Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the ADL<\/p>\n
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) head Morton Klein called for a full \u201coverhaul\u201d of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) along with the firing of its CEO, former Obama senior adviser Jonathan Greenblatt, over the promotion of \u201cwoke leftism,\u201d as was documented in a recent Fox News investigation.<\/p>\n
The nation\u2019s oldest pro-Israel organization released a statement<\/a> pointing to a recent Fox News Digital investigation<\/a> revealing the ADL\u2019s \u201ceducational and \u2018anti-bias\u2019 programs, which influence millions of American children and thousands of educators and officials, [and] promote far-left and critical race theory (CRT) concepts such as \u2018white privilege\u2019 and \u2018systemic racism.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The programming was also found to \u201cpromote groups such as the Women\u2019s March and BLM \u2014 despite the virulent Jew-hating, Israel-hating and pro-Farrakhan positions of the Women\u2019s March leaders and BLM\/M4BL organization.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition, the investigation revealed that \u201cthese harmful ADL programs characterize denying white privilege as a \u2018biased attitude\u2019; encourage white students to view themselves as \u2018oppressors\u2019; and include an article indicating that white women are \u2018justly seen as oppressive\u2019 and \u2018enjoy unearned skin privilege,\u2019\u201d among other things.<\/p>\n The ADL\u2019s education wing is expansive and far-reaching, with districts countrywide paying the organization tens of thousands of dollars for its anti-bias training.<\/p>\n According to its website<\/a>, last year over 46,000 educators participated in its anti-bias training and nearly five million K-12 students were exposed to its educational tools and programs.<\/p>\n The ZOA pointed to Greenblatt\u2019s plan to \u201crefocus\u201d the ADL on \u201cfar-left partisan political, legal and educational advocacy\u201d after becoming the group\u2019s CEO in 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cFor years,\u201d the ZOA claimed, it and others have \u201craised alarm bells about ADL\u2019s and Greenblatt\u2019s dangerous far-left advocacy and numerous departures from ADL\u2019s primary stated mission of combatting antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2016, the ZOA documented<\/a> \u201cmultiple\u201d ADL educational lesson plans that \u201cencouraged high school students to join BLM protests in Ferguson\u201d despite protest calls for \u201cending Israel\u2019s existence\u201d and \u201cpromoted BLM while ignoring the antisemitic BLM\/M4BL platform and antisemitism that permeates\u201d the radical social movement.<\/p>\n The lesson plans also \u201crepeated BLM\u2019s false \u2018hands up\u2019 claim \u2013 while omitting the multiple comprehensive government investigations which concluded that Officer Wilson shot Michael Brown in self-defense; presented misleading selective police shooting statistics; falsely presented self-defense as an example of \u2018racial profiling\u2019; and complained about (so-called) \u2018unearned white privilege\u2019 (a racist theory that is too often used against innocent Jews and others).\u201d<\/p>\n That same year, the ZOA recalled, the New York Post <\/em>published<\/a> an essay explaining how the ADL had promoted BLM \u201cby creating school lesson plans that promote it, despite BLM\u2019s support for BDS and open hostility toward Israel,\u201d while claiming Greenblatt accused American Jews of \u201cliving with \u2018white privilege.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The Fox News investigation, the ZOA stated, took place \u201cover six years after ZOA and others documented the harmful concepts that ADL is teaching our children and public officials,\u201d and brought the ADL to announce it will \u201creview its curricular materials that are \u2018misaligned with ADL\u2019s values and strategy.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Calling the ADL\u2019s announcement \u201ctoo little and too late,\u201d the ZOA responded by citing JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin who deemed<\/a> the announcement \u201cblatantly dishonest\u201d due to the fact that the ADL\u2019s \u201cwoke leftist educational materials are the same as, and are aligned with the pervasive woke far-left strategy and values that ADL promotes under ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.\u201d<\/p>\n Tobin highlighted the ADL\u2019s public endorsement of BLM as well as its defense of Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who have been accused on multiple occasions of antisemitism, and its downplaying of \u201cleft-wing antisemitism\u201d and promotion of internet censorship.<\/p>\n