Foxman: scourge of haters and a tough act to follow

Part of Mr Foxman’s success as director of the ADL has been his ability appeal to a plurality of Jewish communities in the US, regardless of their religious affiliation. Key to that appeal is his willingness to criticise injustice wherever he sees it.

When Mel Gibson’s film The Passion hit the cinemas it was Mr Foxman’s voice that the media was clamouring to hear. Characteristically, he did not pull his punches when he said: “I think he’s infected, seriously infected, with some very, very serious antisemitic views.”

The ADL was never an organisation concerned “just” with antisemitism. Mr Foxman has stood up numerous times for the gay community and against Islamophobia, even when doing so has generated controversy.

Controversy is something that has dogged him throughout his career. He made headline news in the New York Times for all the wrong reasons by coming out against the building of a mosque near Ground Zero. The story led to him and the ADL being tarnished by the brush of Islamophobia in the US. He also sparked controversy when he argued against a 2007 Congress resolution recognising the Armenian genocide.

From his early life, Mr Foxman was exposed to the very worst antisemitism. He was born in Poland in 1940 and was hidden with his nanny’s Catholic family while his parents were forced into the ghetto. After the war, his parents had to fight to win custody of him from the people who hid him. They then emigrated to the US.

Mr Foxman qualified as a lawyer and began his career in Jewish advocacy at 25. The ADL — and indeed the American Jewish community — has changed a great deal since then but it has always been able to rely on the guiding hand of Mr Foxman.

He will be a tough act to follow.

Marc Goldberg is a blogger and commentator based in Israel