The Shift: Abe Foxman lived to see the liberal consensus on Israel collapse

Abe Foxman has died at the age of 86.

As national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1987 to 2015 he expanded the organization into a massive, fine-tuned operation with a global reach.

“Under Foxman’s leadership, the ADL transformed from a division of the Jewish organization B’nai Brith into a muscular juggernaut,” declares the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s obituary.

In an instructive Twitter thread, David Grossman credits Foxman with helping to build the Progressive Except Palestine (PEP) consensus, which lasted for decades.

“Foxman created the Judaism of my childhood: center-liberal with an eye towards domestic progressivism but a hawkishness on Israel that could separate them from ‘the looney left,'” writes Grossman.

Foxman lived just long enough to see this consensus collapse amid the destruction of Gaza, but Grossman points out that the cracks were always evident. He cites Foxman’s opposition to the “Ground Zero Mosque” and the ADL’s targeting of Jimmy Carter as notable examples of contradiction.

In such cases, Foxman always gave a little bit of the game away by inevitably revealing that the ADL was incapable of taking consistent positions on issues like human rights and the First Amendment.

“Survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational,” he told the New York Times, while talking about Park51 Islamic community center. “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted.”

Toward the end of his tenure with the ADL, Foxman seemed to sense that the artifice was falling break apart, as more and more people began to learn about Israel and the Israel Lobby. This is probably why in 2014, after years of equivocation, he finally referred to Turkey’s massacre of Armenians during World War 1 as a genocide.

Foxman also lived to see the ADL shift its image.

The collapse of the aforementioned consensus paved the way for current ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to abandon the liberal veneer of his predecessor and declare war on Israel critics. Greenblatt dutifully pulls his punches when discussing Trump or the wider U.S. right, saving his true scorn for Palestine advocates on the left.

The FAQ section of the ADL’s website actually used to declare that anti-Zionism “isn’t always necessarily antisemitic,” but that was quietly edited under Greenblatt.

“Anti-Zionism is antisemitic, in intent or effect, as it invokes anti-Jewish tropes, is used to disenfranchise, demonize, disparage, or punish all Jews and/or those who feel a connection to Israel, equates Zionism with Nazism and other genocidal regimes, and renders Jews less worthy of sovereignty and nationhood than other peoples and states,” the site now declares.

Foxman opposed Trump in the 2020 election and slammed Greenblatt for not criticizing the bigotry of Trump’s campaign rally at MSG.

“I’m reluctant to criticize my successor, but, hello, he went after this guy on CNN yesterday, and couldn’t mention Trump, it’s a little bizarre,” he said at the time.

In a obit at The Forward, Arno Rosenfeld writes that Foxman, “had the ability to maintain what has become an untenable political stance: a deep belief that Jews must fight for civil rights without giving up particular Jewish concerns around Israel and antisemitism.”

Rosenfeld says that Foxman once told him, ““We do well when we’re in the center and there is no center today.”

In actuality, there never was one to begin with.

Shapiro tries to derail Chris Rabb in PA

Very interesting item in Axios last week.

Holly Otterbein reports that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is trying to derail Chris Rabb’s candidacy in state’s 3rd congressional district.

“Shapiro and his team have privately told allies that he disapproves of Rabb and has taken steps to block his path, according to three people familiar with the discussions,” she writes.

Otterbein notes that there are two wider angles here.

One part of the story is that the pro-Palestine Rabb is a longtime critic of the pro-Israel Shapiro. One Democratic strategist told her that Rabb represents “an actual problem” for Shapiro, as he’s expected to run for president.

The other piece here is that one of Shapiro’s potential opponents in a Democratic primary would be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has endorsed Rabb and campaigned for him.

According to two sources who spoke with Axios, Shapiro has privately called Philadelphia’s building trades unions, who are backing Sharif Street in the race, to avoid criticizing the other centrist candidate, Ala Stanford. Stanford has made headlines in recent weeks over contributions AIPAC made to her campaign through shell PACs.

Shapiro’s camp is denying the story.

“This is yet another D.C. story more focused on clicks than the reality on the ground in Pennsylvania,” a spokesperson told the website. “The governor has not endorsed or opposed anyone in this primary — and he looks forward to working directly with whoever wins to win in November. Gov. Shapiro is focused on flipping Republican seats and winning up and down the ballot in November.”

The Pennsylvania primary is in less than week and local pollsters say that support for Rabb is surging.

“A month ago, it looked like Dr. Stanford was surging, from someone who had never run for office to being a first time candidate and winning a congressional seat,” Democratic strategist J.J. Balaban told Jewish Insider. “And then you’ve seen, kind of remarkably, a series of self-inflicted errors that some think have made it a lot less likely that she’s going to win.”

“I think Rabb has been able to take advantage of opposition that … was surprisingly weak, and present himself as new and different and a break from the local Democratic machine which had largely coalesced around Sharif Street,” he added.