Talk:Anti-Defamation League

11 January 2026

Nehushtani, please explain why the text you removed is WP:UNDUE given the cited sources in the relevant section. إيان (talk) 09:55, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:BEGIN says that the first paragraph "should define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being too specific". I think that adding controversies specific to the least 2.5 years is too specific and undue. Nehushtani (talk) 09:59, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Given what dominates the most current scholarship and coverage of the subject in WP:RS, what could possibly be more WP:DUE to "establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it" than During the Gaza war and genocide, the ADL has been criticized for conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and for exploiting the accusation of antisemitism to silence criticism of Israel, the text you removed? إيان (talk) 10:23, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The organisation was founded in 1913 and has a history of over 110 years. A controversy that involves less than 3 years of that history is not due in the first paragraph. Nehushtani (talk) 11:07, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
So because the organization has existed for x number years, you think the matter that dominates the current scholarship on the topic is not due for the opening paragraph? Not convincing at all. Seeking input at the NPOV noticeboard, here. إيان (talk) 23:43, 11 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It's not representative of the history of the organisation as a whole. Nehushtani (talk) 06:21, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This is a baseless, meritless argument.
After the first sentence, nothing in the first paragraph is representative of the history of the organisation as a whole Was the ADL doing pro-Israel advocacy in the decades of its existence before the State of Israel even existed? Was its CEO Jonathan Greenblatt since 1913? Were its headquarters always in Murray Hill, with 25 regional offices, with an annual revenue of about $40 million and about $60 million in operating expenses?
Please. إيان (talk) 06:47, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What about putting the sentence in the third paragraph? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 01:06, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Why shouldn't it go in the first paragraph, given the prominence of the ADL's "anti-Zionism is antisemitism" idea in the RS? See, for example, high-quality journalistic sources such as:
On January 9, for example, a few weeks after a large pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York City, Greenblatt released a report listing over 3,000 antisemitic incidents committed in the three months since the war in Gaza began. ... But much of the report was hype. Rather than attacks against Jews due to their religious or ethnic identity, many of the cited “incidents” were actions directed against Israel to protest the conduct of its war in Gaza—incidents the ADL would later admit made up nearly half of the total.
For decades, the ADL argued that anti-Zionism could lead to antisemitism, but recently, the group had adopted the position Greenblatt more or less aired on Fox: that opposition to the Jewish state was the same thing as antisemitism, full stop. That tens of thousands of Jews were active in the pro-Palestine movement was not just put aside — it was taken as evidence that they were antisemites, too.
“Anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” Greenblatt said in a speech to ADL leaders. He singled out Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace as groups that “epitomize the Radical Left, the photo inverse of the Extreme Right that ADL long has tracked”.
...
Even before the latest Israel-Hamas war, the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism has increasingly inflected the debate around the bounds of legitimate protest, with the ADL playing a vocal role. Now, news reports show a troubling surge of antisemitism, with bomb threats against synagogues and antisemitic graffiti. The ADL has said antisemitic incidents in the US have risen 388% since 7 October. But its data is difficult to make sense of, precisely because of questions around how the ADL defines antisemitism.
It is also present in most mentions of the ADL in current peer-reviewed scholarly sources such as:
In order to maintain ironclad support for Israel, many American Jewish organizations deny not just the reality of the Nakba, but also the fact that this unjust, unequal, and oppressive reality endangers all who live between the river and the sea—Jewish and Palestinian. They work overtime to preserve an image of a moral and beleaguered Israel, to insist that calls for accountability are an existential threat, and to silence voices of dissent. There is perhaps no organization more identified with this strategy than the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL says they’re a neutral arbiter of antisemitism, no matter where it shows up, but that’s not true. They have conflated the safety of Jews with support for the state of Israel. In so doing, they undermine their own stated mission of fighting antisemitism. How did this happen? Since the 1970s, the ADL has sought to popularize the concept of the “new antisemitism,” the idea that Israel as “the Jew on the world stage,” was being unfairly singled out for criticism in ways that echoed old school antisemitism (see Forster and Benjamin 1974).
Daniel Schroeter writes that in the aftermath of the 1967 war, advocates for Israel "alarmed at what they saw as growing sympathy for the Arabs and Palestinians began to use the term 'new anti-Semitism,' which they understood as antisemitism either expressed or disguised as anti-Zionism." … The 1974 book The New Anti-Semitism by Anti-Defamation League (ADL) leaders Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein gave a name to the concept.
  • Pappé, Ilan (2024). Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic. A Oneworld book. London: Oneworld. ISBN 978-0-86154-403-5.
After 1967, combating anti-Semitism against American Jews ceased to be its main task - now, cheered on by AIPAC, it sought to portray certain 'anti-Israel' actions as anti-Semitic. It propagandised against any attempt to pressure Israel into withdrawing from the occupied territories.
إيان (talk) 01:25, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Putting it in the third paragraph seems reasonable. Nehushtani (talk) 06:19, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That sentence expresses the most important fact that determines the ADL’s reputation today. Over the years the ADL has evolved from a generally liberal organization supporting the rights of all ethnic, racial, and religious groups, to an organization that slanders people who oppose Israeli genocide in Gaza and who sympathize with the Palestinian victims, and supports policies that suppress their free speech rights. The sentence is certainly DUE for the lead. NightHeron (talk) 04:39, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nehushtani that overemphasizing the past few years in the context of a group with a 100+ year history can cause WP:RECENTISM concerns. Marquardtika (talk) 15:42, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The ADL has a much longer than 3-year history of weaponizing the antisemitism charge in order to silence opposition to Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. This has become a particularly big issue in the last three years, and has steadily become a key part of the ADL's identity and reputation. NightHeron (talk) 17:51, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it would be better per WP:IMPARTIAL to describe their views in the lead rather than explain why their views are bad. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 01:41, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

During its long history, the ADL has had its fair share of controversies. However, none of them were as long-lived and heated as the antisemitism/Israel-criticism controversy that has dominated public discussion of ADL for decades and only seems to be getting worse. A mere mention in the lead that the controversy exists is completely reasonable, and omitting it on purpose would be an NPOV violation. Zerotalk 04:41, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned above, I have no objection to mention in the lead. I object to including it in the first paragraph. Nehushtani (talk) 06:36, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Then you should probably restore it to the lede. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 06:58, 13 January 2026 (UTC) (Edited 06:59, 13 January 2026 (UTC))[reply]
Done. Feel free to tweak. Nehushtani (talk) 07:53, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Omitting it from the lead would be problematic. It works well in the third paragraph, so the lead is fully informative without be recentist. The first para should be impartial. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:04, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Article in The Forward

Quite a lot here. Zerotalk 05:54, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

23 January 2026

Partofthemachine, regarding your recent reverts here and here, in which you removed cited material claiming that it slightly misrepresents their position—how so? Which WP:RS do you base your opinion on? إيان (talk) 19:54, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Anti-Defamation_League