The ADL was founded by and for Jews to combat prejudice and discrimination against Jews. I do not see anything wrong with calling it a Jewish organization, regardless of how many gentiles it employs. It is also a civil rights organization - those aren't mutually exclusive! - ThreadSky

bjorning.bsky.social • 6 days ago

The ADL was founded by and for Jews to combat prejudice and discrimination against Jews. I do not see anything wrong with calling it a Jewish organization, regardless of how many gentiles it employs. It is also a civil rights organization - those aren't mutually exclusive!

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zp3123.bsky.social•6 days ago

Perhaps it was that when it was founded, but it became much more than that. It became an org that monitors and combats extremism against all people, working with the FBI, filing amicus briefs, performing police bias trainings, etc. It had actually made a big effort to recruit non-Jews.

bjorning.bsky.social•6 days ago

All of which was in service of combatting antitsemitism, which makes sense if you understand two important things about it. The first is that antisemitism is the intellectual core of white supremacism. The second is that bigots tend to collect ever more bigotries, inevitably including antisemitism.

bjorning.bsky.social•6 days ago

It is not a bad thing for a Jewish institution to recruit non-Jews, nor does it make it any less of a Jewish institution. This is similar to Catholic hospitals and universities: many of their employees and the people who use them are not Catholic, but the institutions are still Catholic.

zp3123.bsky.social•6 days ago

I don’t really care to argue this further, but it split from B’nai B’rith in 1913. It may be associated with Jews, but it’s certainly not religious, has traditionally (not now) sought to protect all civil rights, and been comprised of many non-Jews. Catholicism is a religion. Being Jewish isn’t.

bjorning.bsky.social•6 days ago

It's an imperfect analogy, naturally, but I think it holds. Regardless, I've no hard feelings. Be well, and have a happy Purim next week.

zp3123.bsky.social•6 days ago

You as well!

zp3123.bsky.social•6 days ago

This was before a couple years ago. It has reverted to just a Jewish org focused on college kids and Israel advocacy. But it hasn’t dropped its second mission from its website yet.

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