In defense of defense groups
Spend enough time on the Web, and you’re bound to find sites that regularly demonize the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and other so-called anti-anti-Semitism watchdogs.
And I’m not just talking about the usual suspects on the pro-Palestinian and neo-Nazi fringes.
It’s become fashionable among a certain kind of Jewish writer to criticize the ADL and other groups for over-zealousness in their campaigns to eradicate anti-Semitism. When I say a “certain kind” I mean writers who tend to be young (but not always), conservative (usually), and religious (often).
They tend to make similar points: By being too quick to label opponents anti-Semitic, the defense groups lessen the currency of the charge. By picking fights with purveyors of questionable material, they only draw more attention to the original offense. And when they grab headlines by calling this or that phenomenon anti-Semitic, they divert media attention and communal dollars away from the real problems afflicting Jews, namely ignorance, apathy, and assimilation.
There are other charges, and I mentioned ideology above because some of the writers are particularly peeved at the defense groups’ embrace of positions they consider liberal, such as the strict separation of church and state and a certain wariness about the Religious Right.
The topic was aired recently in the Forward by regular columnist David Klinghoffer, who, as a conservative, plays the kind of contrarian role at the left-leaning Forward that William Safire played — until this week, that is — at the left-leaning New York Times.
Klinghoffer is associated with Toward Tradition, the Seattle-based group that roots its conservativism in “traditional Judeo-Christian values.” Klinghoffer wrote about British Prince Harry’s decision to wear a Nazi uniform to a costume party, and the inevitable outraged reactions from the ADL and Wiesenthal Center.
The episode, wrote Klinghoffer, “reinforced the world’s impression that the chief moral purpose of Jews is to denounce instances of alleged anti-Semitism.” He went on: “Sad to say, the most broadly recognized ‘moral’ voices on the American-Jewish scene, the purported authorities on Jewish values best known outside the Jewish community, concern themselves not with illuminating other people with the beauty and wisdom of the Torah, but too often merely with ferreting out either imagined or meaningless acts of Jew-baiting.”
Klinghoffer is probably right that Foxman may be one of the most recognized of our Jewish leaders. But that is as much a function of the media as anything else. Conflict makes news, and the defense groups make conflict. Meanwhile, the quiet funding of day school and supplementary education, the steady pace of charitable giving, and the dogged pursuit of scholarship — all high “moral purposes” among Jewish organizations — is rarely noted. Perhaps that confers a power on Foxman that he is advised to use judiciously, but you really can’t blame him for trying.
But it’s not just conflict that allows Foxman and the Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Marvin Hier to grab headlines. It’s the potency of the anti-Semitism charge. Klinghoffer is younger than I, but the two of us are too young to remember when anti-Semitism was tolerated in academia, in hiring, and in popular culture (and that’s just the American experience; we know the forms it took in Europe). One of the most remarkable achievements of the past 50 years — and whether you credit the Jewish community or the American way is up to you — was the transformation of anti-Semitism from a social norm to public sin. Foxman is considered a “moral voice” because folks like him were able to convince Americans that anti-Semitism was immoral.
Is anti-anti-Semitism one of the “traditional Judeo-Christian values”? Perhaps in the broad sense of “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), although it took a few centuries for many Christians to get that one right. It was Jewish defense groups that managed to convert the lessons of anti-Semitism into a broader curriculum of intolerance for intolerance. For all their focus on royal dumkopfs and Vatican shenanigans, Jewish defense groups have been a force in interfaith relations, sensitivity training for law enforcement, and civil rights legislation.
And yet, at a time when tolerance seems in increasingly short supply and anti-Jewish attitudes appear on the upswing (in Europe, at least), the defense groups find themselves under attack. It is one thing for writers at Jewish weeklies to debate their merits; it is quite another when TV and radio host Bill O’Reilly calls the ADL “an extremist group that finds offense in pretty much everything” (and to think it was conservative icon Barry Goldwater who said “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice…”).
What’s the alternative to an “extremist” position against anti-Semitism? According to O’Reilly, it means getting off poor Mel Gibson’s back and letting him make the kind of movie he wants to make. Toward Tradition thinks the Jews should overlook the small indignities to focus on the big picture of Jewish-Christian relations — on the Right, anyway. And the Leftist version says we ignore the grotesque caricatures and classic canards emerging from Arab capitals and focus instead on the “root causes” of Palestinian hatred and violence.
The question, as always, is how much anti-Semitism is just enough? What’s the tipping point between one man’s “meaningless” insult and a social phenomenon (like the BBC survey finding that 60 percent of Brits younger than 35 claimed never to have even heard of Auschwitz)?
We should never shut down a debate on communal priorities. It’s fair to ask whether we need more Holocaust memorials or lower day school tuitions, another “tolerance” museum or a better benefit package for pre-school teachers. But don’t forget that these are debates about how to allocate our abundance — an abundance made possible by the steady eradication of a force of prejudice and discrimination that was neither imagined nor meaningless.