Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s nearly two-year war in Gaza since have convulsed not only the region but the world. Here in the United States, the rise in antisemitic incidents and questions of how criticism of Israel relates to antisemitism have become central to debates around free speech, immigration, national security and, fundamentally, what it means to feel safe and welcome in this country.
Navigating all these debates is Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, or A.D.L. Founded more than 100 years ago, the A.D.L.’s stated mission is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Under Greenblatt’s decade-long tenure, the A.D.L. has tracked and reported on a precipitous increase in antisemitism on the right and, in more recent years, on the left. The organization is often seen as the arbiter of what is and isn’t antisemitic.
At the same time, pro-Palestinian advocates within and outside the Jewish community say the A.D.L. has entered the political fray in ways that put it in tension with its founding civil rights mission and its ability to adjudicate fairly by, for instance, aligning with the Trump administration in its fight with universities, and by supporting the arrest of the Palestinian protester and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil. Greenblatt and I dug into all of this, as well as into his belief that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. I also wanted to ask Greenblatt about the war and how critics of the Israeli government, including some Jews, talk about it.
With outrage over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza growing, and college students soon returning to campuses that have been roiled by the threat of funding cuts and years of tension over what some see as legitimate protest and others as anti-Jewish hate, I sat down twice with Greenblatt to talk about how he and the A.D.L. view this fraught moment.
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I want to start with a big question that I know you think about a lot. What is the situation, in your estimation, for Jews in America right now? I think this is a time of great concern for Jews all over the United States. At A.D.L., we track antisemitism, we measure attitudes and we also track incidents. And we’ve never really seen a time like this, at least not in recent memory. So on the one hand, elevated or intense antisemitic attitudes, as a percent of the population, have more than doubled in the last five years. And we also track incidents. What I can tell you is, last year, 2024, was the worst year we had ever recorded in terms of acts of harassment, vandalism and violence directed at Jewish people or Jewish institutions. That was the fifth time in the last six years that we’ve broken a new record. And if I look back over the 10 years since I became A.D.L. C.E.O., the number’s up 10 times where it was when I started on the job.
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