As prepared for delivery
Thank you for being here. Thank you for serving as leaders in the fight against antisemitism. And thank you for bringing your passion, energy, and concern to this summit.
Last month, I spoke in Stamford, Connecticut at the Jewish Agency’s annual conference of North American shlichim.
Working on college campuses and in our communities, these young emissaries from Israel embody the people-to-people connections that link American Jews to the land of our ancestors.
From the nearly 400 emissaries, at the start of my talk, I requested a show of hands. “How many of you,” I asked them, “know somebody who – or you yourself -- directly lost a loved-one – a family member or friend -- in the October 7th attacks?”
I waited for a second and then, silently, every single person raised a hand. Every single one. Four hundred young Israelis, from every corner of the country.
Now I want to ask you: if you or someone you know has experienced or witnessed an act of antisemitism here in America since 10/7, raise your hand.
If you or someone you know has been physically assaulted, harassed, or intimidated for being Jewish since 10/7, raise your hands.
If you know a college student who no longer feels safe or welcome on campus since 10/7, raise your hand.
If you’ve read vile and hateful antisemitic slurs in your social media feeds since 10/7, raise your hands.
And if, since 10/7, you have felt alone, abandoned, and let down by those you believed were your colleagues and classmates, friends and allies, raise your hands.
Take a moment and look around.
What we are seeing here today mirrors what ADL’s researchers have seen since October 7th.
Following that horrible day, we recorded a 360 percent surge in such incidents just in the first three months alone – a staggering 3,291 antisemitic acts. That’s an average of 34 antisemitic each and every day.
It’s shocking. It’s infuriating. And it…must…stop.
[pause]
Now, when I left the White House to lead ADL almost a decade ago, I never thought this is where we’d be. After all, that year ADL’s research recorded the lowest level of people with what we call “very antisemitic” attitudes since 1964.
In such a world, I believed ADL would, of course, still battle the remnants of antisemitism, but mostly we’d focus on the second part of our dual mission: “securing justice and fair treatment to all” -- lending our resources to the broader fight for civil rights and social justice, to dedicate our capabilities against the racism facing other communities and the bigotry plaguing other segments of society.
This too would help keep even this low level of antisemitism at bay.
And over the past decade, I am proud of the work we have accomplished -- such as developing Spanish language training to assist Latinos targeted because of their identities; helping to incubate and launch The Asian-American Foundation that has raised more than $1.1 billion to support the AAPI community…standing up and lending our credibility to stop the swelling tide for a Muslim registry back in 2016…and co-leading the 60th anniversary March on Washington just this past August– to name just a few examples.
Again, I am proud of all of this work. I am committed to all of these fights. I believe in them with every fiber of my being.
But slowly and then suddenly, it has become clearer and clearer that we must prioritize the first part of ADL’s mission: “stop the defamation of the Jewish people.”
Or as our friends at JewBelong so succinctly put it, “new plan: put on your own oxygen mask first.”
My friends, you have heard me liken antisemitism to climate change. Well, we are on the other side now and the storm is here – a tsunami of bigotry and hate threatens the Jewish community here in the United States and around the world.
You know, I always thought that the phrase “existential” was overused, a bit melodramatic.
But this indeed, is a fight for our existence, a battle, not just for the Jewish people, but for America – a country founded on the promise George Washington gave the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, that this will be a nation that “gives bigotry no sanction, persecution no assistance.”
We are in a fight for that idea, for our existence as we know it, literally.
Now, it happens that even before 10/7, we at ADL saw how the world was changing. From Pittsburgh to Poway, Crown Heights to Colleyville, insurrectionists at the Capitol to apologists for Islamist terror on campuses.
So, even before that awful day in October, we already were undergoing a rigorous long-term planning process. And our new strategic framework is one that takes ADL onward, ready for this new October 8th reality.
First, we are working to change the narrative by reframing the public dialogue and piloting new approaches to fighting antisemitism – from in-depth message research to evaluating effective interventions, jumping into TikTok and Instagram, and grading the universities on how they are protecting their Jewish students.
All of you have a critical role to play in these efforts. Throughout the next four days, you’ll be hearing from our speakers about the latest messaging that we have tested that resonates with the public, about the latest initiatives that reduce anti-Jewish hate, to the latest information that you can use as alumni to pressure your alma mater to address antisemitism once and for all.
Second, we’re moving from a model of advocacy to activation – in which we do more than ask for help from leaders; now, we will provide tools to tap the latent energy that has been building on all of the WhatsApp chats and Facebook Groups and text chains that exploded since 10/7. We don’t want to get in the way, but simply to help channel this grassroots energy for maximum impact.
One example of this is our new Campus Antisemitism Legal Line – CALL for short – for Jewish students and faculty to report antisemitism on campus. We brought together Hillel, the Brandeis Center, Gibson Dunn along with a handful of most prominent law firms in the country so that each incident gets assessed and if need be, the legal attention it needs.
In just the first few months, we have handled nearly 500 complaints across more than 200 campuses, trained hundreds of attorneys, and they spent thousands of hours to evaluate the most promising cases. Last week, we launched a hotline for K-12 schools. And well, we’re just getting started.
Third, we’re going on offense -- disrupting the extremists by taking the fight to them.
ADL has been working closely with law enforcement officials, policy makers and university administrators to make sure that all of the key stakeholders understand how specific actors on and off campus spread hate and in some cases support terror.
We are pressuring them -- not to create new guidelines or to suppress free speech -- but simply to enforce their own policies and the laws already on the books that are designed to prevent harassment and avoid abuse.
And we are making sure that they understand that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews and millions of other people who will not tolerate this hate any more.
Simply: we’re putting the bigots and antisemites on notice: ADL is coming after you.
Now, some of these may be novel approaches or new areas of emphasis. That’s because the world has changed and so have we.
However, our work to combat antizionism and the antisemitism it represents is nothing new.
It wasn’t new when I stood on the floor of the United Nations in May 2016 at a summit to fight BDS and said, “antizionism is antisemitism.”
It wasn’t new when I spoke to this very conference two years ago and stated again that “antizionism is antisemitism.”
And let’s be clear. Despite what some members of Congress or so-called activists might say, antizionism is not criticizing Israeli government policies. It’s not saying, “I don’t like Bibi” or “I am opposed to settlements in the West Bank.”
No, antizionism is a categorical rejection of Jewish rights, a campaign to suppress Jewish sovereignty – alone among all of the nations on the planet Earth.
It’s a denial of our peoplehood, a rejection of our tie to the land that stretches across the millennia, a negation of the basic premise that has animated Jewish aspirations since the year 70 CE and the fall of the second Temple.
But don’t take my word for it.
I would invite anyone – go sit in on a Seder, observe a Jewish wedding, or just open a prayer book in any synagogue anywhere on Earth. And you will be reminded of a simple, incontestable fact: Zionism and the Jewish tie to the land of Israel goes back thousands of years.
Listen: I am not going to recount all the absurdities of the antizionist extremists or their attacks on the Jewish community, but let me say this:
After experiencing the surge of anti-Jewish hate over the past 150 days, how can you not understand that antizionism is antisemitism?
How can you not understand that vandalizing a restaurant such as the one owned by Michael Solomonov who is here tonight…or screaming at students walking into Hillel for a Havdalah service are not forms of legitimate protest against Israeli policy?
And how can you not accept that assaulting a Jewish person anywhere is unacceptable…that shooting unarmed teenagers at a peace concert isn’t “liberation”…and that the rape and mutilation of women is never “resistance”?
This is a moral crisis, and to face it we need our allies, and most of all, we need to unify within our community.
Some of us are Republicans, some are Democrats, and some can’t stand either party.
Some of us never miss a Shabbat morning at shul, and some spend Saturday mornings on the golf course.
Some of us watch FOX, and some of us watch MSNBC.
And when it comes to battling antisemitism, none of this matters.
The time to keep score has long since passed.
It’s time to get over this partisan anger and realize that we will not agree on everything, but we are all in this together.
It’s time to wake up and realize that we will not agree on everything…but we can’t afford ideological purity.
Like it or not, we are in this together.
And that is why as ADL adapts and journeys further into this October 8th world, we will continue to build partnerships within the Jewish community like we have with AEPi and ZBT, BBYO and NCSY, the Reform and the Conservative movements, OneTable and Lost Tribe, CSI and CSS, with Federations and Hillels far and wide, and the list will continue to grow.
We will unify our Jewish communities around the world – through the J7, a new group ADL pulled together this year so that the largest diaspora Jewish communities are leaning on and learning from each other.
And we will seek allies outside our community too.
Don’t get me wrong: I am clear-eyed about how too many Americans have reacted to the events of the past several months.
There have been many Americans who have spoken out or who tell pollsters that they oppose Hamas, but they are too many – more vocal and in positions of power on campus, in newsrooms, in corporate suites, and in elected office – who have shown their true colors with their bewildering silence or moral blindness.
What will it take for our fellow Americans to wake up and confront antisemitism in earnest?
How much evil is required to shake the conscience of our neighbors?
What will it take for our fellow Americans to wake up to the world of October 8 and the new reality we face?
The answer is simple: it’s us.
ADL and our partners together will lead the way. And each of you has a critical role in this fight.
Over the next four days, you will have an opportunity to hear from our speakers, meet with ADL staff, and get to know one another.
You will leave here armed with resources and new allies.
You will be better prepared to identify hate when it arises and build the community coalitions needed to fight back effectively.
You will be America’s first line of defense against antisemitism – and the first line of offense against our enemies.
So, I will end – as I began – by requesting a show of hands.
If you’ve had enough of rising antisemitism in your community, raise your hands.
If you’re eager to get home and get in the fight, clap those hands.
If you’re determined to fight hate and beat back the antisemites, let me hear those hands.
And if you’re proud to be here as part of this vanguard, standing in solidarity with other leaders and with ADL, let’s hear it loudly.
Together, we say: enough!
Thank you.