Increase your awareness of religious obligations and ethnic and cultural festivities that may affect students, colleagues and neighbors in your community.
Building a "Third Narrative" with Black and Jewish Religious Leaders in Israel
Article
January 07, 2019 By Rabbi David Fox Sandmel | ADL Director of Interreligious Engagement
I have traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories a number of times with interfaith groups, including Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals and Muslims, among them some African-Americans. A recent trip that brought together rabbis and African-American pastors from around the country, however, was different because the African-American experience and Black-Jewish relations framed the entire…
Remarks by ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to the 109th NAACP Annual Convention
News
Remarks, as delivered, to the NAACP Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas July 16, 2018 Remarks as delivered
Thank you, Gary, and good morning, NAACP! It is so great for me to be here with you today.
You know, two months ago, my friend – and your President and CEO – Derrick Johnson, addressed the Anti-Defamation League at our National Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. in a room a lot like this. And in a speech no one on our side will soon forget,…
What is Everyday Bias? (In English and en español)
Tools and Strategies
Table Talk: Family Conversations about Current Events For Parents, Families, and Caregivers Topic SummaryIt seems like we are seeing more and more news and social media stories about people experiencing bias as they go about their daily lives—riding the subway, shopping in a store, dining in a restaurant and hanging out with friends. Indeed, the surge of such stories makes it seem like racism, sexism, antisemitism and other forms of bias and discrimination are becoming more pervasive…
It's Not OK for Businesses to Discriminate in the Name of Religion
Article
December 01, 2017 By David Barkey, Religious Freedom Counsel & Southeastern Area Counsel
The U.S. Supreme Court soon will hear oral arguments in a case called Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Cakeshop’s owner is asking the Court do something unprecedented – allow him based on religious objections to refuse service to customers for who they are.
ADL recently joined an amicus brief to the Court filed by a coalition of civil rights and religious…
Kentucky Appeals Court Issues Convoluted Decision in Pride Festival T-Shirt Case
Article
May 16, 2017 Last week, the Kentucky Court of Appeals issued a convoluted decision upholding a lower court decision in a case involving LGBT Pride Festival t-shirts. The Court’s ruling overturned a local human rights commission’s determination that a business violated a county anti-discrimination ordinance when it refused to take an order from an LGBT rights organization for the t-shirts.
The Lexington, KY-based Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (“GLSO…
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School, Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Language, Speaking and Listening In commemoration of Women’s History Month, this resource helps educators engage students in thinking broadly and critically about the experience of women and gender in all of its complexity. In highlighting the significant events as well as people that have made a substantial contribution to women’s experience, instruction should…
Remarks by Jonathan Greenblatt CEO of the Anti-Defamation League to Pope Francis
News
by: Jonathan A. Greenblatt | February 09, 2017 Your Holiness,
This week, in synagogues all over the world, Jews will read Shirat Ha-yam, the “Song of the Sea” from the book of Exodus that Miriam, Moses and the Israelites sang after they miraculously passed through the Sea of Reeds on dry land.
As a newly free people, they expressed their thanks to God for their redemption, saying:
Who is like you, o eternal, among the…
For Law Enforcement This document is an archived copy of an older ADL report and may not reflect the most current facts or developments related to its subject matter. Introduction
The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is a small virulently homophobic, anti-Semitic hate group that regularly stages protests around the country, often several times a week. The group pickets institutions and individuals they think suppor t homosexuality or otherwise subvert what they believe is…
Interview with Ami Polonsky, Children's Book Author
Podcast
For Educators | For Parents, Families, and Caregivers In this podcast, Ami Polonsky talks about why she wrote the book, how parents and teachers can discuss gender and transgender identity with young people and the importance of being an ally.
Ami Polonsky is a children’s book author and teacher. Published in 2014, Gracefully Grayson, a middle grade book, is her debut. Formerly a Chicago Public Schools teacher, Ami spent nine years out of the classroom to…
What the Women’s March Teaches Us about Intersectionality
Article
January 24, 2017
On Saturday, January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, 500,000 people gathered in Washington, DC for the Women’s March–to express their unity for women’s issues and to speak out against the demonizing and hateful rhetoric that pervaded the past election cycle. An additional 400,000 marched in New York City , 250,000 in Chicago and according to Women’s March organizers, there were 673 “sister marches&rdquo…
Interfaith Dialogue: A Jew and a Muslim Discuss the Spate of Hate Crimes in Aftermath of 2016 Election
Article
December 21, 2016 Editor’s Note:A Muslim academic and a Jewish interfaith rabbi recently sat down together for a discussion about the spate of hate crimes that have taken place in the aftermath of the 2016 election campaign and what can happen with Jews and Muslims work together to combat hate speech.
The following conversation between Dr. Mehnaz Afridi, Director of the Holocaust and Genocide Institute at Manhattan College, and Rabbi David Sandmel, Director of Interreligious…
8 Ideas for Teaching National Hispanic Heritage Month
Lesson Plan
GRADE LEVEL: Elementary School, Middle School, High School
COMMON CORE STANDARDS: Reading, Writing, Language, Speaking and Listening Commemorating National Hispanic Heritage Month
In commemoration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we present this resource to help teachers engage students in thinking broadly and critically about the Hispanic American experience in all of its complexity. In highlighting the significant events as well as people that have made a substantial contribution…
ADL Welcomes Presbyterian Church's (USA) Support for Jewish Right to Self-Determine
Press Release
Expresses Disappointment for Church’s Endorsement of Report Calling for Alternatives to Two State Solution New York, NY, June 27, 2016 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expressed disappointment at a number of problematic Israel-focused motions endorsed last week by the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly, including a report calling on the church to explore alternatives to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an overture advocating the church study…
by: Rabbi David Sandmel | June 05, 2016 The Times of Israel The General Conference of United Methodist Church recently concluded its quadrennial gathering, which this year was held in Portland, Oregon. I and many others in the Jewish community, not to mention many Christians as well, were pleased with the outcome of a number of votes on resolutions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Inter alia, the Church rejected resolutions calling for divestment or for investment screens…
by: Robert Trestan | March 24, 2016 The Times of Israel There is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to Janet Mock’s decision to cancel her “Redefining Realness” talk at Brown University this week. Ms. Mock, a transgender best-selling author, canceled her talk following pressure from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to reject the invitation due to Brown Hillel’s involvement.
SJP cannot have it both ways — advocating to muzzle a speaker…
Turning Current Events Instruction Into Social Justice Teaching
Article
by: David Robbins March 11, 2016 Jinnie Spiegler
Director of Curriculum, Anti-Defamation League
This blog originally appeared on Edutopia
Marriage equality, refugees seeking safety in Europe, the Confederate flag, police shootings of black and Latino men, the presidential election, Caitlyn Jenner, ISIS, and immigration are just a few of the news stories that inhabited the headlines this year on our phones, laptops, and newspapers. Unlike 20 years ago when…
How Nostra Aetate Transformed Catholic-Jewish Relations
News
by: Jonathan A. Greenblatt | October 27, 2015 PBS - Religion & Ethics Newsweekly The promulgation, on October 28, 1965, of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Church’s Relations with Non-Christian Religions, may be the most important moment is post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian relations and interfaith relations writ large.
In its fourth chapter, Nostra Aetate effectively overturned centuries of what the noted French Jewish historian…
by: Lorraine Array March 23, 2015
Recent incidents around the world remind us of the power of hate and vitriol to permeate our religious, cultural and national borders. ISIS continues to expand its alliances and fear-mongering tactics. The world is in many ways paralyzed to see a way forward, and the need for solutions capable of building bridges of understanding and respect has never been greater.
In this spirit, in early 2013, the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) Connecticut Office…