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The ADL Pushes “Tolerance”?: Why I’m Leaving after 25 Years

By Carl Pearlston

Jewish World Review | June 4, 2001

PHOTO: ADL’s Abraham Foxman

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols2/inspector.jpg

CAPTION: Foxman never tires in his search for ‘hate’ – real or imagined

MY love affair with the ADL began almost 25 years ago. It has just

ended with a curt note from the Board President advising

me that I haven’t shown a sufficient “demonstration of commitment

to the ADL” to warrant retention on the Executive Committee or the

Regional Board.” How did it come to this?

I had been nominated to the Board by a judge with whom

I had worked during the heady civil rights years, and then

to the Executive Committee by the head of the Speakers

Bureau, for which I was very active. Not that the

romance had not been rocky. I had always known that my

conservative Republican political views were barely

tolerated by my overwhelmingly liberal colleagues, and I

was tempted to keep them to myself. We were nominally

a non-partisan organization, but our meetings frequently

felt uncomfortably like those of a Democratic Party club

in which it was assumed that all shared a common liberal

or “progressive” political worldview and none could, or

wanted to, hear a differing viewpoint.

Just after the recent presidential election, our Director

accosted me at a meeting with a vehement “You stole

the election!” Our positions were usually those of the

liberal wing of the Democratic party on issues like

abortion, school choice, teacher pay, bilingual education,

affirmative action, the homosexual agenda, gun control.

I once cited the comprehensive study by Yale University

Law School’s Dr. John Lott on gun laws to the effect that

in those states where people could legally carry

concealed weapons, crimes against people actually

declined, since criminals do not want to take a chance

that their victim may be armed. I was met with the

sarcastic and dismissive response that “Only John Lott,

[talk show host and JWR columnist] Larry Elder and you

believe in that study.”

There was not a great tolerance for diversity of viewpoint nor

introduction of new information. I was barred from distributing

a member did once tell me that at least I kept them honest — i.e. they

were forced to at least be exposed to — even if not to consider, a

different view.

But, it was an uphill struggle.

When I once confessed to our National Director, Abe

Foxman, my feelings of just spinning my wheels, he

candidly told me that I would have to realize that over

95 percent of those involved in the ADL were liberal and would

be unsympathetic to my conservative views.

DEMONIZING EXPONENTS OF JEWISH VALUES

Lack of sympathy frequently translated into lack of

civility. For example, at several meetings, there were

objections that Dr. Laura Schlesinger’s radio program and

planned TV program was offensive and insensitive to

homosexuals. I pointed out that her views enunciate

traditional Jewish values which deserve the support of a

Jewish defense organization, and was greeted with

derision and intemperate, hostile responses. When it

came to the issue of homosexuals versus the Boy

Scouts, ADL chose the homosexuals, all the way to the

Supreme Court.

Then, in its otherwise commendable nationwide

partnership with Barnes and Noble in the program Hate

Hurts, which sponsors books and educates teachers and

young children to fight hate, the ADL endorsed the books

Heather Has Two Mommies and Steve Has Two Daddies

as suitable tools for teaching tolerance to young children.

Teachers’ workshops and children’s reading groups were

organized, using these and other books in conjunction

with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network

(GLSEN), which had earlier achieved a certain notoriety

for its own school workshops wherein teenagers were

taught the fine points of “fisting” and other homosexual

practices.

TURNING JUDAISM ON ITS HEAD

In this manner, fighting “hate” became a euphemism for

an attack on sexual morality, the traditional family, and

the Jewish view that children deserve a loving father and

mother, not two fathers or two mothers. It is only

through a perverse notion of “tolerance” that support for

traditional teaching about the family is intimidated, and

condemned.

When Dennis Prager participated by invitation in a panel

discussion on church-state issues, some members

actually hissed and booed his remarks in a hostile display

of intolerance. A respected board member persistently

repeated to all who would hear that Prager was insane.

When the organization published its harsh attack on the

Religious Right in 1994, I was distressed as were many

politically conservative Jews who do not share the ADL

view that politically-active conservative Christians are

our enemy. As (Jewish) syndicated columnist and JWR

contributor Mona Charen wrote, “The ADL has

committed defamation. There is no other conclusion to

be reached after reading its new report, The Religious

Right: the Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America.

It is sad that an organization with a proud history of

fairness should have descended to this kind of character

assassination and name calling.”

A Board member of another affiliate was forced to resign

because he publicly expressed disagreement with that

report. It seems that the term “religious right” is a

talisman used to invoke a reflexive response of hostility

without thought. So deep was the antagonism that when

Ralph Reed, then head of the Christian Coalition,

appeared at an ADL leadership conference and gave a

heartfelt apology for past insensitivity, prejudice, and

discrimination by Christians toward Jews, the private

response by most members to his apology was hostility

and distrust.

CONSTRUCTING A SOLID WALL BETWEEN ‘SYNAGOGUE AND STATE’

There was a particular intolerance on the issue of

church-state. The theory that freedom of religion require

“strict separation of church and state” was transformed

into hostility to any public display of religion in general, to

Christianity in particular, and even to Judaism. I do not

understand the logic of a Jewish organization expending

its time and resources to forbid the public display of the

chief gift of the Jews to civilization– The Ten

Commandments. Nor does it seem appropriate for us to

engage in litigation to forbid another Jewish organization

(Chabad) from displaying a Menorah on public property. I

was told that such a display would encourage other

religious groups, including Moslems, to exercise their

right to similar displays.

Well, why shouldn’t they? It is implicit in the meaning of

freedom of religious expression and religious diversity, a

freedom we have so long struggled to attain for

ourselves. It is not in our country’s interest for us to

demand a naked public square, devoid of any reference to

G-d. Our cramped view of religious expression led us to

oppose even the observance of a moment of silence in

schools as being likely to encourage prayer.

The issue of parental choice in education, either by tax

credits or vouchers, met with unwavering opposition

based on what I believe is an erroneously perceived

constitutional doctrine of “separation of church and

state,” along with a strong commitment to the teacher’s

unions. At one meeting, I questioned Abe Foxman as to

what the ADL would do in the likely event that the US

Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of school

vouchers. He said the ADL would never agree and would

continue to press the court until the decision was

reversed and the ADL viewpoint was adopted.

“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT!”

Then, as he passed the table where my wife and I were

sitting, he said to me, “You shouldn’t have asked that

question.” I then realized that the bloom was really off the

romance.

I had always strongly believed in the ADL’s mission, as

defined on a banner frequently displayed at the front of

our meetings: “… to stop the defamation of the Jewish

people, and secure justice and fair treatment to all

citizens alike….” Our efforts against anti-Semitism were

without peer. We were a Jewish organization primarily

concerned with issues affecting the Jewish community,

and secondarily with equality and fair enforcement of

laws for everyone. I recall that many times in days past

we deferred action on an item on the grounds that it was

not related to Jewish community, and was thus beyond

our purview.

AS ANTI-SEMITISM DECLINES, FINDING A NEW NEED TO EXIST

As years passed, the purview kept increasing along with

the budget. While overt, and even latent, anti-Semitism

was decreasing, our traditional mission as defender of the

Jewish community was expanded to defender of all. We

have become just another of many leftist “rights”

organizations. This realization was confirmed when I saw

a new banner, displaying an unfamiliar mission statement:

“…dedicated to translating democratic ideals into a way

of life for all Americans in our time.”

This grandiose expansion of mission has had other

consequences. The curbing of defamation — an action

that has expanded to curbing of hate — a feeling, or

emotion, or state of mind. If we can change people’s

minds and the way they think, we will not have to control

their actions. The program for changing hearts and minds,

A World of Difference, was created in 1985 to change

prejudiced feelings through “sensitivity training”. It is

reportedly very successful, highly commended, and

widely used by governmental agencies and many

companies.

Unfortunately, my exposure to the program at a

leadership conference indicated that teaching the values

of diversity, multiculturalism, and cultural relativism

resulted in denigrating the values and achievements of

Western civilization and the desirability of a common

American identity. There is now a nationwide industry of

multicultural activists teaching various “sensitivity”

programs which increase awareness of racial identity,

and result in racial separation and racial hostility.

CREATION OF A ‘CRIME’

This focus on eliminating “hate” logically led to the

creation of “hate crimes,” in which, a two-tier system of

criminality was created: 1) those who commit crimes of

violence for any reason other than hate, and 2) those

who do injury solely because they hate the status or

class of the victim (race, s**, nationality, religion,

disability, occupation, sexual orientation, etc), Criminals

of the latter class are punished more severely than those

of the former, even though both may commit the same

violent crime.

The punishment is levied on the thought, or feeling, or

state of mind of the criminal and not the action, in keeping

with the emphasis on eliminating and punishing hateful

thoughts and feelings. Creating preferred classes of crime

victims is not a proper function of the American criminal

justice system. Nor does it seem desirable to federalize

and supplant state criminal law enforcement, which is

what results from enacting “hate crime” legislation at the

federal level.

The concept of “hate crimes” inevitably leads to that of

“hate speech”, in which offensive, insensitive, or hurtful

speech is legally banned, as it is in Canada where the

criminal law punishes offensive speech as a form of group

defamation. A minister was arrested there for publicly

preaching, in accordance with the tenets of his faith, that

the practice of homosexuality was immoral.

CHEAPENING THE HOLOCAUST

The ADL has properly rejected repeated demands by

some of its leaders for adoption of similar group

defamation laws as violating our free speech guarantees.

At the same time, the ADL has led the effort to abate

hateful speech not only in the public, but even the private

forum in the interest of “tolerance”. There have been

repeated condemnations of various incidents of speech

deemed hateful, hurtful, insensitive, or embarrassing to

particular groups. All too frequently, however, free

speech and the expression of religious belief have been

the targets of these condemnations, such as religious

references by political candidates, Christian prayers at

the inauguration, religious symbolism in comics,

expressions of religious beliefs by sports figures, or even

expressions of the politically incorrect, as was the case

when conservative activist David Horowitz was

condemned as racially insensitive for placing ads in

college papers denying the wisdom, fairness, and

practicality of the growing movement for Slavery

Reparations.

The ADL has illogically compared those ads to ones

denying the Holocaust, while ignoring the issue of free

speech curtailment in the violent reactions by students

and compliant acts by college administrators to censor

the ads and prevent intelligent discussion of the

significant issue involved.

GIVING UP MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH

The ADL has always been a firm and loyal supporter of

Israel, but it was also an early and naive advocate of the

now-defunct Oslo peace process, to the ultimate

detriment of actual peace. I frequently complained that

we concentrated more on the process than the

substance of peace, and that true peace was unlikely to

occur since the root problem was not how much land

Israel would give up, but Arab refusal to accept a viable

Jewish state. All of our “insider” briefings on the Mideast

downplayed the risk to Israel posed by an armed

Palestinian Authority or Palestinian state, and held out

rosy and unrealistic prognostications of peace.

For example, at a leadership conference, we were treated

to a talk by an Arab Ambassador urging us to take steps

for peace, which translated into urging support for the

election of Labor (Peres) over Likud (Netanyahu) in the

coming election. It was portrayed, and accepted by many

attendees, as a last chance for peace that was almost

within our grasp. Most of us now see, in light of the past

year’s warfare, that the “peace” being urged was illusory

and chimerical. So blinding was this hope for peace that,

as reported, ADL had complimented the PA on their new

school textbooks without even having read them,

completely overlooking the virulent anti-Semitism

contained therein. When I questioned our National

Director about this, I became the target of attack and

public humiliation for bringing up the matter. Nor did I

endear myself by dwelling on our National Director’s

central role on behalf of the ADL in devising and wangling

a pardon for criminal fugitive tax-evader Marc Rich.

When I expressed my views on some of these matters in

various letters and articles, in which I was not identified

as an ADL Board member, I was rebuked in a stern letter

from our President advising that I had publicly taken

positions contrary to ADL policy, which was not

permitted. I had not realized that, as the price of Board

membership, I had given up my freedom of speech on

issues on which the ADL had taken a position.

This was much like the old Leninist doctrine of

“democratic centralism”, in which debate is allowed only

before a policy is adopted, and no dissent is tolerated

thereafter. It seems odd that an organization which

boastfully espouses and teaches “tolerance” and

“diversity”, will not tolerate a bit of dissent and diverse

viewpoint in its own lay leadership.

——————————-

Carl Pearlston, a national board member of Toward

Tradition, writes from California. Comment by

clicking here. [ schmooze@jewishworldreview.com ]

See how ADL’s parent organization B’nai Brith has financially aided an

Anti-American communist agitator with this link:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=&selm=8hqsdv4c67ida5vp7bfdl9f9rt8cj405hd%404ax.com&rnum=1

Subject: Tax Exempt Religious Org (B’nai Brith) Gave Communist Financial and Moral Support

Message-ID: <8hqsdv4c67ida5vp7bfdl9f9rt8cj405hd@4ax.com>

Date: 4 Jun 2003 21:52:32 GMT

Tavish