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Seth Mandel, writing at Commentary, pulls no punches in his piece this week about those who act willfully blind about antisemitism from the Left and, by doing so, allow it to fester. Mandel calls out Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt for special scrutiny, since the ADL is supposed to be the watchdog group that defends the Jewish community from antisemitism. Greenblatt consistently ignores, covers up, or deflects criticism away from the antisemitic comments of Democrats like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).

Nor is Greenblatt alone in this. As Mandel writes, the organization that claims to represent Jewish Democrats is likewise silent when their voice is most needed:

[Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt] came to the ADL after serving in the Obama administration. His fellow ex-Obama official, Halie Soifer, who served as a national-security adviser to Kamala Harris before she became vice president, took over the flagship Democratic Jewish organization, the Jewish Democratic Council of America. The JDCA’s executive committee is loaded up with current or former presidents and executives of such mainstream Jewish groups as AIPAC, the Jewish Federations, and the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. After pressure built to respond to AOC’s tweet and the others like it, Soifer wrote: “Proud to be a Democrat in this moment when leaders recognize there is no binary choice to be made between Israel’s security & right to self-defense, and Palestinian rights & safety. We can do both at the same time, while rejecting the forced false dichotomy & narrative of divide.” Thus did Soifer give a seal of approval to the effort to dress up hateful anti-Zionism as merely legitimate criticism of Israel’s government.  [emphasis added]

When Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted recently a comparison of the US and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban, twelve Jewish Democratic members of Congress wrote a letter to condemn her words. Mandel notes:

The response to the letter revealed the depressing reality at the core of American Jewish life: the complete abandonment of the Jews by their own supposed watchdogs and the merger of those groups into semiofficial arms of the very political party now enabling their torment. Greenblatt merely retweeted one of the signatories’ tweets of the letter, adding his own comment: “Well said.” His me-tooing of the statement added insult to injury: Not only were the congressmen given no cover by the ADL, but once they ventured into the breach they were given no reinforcement by it. The following morning, the JDCA tweeted: “Jewish Dems will be meeting with Rep. Omar during our Week of Action to discuss her recent comments on Israel, as well as other priorities of Jewish Dems in Minnesota. There is no equivalence between Israel and terrorist organizations such as Hamas.” The organization sounded more annoyed at having to say something than outraged by what Omar had said. [emphasis added]

When will Jewish organizations like ADL and JDCA hold radical Democrats accountable for the antisemitism they express and encourage?

FURTHER READING

The Un-Jews 

In case you missed it, Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy had a terrific article last week at Tablet Magazine about what they call “un-Jews,” rabidly anti-Zionist, politically radical Jews who are trying to pry Jewish identity away from its historic intrinsic connection to the Jewish homeland, Israel.