24 | DECEMBER 12 • 2019 

A

be Foxman, former national 
director of the Anti-Defamation 
League (ADL), drew a large 
audience Nov. 20 to the Berman Theater 
to hear his talk on a timely topic: “How 
to Deal with Anti-Semitism in the 21st 
Century.” 
Foxman is a well-known and respected 
activist. Leaving the ADL in 2015 after 
nearly three decades of leadership, he 
helped create in 2016 the Center for the 
Study of Anti-Semitism, which he leads, 
at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New 
York City. 
The presentation was sponsored 
by Partners Detroit, the ADL and the 
Jewish Community Center and hosted 
by Carolyn and Aaron Frankel, who 
introduced Foxman, his longtime friend. 
The format was a fire-side chat between 
Foxman and Rabbi Shragie Myers, exec-
utive director of Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in 
Southfield.
Myers begin by asking Foxman about 
his remarkable personal history and 
path to ADL. Foxman was born in 1940, 
shortly after the Soviet Union took the 

eastern part of Poland and the Holocaust 
began to take shape. Before his parents 
were sent to a ghetto in 1941, they sent 
Foxman to live with a Catholic nanny in 
Vilnius, Lithuania. He was reunited with 
his parents in 1944, and the family moved 
to the U.S. in 1950.
Foxman earned a bachelor’
s degree 
from the City College of New York, a law 
degree from New York University, and 
joined the ADL in 1965. He suggested 
this advice when seeking a career: “You 
have to know what you want to do, and 
you have to be lucky.” 
The remainder of Foxman’
s chat was a 
wide-ranging perspective on anti-Semi-
tism, both historical and modern, regard-
ing the ideas he developed during his 
more than 50 years working with ADL. 
He told the crowd to always keep two 
main lessons in mind. First, the study of 
anti-Semitism is not an exact science; and 
second, there is no one single cause for 
anti-Semitism.
“It is a virus without an antidote or a 
vaccine,” he said. “It serves so many mas-
ters for so many reasons.”
Foxman did not declare the fight to 

be futile. He said anti-Semitism can and 
must be attacked through organizations, 
social programs, education and politics. 
Foxman said he was an optimist, that 
there has been progress despite the ebb 
and flow of the fight, and that he believes 
in the future.
He acknowledged anti-Semitism is 
resurgent in America, that the “covers 
are off the sewers.” The pervasive social 
media and online world and the current 
political atmosphere have encouraged 
anti-Semitism, “identity politics,” anti-im-
migration and other extreme positions. 
What can we do? Foxman believes we 
have to avoid the tendency to look to 
the “good old days.” There were none, he 
said. In the modern era, “we need to be 
creative in building a new firewall [against 
anti-Semitism]; we have to be imaginative; 
and we have to be proud.” 
The lesson he has learned is that after 
facing a serious threat, “Jews stand-up, 
brush themselves off and continue to be 
proud of being Jewish.”
The audience was appreciative. Don 
Cohen, a former director of ADL’
s 
Michigan Region, said, “I agree that, 
unfortunately, anti-Semitism is a prob-
lem to be handled rather than solved. 
His focus on constraining and deterring 
anti-Semitic acts rather than changing all 
attitudes was spot-on.” 
Allan Gale, who had a 40-year career at 
the JCRC/AJC in Detroit, thought the chat 
was “very insightful.” 
But, he said, “I have a concern 
anti-Semitism has moved to gun violence,” 
he said, underscoring the importance of 
constraining anti-Semites from acting on 
their beliefs. 

We need to be creative in building a new 
fi
 rewall against anti-Semitism; we have to be 
imaginative; and we have to be proud.

— ABE FOXMAN

MIKE SMITH

Jews in the D

‘Virus with No Antidote’

Former national ADL director says the fi
 ght against anti-Semitism is not futile.

MIKE SMITH CONTRIBUTING WRITER

 
Abe Foxman and Rabbi Shragie Myers in dialogue

