New York, NY, December 19, 2006 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued a statement in response to news accounts about anti-Semitic statements allegedly made by Judith Regan in her dispute with News Corporation's HarperCollins.

According to news accounts, Ms. Regan said to a HarperCollins attorney, "Of all people Jews should know about ganging up, finding common enemies, and telling the big lie."  She also allegedly claimed several HarperCollins employees constituted "a Jewish cabal…conspiring against me."

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement: 

One can only wonder what motivated Judith Regan to make a Jewish issue out of her dispute with the News Corporation's HarperCollins.   If Ms. Regan did make the charge that a Jewish cabal was conspiring against her, she clearly stepped over the line by employing the age-old anti-Semitic canard that Jews conspire against non-Jews.  She also gives credence to the conspiracy theory that Jews control the media.

 

Whatever her dispute with HarperCollins, the Jewishness of her critics had absolutely no relevance to the matter at hand, which leads one to question why she resorted to raising "the Jewish issue."