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Dear ADL friends,

2022 has been a really long year. (So this is going to be a long email; but stick with me... the work you and the rest of the ADL community have done in the face of so many challenges this year is worth remembering.)

Starting the year off on a terrifying note, in January a gunman with delusions about Jewish power took the rabbi and congregants of a synagogue in Colleyville TX hostage. He hoped that Jews could arrange to free a Muslim terrorist being held in a nearby prison. Thankfully, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker stayed calm and kept a conversation going with the hostage-taker and law enforcement, and then he seized his moment to help his congregants dash for freedom. Rabbi Charlie, who relied in part on ADL security training at that terrifying moment, now works alongside ADL to help pass that knowledge on to others.

In February, talk show host Whoopi Goldberg carelessly implied that there wasn’t a racial element to the Holocaust during an episode of ‘The View.’ After criticism from ADL and others, Goldberg apologized and graciously invited me to join her on the show to discuss the Holocaust. This was just the first of many celebrity-driven incidents of antisemitic rhetoric this year.

In late February and March, Russian troops poured into Ukraine while Putin and his allies tried to muddy the waters by calling the Ukraine leadership ‘Nazis’ and claiming that the invasion was in part a denazification effort. ADL spoke out to support refugees and condemn the invasion. We welcomed to our virtual stage former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky to share his insights; even many months later,
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his thoughts on what is motivating Putin are fascinating.

Also worth a watch is the series of
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‘Antisemitism Uncovered’ videos that ADL released in March. The seven short videos in the series make powerful points about the antisemitic tropes that continue to drive anti-Jewish hate and were front and center in notable incidents this year.

At the end of March, we were pleased that Dr. Deborah Lipstadt was finally confirmed as the Biden Administration’s Antisemitism Envoy by the Senate. This was thanks in part to the entire ADL community who joined our push for her confirmation and sent thousands of messages of support to their Senators. She chatted with me during an ADL Fighting Hate from Home event just a few months later, in the wake of her travels to the Middle East and elsewhere as a high-profile advocate against antisemitism.
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You can watch highlights here.

The release of our annual
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Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in April brought attention to a shocking finding; the new Audit showed 2,717 antisemitic incidents throughout the United States during 2021, ranging from harassment to vandalism to violent assaults. This was by far the highest level since ADL began tracking incidents decades ago. Shortly after, we launched a major new initiative — the
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ADL Center for Antisemitism Research. This applied research network will conduct experiments and innovate approaches to deepen our understanding of antisemitism and make the Jewish community safer by ruthlessly testing and tracking what has the most impact.

Another bright spot in 2022 was No Place for Hate Day, recognizing one of the flagship programs of the ADL Education team, which this year included over 1.4 million students and over 125,000 educators in 1,800+ schools across the country. This student-driven initiative promotes inclusion, respect and equity to children so they learn to reject hate from an early age.
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Are the schools in your community involved?

Sadly, May also brought tragedy when a
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white supremacist gunman attacked a Buffalo supermarket in a heavily black neighborhood, killing 10 people. He subscribed to an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews were involved in a plot to ‘replace’ white people with people of color. This tragedy was yet another reminder of the devastating impact of the virulent conspiracy theories spreading online. ADL was on the ground in Buffalo hours after the shooting and stayed for three more days providing comfort to the community and perspective to the media.

In June, an anonymous group released the
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‘Mapping Project,’ spreading false antisemitic claims about a conspiracy of ‘Zionism, Policing and Empire’ throughout Massachusetts. The secretive project shared names and locations online of a wide range of targets, from ADL to Jewish schools, synagogues and the Harvard Medical School and called for resistance and disruption. ADL helped build an alliance to denounce this effort to scapegoat Jews and support those impacted by the campaign.

Later in the summer, ADL rolled out our
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COMBAT plan. This blueprint calls on leaders at every level of government to condemn antisemitism, authorize and improve hate crimes laws, stop the spread of antisemitism online and protect Jewish institutions targeted by antisemitic acts. We also released
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a new investigation from the ADL Center for Technology and Society revealing deep levels of failure by Twitter to remove blatantly antisemitic tweets, even after we reported it to them. Sadly, things went from bad to worse with Twitter this year, as the prominent platform became increasingly hate-filled following its sale to Elon Musk in October.

In September, as we got closer to the elections, our ADL Center on Extremism did a deep dive into a
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leaked list of Oath Keeper members. We revealed that alarmingly high numbers of current and past members of law enforcement, the military and elected officials were connected to this right-wing anti-government extremist group.

That same month, we took part in the White House’s bipartisan ‘United We Stand’ Summit to tackle violent extremism and its corrosive effects on our democracy. This summit, and the actions that followed, show the importance of the collaborative efforts that ADL has been pushing via our
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PROTECT Plan. In December, we saw another promising step as the Biden Administration launched a task force to develop national strategies to combat antisemitism. We look forward to contributing to its success.

Ye, the entertainer formerly known as
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Kanye West, quickly became one of the most visible antisemitic voices in the country this fall. His hateful rhetoric permeated the media as he went from hanging out with Nick Fuentes of the Proud Boys to praising Hitler and denying the Holocaust. Extremists hung banners on freeways praising his antisemitic broadsides, and just last week, a Jewish man walking in New York was violently attacked by a man making antisemitic comments and yelling ‘Kanye 2024.’ One silver lining was that our ADL community came together to demand apparel company Adidas cut lucrative ties to Ye, which they and many other businesses did. Adidas went on to partner with us to promote anti-bias initiatives
in sports and schools.

High-profile antisemitic messages continued to proliferate, with basketball star Kyrie Irving promoting a book and film that trade in deeply antisemitic themes promoted by extremists within the
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Black Hebrew Israelites movement. Those products remain on Amazon, though
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ADL will continue to press for them to be removed or otherwise labeled as the messages of hate that they are.

In November, I was thrilled to be joined in New York and online by thousands of dedicated leaders in the fight against antisemitism. ADL’s Never Is Now Summit, the world’s largest annual event of its kind, was back in person for the first time since the pandemic hit, and it was a truly inspiring event featuring breakout sessions on key issues as well as remarks from President Biden, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla. If you were not in attendance (or even if you were and just want to watch a breakout you missed), check out the
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Never Is Now playlist on YouTube.

Earlier this month, another devastating extremist shooting hit Colorado Springs, where five people were killed in an attack on an LGBTQ+ nightclub. The
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ADL Center on Extremism continues to monitor the ongoing threats to the LGBTQ+ community and provides insights on the hateful groups behind them.

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As the year comes to a close, there have also been beautiful moments of light as we celebrate Hanukkah. Small moments like the delicious sufganiyot [holiday doughnuts] that are selling out quickly in New York City with proceeds going to help fight hate with ADL. And large-scale moments like the
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Shine A Light campaign against antisemitism which is being lifted up by individuals and companies ranging from law firms to the NFL and that illuminate buildings across the country including this American Eagle billboard in Times Square.

During all of these unprecedented moments, the ADL community was there, vigilant in rejecting antisemitism and finding ways to Fight Hate for Good. We thank all of you for joining us in 2022.

Your support for ADL’s mission, to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all, has been vital this year.

Here’s to a more peaceful and inclusive year to come!
Sincerely,

Jonathan Greenblatt
CEO and National Director
ADL

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