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ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE'S DIRECTOR TO RETIRE AFTER LEADING GROUP FOR 27 YEARS
New York Times
Feb 10 2014
By MICHAEL PAULSONFEB. 10, 2014
Abraham H. Foxman, a Holocaust survivor whose 50-year tenure battling
anti-Semitism made him one of the visible and influential leaders
of the American Jewish community, announced on Monday that he will
retire next year as national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Mr. Foxman, who has headed the organization since 1987, played a
central role in most of the major controversies involving Israel and
the Jewish community in recent years, and has stirred up a few of his
own. He was frequently lionized as a forceful defender of Jews and
Israel, but periodically criticized as too quick to call criticism of
Israel anti-Semitic and too hesitant to label the early 20th-century
killings of Armenians in Turkey as genocide.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Foxman, 73, said he was ready for
a change.
"Fifty years is long enough to be in one place, and I'm still vibrant
enough to do a couple of other things," he said. "I hope I'll be able
to continue to have a voice, and to speak on the issues I've dealt
all my life with."
A frequent guest in the White House and confidant of Israeli leaders,
Mr. Foxman was a key proponent of strong Israeli-American relations.
Mr. Foxman said he was motivated to spend his life combating
anti-Semitism by his own childhood experience. Born in Eastern Europe
in 1940, he was saved from the Holocaust by a Polish Catholic nanny.
He immigrated to the United States in 1950, and joined the
Anti-Defamation League the day after he passed the bar exam.
"It provided me with a platform to deal with the two things that
formed my lifetime: the bigotry which almost destroyed me, and the
human love and compassion which saved me," he said.
Mr. Foxman said he viewed as his organization's biggest single
accomplishment one that took place before his arrival: the passage
of a so-called anti-mask law in Georgia, designed to prevent Ku Klux
Klan members from wearing hoods.
"Our Constitution guarantees you the right to be a bigot, but if you
want to be a bigot, you have to take responsibility for your bigotry,"
he said.
The Anti-Defamation League, which has about 320 employees and an
annual budget of about $50 million, has advocated for civil rights,
gay rights and other causes.
"The ADL was best known in the Jewish community for battling
anti-Semitism, but they have also taken on many other kinds of
discrimination, and I think Abe should get credit for having expanded
the horizons of people in the American Jewish community about the
importance of fighting any and all discrimination," said Ruth W.
Messinger, the president of American Jewish World Service.
Mr. Foxman said that he is pleased anti-Semitic acts and attitudes
have drastically decreased in the United States over the last
half-century, but that he is concerned about rising anti-Semitism
elsewhere. "Globally, it's the worst that it has been since World
War II," he said.
"He's been a somewhat controversial figure, and there were moments
when he has been perceived by some to be out of touch, and yet, when
serious issues of anti-Semitism arose, everybody would go back to
Abe Foxman," said Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish
history at Brandeis University. "He would be on anybody's short list
of the most significant American Jewish leaders of the postwar period."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/us/anti-defamation-leagues-director-to-retire-after-leading-group-for-27-years.html?_r=0
New York Times
Feb 10 2014
By MICHAEL PAULSONFEB. 10, 2014
Abraham H. Foxman, a Holocaust survivor whose 50-year tenure battling
anti-Semitism made him one of the visible and influential leaders
of the American Jewish community, announced on Monday that he will
retire next year as national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Mr. Foxman, who has headed the organization since 1987, played a
central role in most of the major controversies involving Israel and
the Jewish community in recent years, and has stirred up a few of his
own. He was frequently lionized as a forceful defender of Jews and
Israel, but periodically criticized as too quick to call criticism of
Israel anti-Semitic and too hesitant to label the early 20th-century
killings of Armenians in Turkey as genocide.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Foxman, 73, said he was ready for
a change.
"Fifty years is long enough to be in one place, and I'm still vibrant
enough to do a couple of other things," he said. "I hope I'll be able
to continue to have a voice, and to speak on the issues I've dealt
all my life with."
A frequent guest in the White House and confidant of Israeli leaders,
Mr. Foxman was a key proponent of strong Israeli-American relations.
Mr. Foxman said he was motivated to spend his life combating
anti-Semitism by his own childhood experience. Born in Eastern Europe
in 1940, he was saved from the Holocaust by a Polish Catholic nanny.
He immigrated to the United States in 1950, and joined the
Anti-Defamation League the day after he passed the bar exam.
"It provided me with a platform to deal with the two things that
formed my lifetime: the bigotry which almost destroyed me, and the
human love and compassion which saved me," he said.
Mr. Foxman said he viewed as his organization's biggest single
accomplishment one that took place before his arrival: the passage
of a so-called anti-mask law in Georgia, designed to prevent Ku Klux
Klan members from wearing hoods.
"Our Constitution guarantees you the right to be a bigot, but if you
want to be a bigot, you have to take responsibility for your bigotry,"
he said.
The Anti-Defamation League, which has about 320 employees and an
annual budget of about $50 million, has advocated for civil rights,
gay rights and other causes.
"The ADL was best known in the Jewish community for battling
anti-Semitism, but they have also taken on many other kinds of
discrimination, and I think Abe should get credit for having expanded
the horizons of people in the American Jewish community about the
importance of fighting any and all discrimination," said Ruth W.
Messinger, the president of American Jewish World Service.
Mr. Foxman said that he is pleased anti-Semitic acts and attitudes
have drastically decreased in the United States over the last
half-century, but that he is concerned about rising anti-Semitism
elsewhere. "Globally, it's the worst that it has been since World
War II," he said.
"He's been a somewhat controversial figure, and there were moments
when he has been perceived by some to be out of touch, and yet, when
serious issues of anti-Semitism arose, everybody would go back to
Abe Foxman," said Jonathan D. Sarna, a professor of American Jewish
history at Brandeis University. "He would be on anybody's short list
of the most significant American Jewish leaders of the postwar period."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/us/anti-defamation-leagues-director-to-retire-after-leading-group-for-27-years.html?_r=0