The editors at New York first began considering a story on the Anti-Defamation League, the powerful anti-hate organization, after Inauguration Day this year, when Elon Musk, onstage at a pro-Trump rally in D.C., performed not one but two Sieg heil salutes. In a bizarre move, the ADL took to its official X account to post in Musk’s defense, describing his actions as an “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute” and asking for a “bit of grace” for the billionaire.
Many outside observers already thought of the ADL as a rightish group — in the time since October 7, 2023, especially, it had called for crackdowns on campus speech and consistently equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. But for an organization that exists to defend Jewish people, denying Musk’s salute seemed to cross a new line. What was going on inside the ADL?
For our new report, Noah Shachtman, the former editor-in-chief of Rolling Stone and the Daily Beast, spoke to more than 40 current and former ADL staffers, donors, board members, interlocutors in government, and other allies. Seventeen of these sources, all of whom were either previously employed by or closely affiliated with the organization, have chosen to quit or part ways with the ADL in recent years. Noah learned, among much else, that the ADL has made an explicit and intentional decision to prioritize the fight against anti-Zionism over all else. In the view of many insiders, the result has been a catastrophe. But its executives, led by national director Jonathan Greenblatt, have largely held firm. Last week, in a post on X, one acknowledged the “suffering of children” in Gaza, but their telling left the source of this suffering unclear. “There is no famine,” the executive wrote, “and no starvation.”
—Katie Ryder, features editor, New York
