Rabbis Blast Anti-Defamation League CEO Greenblatt for ‘Slanderous’ Attacks National Legal and Policy Center Was Previous Victim
Falls Church, VA
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March 07, 2024 09:30 AM Eastern Standard Time
The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), an organization of 2,500 rabbis, has joined the chorus of complaints about Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Even as antisemitism flares around the globe and Israel faces unprecedented threats, Greenblatt has been trashing American conservatives, using ADL’s good name to promote his domestic partisan goals.
“The ADL appears as concerned with a target’s politics as whether he or she is actually hateful—much less antisemitic,” said Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, Chairman of the CJV Rabbinic Circle.
Greenblatt’s latest assault was on the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), recently held in Washington, D.C. CJV criticized his “slanderous” attacks on what took place at the event, which Greenblatt likened to the rants of Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan. By all accounts, CPAC was a strongly pro-Israel event.
As the CJV pointed out, NLPC got a taste of the ADL’s bias in November, despite our long history of fighting antisemitism:
In November the ADL issued a statement implying that two policy organizations, the National Center for Public Policy Research and the National Legal and Policy Center, employed “conspiracy theories or conspiratorial language… that could be interpreted as an antisemitic dog whistle.” Both of these organizations are robust fighters for Israel and against antisemitism.
This smear of NLPC was in the form of a posting on the ADL website on November 21 titled “Conspiracy Theories, Some With Antisemitic Roots, Crop Up in 2023 Shareholder Proposals.”
ADL cited as evidence that NLPC and our ally, the National Center for Public Policy Research, are critical of “globalism” and “globalist organizations” like the World Economic Forum. The ADL gave a clue that it knew its own attack was groundless when it also included this disclaimer:
At this time, there is no evidence to suggest that either organization’s agents espouse overt antisemitism, or that these proposals were filed with antisemitic intentions.
Elle Krasne-Cohen in a recent opinion piece distributed by the Jewish News Service, also has come to NLPC’s defense. She wrote:
More recently, the ADL smeared two mainstream policy organizations—the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC)—accusing them without evidence of antisemitism.
We are grateful that our contributions to fighting antisemitism are being recognized. In case Greenblatt or anyone else is still confused, here is our track record:
Ben & Jerry’s- When the Unilever subsidiary Ben and Jerry’s announced in 2021 that it would end ice cream sales in “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” NLPC swung into action, launching the StopBenandJerrys.org website.
In September 2021, NLPC filed a Complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against Anuradha Mittal, the anti-Israel chair of the Ben & Jerry’s board of directors. A few weeks later, she was named 2021 “Antisemite of the Year” by the website StopAntisemitism.org.
Mittal appeared to have violated laws governing self-dealing by acting as a trustee of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation while approving donations to her personal nonprofit where she is executive director taking a full-time salary. Also, the president of Ben & Jerry’s charitable foundation, Jeff Furman, steered more than $100,000 of its funds to his own nonprofit organization.
In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack, Flaherty wrote an op-ed titled, “Unilever, Ice Cream and Antisemitism.”
Unilever Divestment- NLPC was a proponent of Unilever divestment efforts in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia. From the September 16, 2021, New York Times:
“We are doing this because somebody has to hold the independent board of Ben & Jerry’s accountable for their anti-Semitic use of their platform and company resources,” said Tom Anderson, a director of the National Legal and Policy Center.
NLPC collaborated with activist investor Michael Asher in support of Unilever divestment by New York State and New York City. In Virginia, Flaherty met with State Attorney General Jason Miyares and urged him to seek divestment of state funds from Unilever. In North Carolina, NLPC asked Treasurer Dale Folwell to divest Unilever holdings from public pension funds.
Black Lives Matter & Patrisse Cullors- As a result of original NLPC research, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation co-founder Patrisse Cullors was forced to resign from the group in 2021. NLPC’s allegations, detailed in a Complaint to the IRS, related to her purchase of four pieces of real estate, and apparent self-dealing and inurnment. NLPC has also emphasized Cullors’ 2015 call at Harvard Law School for individuals to “step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project that’s called Israel.”
NLPC was early in reporting about Black Lives Matter’s (BLM) links to anti-Israel groups. In 2016, Carl Horowitz, then a member of the NLPC staff, wrote a website post titled “Black Lives Matter Activists Join Anti-Israel Boycott.”
Following October 7, NLPC asked Visa, Inc. to remove its BLM endorsement from its website and condemn Hamas and antisemitism. We had raised the BLM issue earlier in the year at the company’s shareholders’ meeting. NLPC had also raised the issue of Coca-Cola’s support for BLM at the company’s annual meeting.
ADL’s Omar Resolution- NLPC has been a persistent critic of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Talib. While we have cited financial irregularities in a Federal Election Commission complaint against Ocasio-Cortez and a House Ethics Committee complaint against Omar, NLPC has also criticized hostility to Jews by these members. In 2019, NLPC endorsed and publicized the ADL-initiated House resolution condemning Omar.
See this op-ed titled “Antisemitism and Islamophobia: No Moral Equivalence” by Horowitz.
Foreign Funding of U.S. Higher Education- The recent spate of on-campus antisemitic incidents has shed light on the issue of foreign financial support for American colleges and universities, an issue that NLPC has investigated and publicized for several years. See this column by Charles Gasparino that extensively quotes NLPC Counsel Paul Kamenar.
Al Sharpton- Whereas the present leadership of the ADL has sought to erase Sharpton’s past, NLPC will not forget his incitements in the 1991 Crown Heights riots, in which a Jew was murdered, nor will we forgive his dangerous statements, such as “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”
Sharpton was fined $285,000 in 2005 by the Federal Election Commission as a result of an NLPC Complaint for running an “off the books” presidential campaign. For several years, NLPC raised the issue of support for Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) at the shareholders’ meetings of American corporations, including PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch and Colgate-Palmolive.
Unlike the ADL, NLPC has never used the fight against antisemitism as a partisan weapon. In 2010, NLPC objected to the sponsorship of Sharpton’s National Action Network annual meeting by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the participation of then-RNC Chairman Michael Steele. In 2009, NLPC asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to end his partnership with Sharpton in a campaign for “education reform.” That same year, NLPC criticized then-President George W. Bush for praising Sharpton.
Jesse Jackson- In 2005, the New York Stock Exchange ended its financial support for Jackson’s Citizenship Education Fund, in response to a demand by NLPC that cited Jackson’s 1984 “hymie” and “Hymietown” comments, as well as financial improprieties involving the Fund.
And if none of this is good enough for Greenblatt, it should be noted that NLPC has many Jewish supporters, including prominent individuals and former government officials, several of whom serve on the boards of local and national Jewish organizations.
From 2001 to the time of his death in 2019, Edward M. Ackerman of Dallas was a key advisor and major donor to NLPC. His legacy is carried on today by NLPC and the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. The ADL itself has partnered with the Ackerman Center.
Founded in 1991, the National Legal and Policy Center promotes ethics in public life through research, investigation, education and legal action.
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