clarified to Townhall that the ADL’s targets are “political and ideological, not racial,” and “there is a strong argument that they view Orthodox Jews as the biggest threats to its power.”
These conservatives know the truth of the anti-white and anti-Christian bias; they may just be too afraid to voice it. Or maybe they are unwilling to gamble against the collective connection, or what Harvard University’s Pluralism Project referred to as “Yiddishkeit,” meaning “social, political, and cultural ‘Jewishness.’”
Without conservative Jews calling out the ADL’s blatant anti-white racism or anti-Christian bigotry, we find ourselves split as a movement. Con Inc. will continue to gesture like it did last week to the gullible and uninformed masses—sadly, a large portion of the GOP.
Solving the problems of these NGOs would be momentous to America and its culture. If these conservatives really intended to stand up to the ADL, it would not have been about themselves, antisemitism or the organization being “Jewish.”
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