Dear John,

Just imagine it.

A family was grieving over the tragic loss of their teenage daughter. Due to the pandemic, an online funeral was planned to serve as a time of memorial and, hopefully, comfort for a family in anguish and pain. While you and I would want to support the family during this tragic time, vile antisemites only saw another opportunity to spread their venomous hate towards Jews.

Fortunately, our Center on Extremism investigators were monitoring extremist chatter across a variety of online platforms, and saw an extremist post this:

Yes, as appalling as that is, you read it right. These extremists were planning to harass the family as they mourned. It’s almost impossible to believe… and yet that’s exactly what would’ve happened were it not for you and your support of ADL.

Your gift of $50, $75, $100 or more to ADL enables us to find and respond to threats like this one in real time. And when you donate today, your gift goes twice as far thanks to a $100,000 matching gift opportunity made possible by another longtime ADL supporter.

With only a name as a lead, our investigators were able to quickly identify where the funeral ceremony was being held and contact the funeral home staff to help them increase security on the online virtual gathering and protect the family from harassment.

“The family has been through so much already,” said the lead ADL investigator. It was incredibly important to everyone involved to shield them from further pain.

“Zoombombing” has become a popular form of entertainment among extremists and white supremacists. They interrupt Jewish gatherings or classes with antisemitic acts, record the reaction from the participants, and then share them online to entertain their followers. It’s another prong in their efforts to spread their hate, and another front in the battle against antisemitism.

In addition to the daily efforts of our Center on Extremism to keep communities safe — online and off — ADL has worked throughout the pandemic with companies like Zoom to stop antisemitic and other hate-based virtual harassment. We remain vigilant. On watch to stop these extremists before they perpetrate heinous acts.

All these efforts are only possible with the support of people like you. People who understand the urgency with which these threats must be met — and that real-time action is necessary if we are going to achieve real-time results.

Thank you for all you do to fight hate and protect targeted communities. And please, if you are able, make a gift today to support ADL’s critical work.

Fighting Hate, In Real Time!

Jonathan Greenblatt
CEO and National Director

P.S. Extremists are growing bolder and bolder in targeting schools and religious institutions. Help ADL respond to these threats today when your gift can do twice as much good.