To the editor: The recent op-ed attacking the Anti-Defamation League is outrageous and inaccurate. As a former president of the ADL Board of Directors for the Los Angeles region, I can attest that the ADL takes our joint mission very seriously. The ADL has spent countless hours standing up for marginalized groups while fighting anti-Semitism. This is right and fair. Even if the ADL did not oppose hatred of all kinds, which it does, it would be perfectly acceptable to denounce anti-Semitism against Jewish students.
In Mark Dery’s article, he simultaneously validates the hateful rhetoric emerging from the “pro-Palestinian” community and then criticizes the ADL and compares it to McCarthyism for attempting to shed light on hate speech and conduct.
This is a rewriting of history, but the facts remain and the court will determine whether laws were violated and whether the plaintiffs are entitled to compensation.
Eric Kingsley, Encino
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To the editor: Dery dismisses the intimidation of Jewish students as an unfortunate but merely “messy” side effect of progressive anger at Israel’s bombing of civilians.
Anti-Semitism is not irrelevant to the Gaza tragedy. It is anti-Semitism that is at the heart of Hamas’s raison d’être. It is Hamas that started this conflict with a truly genocidal attack on Jews on October 7. The Occidental College student who was afraid to wear her Star of David on campus is a sister of the many young women who were raped and mutilated by Hamas on October 7. Dery’s failure to understand this is at the root of the insensitivity of so many progressive students, gentile and Jewish, toward the sacredness of the Zionist ideal dedicated to the self-protection of Jews in a world where anti-Semitism is very much alive, from American synagogues where members have to pay an extra fee to maintain security protection during church services to the music festival killing fields in Israel where the Netanyahu government failed to protect its own citizens.
Contrary to Dery's beliefs, the work of the Anti-Defamation League is more important than ever.
Peter Brier, Altadena
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To the editor: I was dismayed by Dery’s op-ed attacking the Anti-Defamation League. Behind Dery’s attacks is the ADL’s position that much of what has recently been deemed anti-Zionism on campus is fundamentally anti-Semitic and requires strong condemnation and corrective action under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In making her accusations, Dery blurs the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, failing to distinguish between forceful criticism of Israel (which the ADL says is not anti-Semitic) and speech designed to delegitimize and eliminate Israel’s very existence as a Jewish homeland (which the ADL says is definitely anti-Semitic). In doing so, she denigrates the real-life experience of a student being harassed for expressing her Jewishness. She excuses illegal protests by saying they are okay because they were “peaceful,” and normalizes speech that she admits crosses the line into anti-Semitism.
Richard Moss, Santa Monica
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To the editor: I read Dery's article with great interest. I have enjoyed his writings before, but not this one.
First, it confuses the nation of Israel with the Netanyahu government. It is one thing to protest that government, as tens of thousands of Israeli and American Jews have done and continue to do, but quite another to deny Israel’s right to exist, which is what these campus protests are seeking: the end of Israel “from the river to the sea.” Dery says the ADL “attacks as anti-Semitic anyone who dares to criticize Israel.” That, too, is false. The ADL and its leaders have criticized the Netanyahu government and its extremist right-wing cabinet.
Second, calling the ADL a “hitman for McCarthyite Zionism” is a clever but misplaced play on words. Zionism is, at its core, Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and the ADL’s defense of it is not at all “McCarthyite.” Perhaps Dery is unaware that, in the Senate, McCarthy persecuted Jews with a passion.
Third, Dery downplays the fact that Jewish students on college campuses — including his alma mater — experience physical threats and harassment from students and faculty simply because they are Jewish. In light of this, I can only say that shame on Dery. The ADL’s century-old commitment to its mission statement to “end the defamation of the Jewish people and ensure justice and fair treatment for all” is real, and the ADL and its leaders live by it.
Alan Weil, Los Angeles
