Rabbi Says ADL Leader Foxman is the Jews' "Worst Enemy"

Rabbi calls ADL leader Foxman the Jews' 'worst enemy'
By LOU MARANO
March 28, 2001 http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/ADL/pardons/UPI280301.html

WASHINGTON, Mar. 28 (UPI) -- Calling secular Judaism's preoccupation
with
victimhood "liberalism with a circumcision," an Orthodox rabbi has given
the "Our
Own Worst Enemy Award" to [Abraham Foxman] the head of the
Anti-Defamation
League.

An ADL official has dismissed the characterization.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin is president of Toward Tradition, a group based in
Mercer
Island, Wa., that describes itself as "a coalition of Jews and
Christians
dedicated to fighting secular institutions that foster anti-Semitism,
harm
families, and jeopardize the future of America." The group bestowed the
"award" upon
ADL National Director AbrahamFoxman on Wednesday.

"The award is given to a Jewish American who exemplifies those cultural
forces that most endanger Jewish continuity, substituting unhealthy
values for
Judaism itself," Toward Tradition said. "Children thus grow up to
dismiss Jewish
identity as, for example, merely with an obsession with death and
persecution,
or as liberalism with a circumcision."

"I think Abe Foxman means well," Lapin said. "But he's deluded by
liberalism,
a worldview preoccupied by victimhood."

The rabbi called attention to Foxman's letter that appeared in the March
23
editions of the New York Times. In it, the ADL leader compared the
newspaper
ads by conservative activist David Horowitz -- who opposes monetary
reparations
to American blacks for being the descendants of slaves -- with Holocaust

deniers.

"Put that together with Foxman's statement last week about the 'big
eruption'
of anti-Semitism in New York, and so on, and you get the picture of a
guy
who's not in close touch with reality," Lapin said.

The rabbi was referring to a March 21 New York Times story in which
Foxman
was quoted as saying: "Anti-Semitism is a disease, and we have seen a
big
eruption of that disease in New York." Foxman based his remark on an ADL
survey that
says anti-Semitic incidents rose by about 49 percent in New York City
last
year.

David Klinghofer, Toward Tradition's editorial director, questions the
survey's validity. Many of the incidents recorded are not crimes, he
said, but
rather "anything anybody perceived as anti-Semitic." The ADL "gets paid
(by
contributors) according to how much anti-Semitism it finds," Klinghofer
told United
Press International Wednesday.

Toward Tradition said that Foxman's "tireless efforts" to convince
American
Jews that they are beset by "a phantom anti-Semitism," when their own
experience suggests otherwise, "have helped to confirm many in the
belief that being a
Jew has to do mainly with being oppressed and hated."

The American Jewish Committee's annual study for 1999 reported that
anti-Semitism is the main concern of 62 percent of American Jews, up 5
points from
1998. This belief pertains "notwithstanding the strength of democratic
institutions and legal protections in the United States," AJC President
Bruce M. Ramer
said at the time.

The study, which was summarized in a June 9, 1999, story in the
Washington
Times, also revealed that American Jews give a low priority to religious

observance and believe recalling the Holocaust is the key to being a
Jew.

In its story, the Times quoted Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, humanities
professor
at New York University, who believes Jews are "absolutely free and
equal" in
America.

"I deplore the survey results," Hertzberg said. "When you say:
'Remember, we
have enemies,' it simply feeds a neurosis. I maintain that Jewish life
is not
fear, but affirmation."

Toward Tradition's National Director YardenWeidenfeld also said that
traditional Judaism, as taught by Lapin, celebrates life. Foxman's
approach
constitutes the real threat to American Jewry, Weidenfeld told UPI in a
Wednesday phone
interview, because young American Jews who associate their religion with
death
and misery are more likely to marry Gentile partners. The real danger is

assimilation, Weidenfeld said.

ADL Assistant National Director Ken Jacobson dismissed Toward Tradition
and
its positions. "At some level, I might not want to dignify the
comments," he
said in a phone interview on Wednesday. "I don't really think that Rabbi
Lapin
and his organization represent anything significant in the Jewish
community."

But Jacobson quickly overcame his reluctance. He denied that Foxman's
letter
likened Horowitz to Holocaust-deniers because Foxman did not assert that

Horowitz denied the existence of slavery.

"We were concerned about the denigration of blacks and the slave
experience
that was implicit in the Horowitz message" opposing reparations,
Jacobson told
UPI. "It's only like ... the Holocaust denial theme in the sense that,
in both
issues, there are things that were offensive, and a newspaper isn't
obligated
under the First Amendment to print every ad."

Jacobson was referring to student editors of campus newspapers. Of
course,
the First Amendment constrains only government, not newspapers or
advertisers.
In response, Weidenfeld said the students' ignorance of the Constitution
"is
their problem" and has nothing to do with Holocaust denial.

Toward Tradition said it picked Foxman "from among other representatives
of
the Anti-Semitism Industry" because of his role in former president
Clinton's
pardon of fugitive tax evader Marc Rich.

Citing Friday's Newsweek report, the group said: "After the ADL received
a
$100,000 check from the Rich Foundation, Foxman wrote to Bill Clinton
urging the
pardon." In doing so, Foxman "joined other leading Jewish liberals who
had
benefited from the billionaire's largesse. The ensuing scandal was a
comfort to
true anti-Semites who say that Jews buy and sell justice," Toward
Tradition
said.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Foxman said the previous
day
that he was wrong to have lobbied for Rich.

=========================
Quigleys Sue Anti-Defamation League After Fight With Their Jewish
Neighbors

Evergreen Couple Portrayed As Anti-Semites Keeps $10 Million Judgment By
The Associated Press Denver, Colorado, March 2, 2004
http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/ADL/Denver/DenverPost020304.html

DENVER -- A jury award of more than $10 million to a former Evergreen
couple
portrayed as anti-Semites by the Anti-Defamation League will stand,
after the
U.S. Supreme Court declined to review it.

The decision on Monday means "this is the end of the case," said Bruce
DeBoskey, director of the ADL's Mountain States Region.

The victors in the case are William and Dorothy "Dee" Quigley, whose
lawyer,
Jay Horowitz, described them as "extraordinarily delighted" with the
news.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision came without explanation, and DeBoskey
said
it was a disappointment.

"But through the entire process we have continued to serve the
community," he
said. "We do remain committed to our fight against hatred and racism and

bigotry and extremism and anti-Semitism."

The fight was between the Quigleys and their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell
and
Candice Aronson.

The Aronsons sought help from the ADL in 1994 after overhearing the
Quigleys'
comments on a cordless telephone, a signal that was picked up by the
Aronson's police scanner.

They said they heard the Quigleys discuss a campaign to drive them from
the
upscale Evergreen neighborhood with Nazi scare tactics, including
tossing
lampshades and soap on their lawn and putting pictures of Holocaust
ovens on their
house.

Based on recordings of those calls, they sued the Quigleys in federal
court,
Jefferson County prosecutors charged the Quigleys with hate crimes and
Saul
Rosenthal, then the ADL's regional director, denounced the Quigleys as
anti-Semites in a press conference.

But later authorities discovered the recordings became illegal just five
days
after they began when President Bill Clinton signed a new wiretap
restriction
into federal law.

The hate charges were dropped, Jefferson County paid the Quigleys
$75,000 and
two lawyers on the ADL's volunteer board paid the Quigleys $350,000 to
settle
a lawsuit.

Neither family paid the other anything, the Aronsons divorced and the
Quigleys moved to another state.

Then in 2000 a federal jury concluded a four-week trial before Denver
U.S.
District Judge Edward Nottingham with a decision the Anti-Defamation
League had
defamed the Quigleys.

The jury awarded them $10.5 million, which is now estimated at $12.5
million
including interest.

DeBoskey said the ADL had set aside funds to pay the judgment if
necessary.