Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

ADL Fires Tarsy–Foxman Must Go

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The Globe reported this morning that the national ADL has fired its New England regional director, Andrew Tarsy, and rebuked the New England regional board, which had supported him. The action comes one day after Tarsy and the New England board bravely stood up against the ridiculous position staked out by the ADL’s national leader, Abraham Foxman, on the Armenian Genocide, namely, that it’s not that ADL’s, the Jewish people’s, or even the U.S. Congress’s role to say whether the Armenian genocide was a genocide. This from an organization that combats Holocaust denial!

Two things need to happen:

1. Let’s applaud Tarsy, who gave up a lucrative job in the private sector to lead the ADL locally and who had the courage to stand up for what’s right.

2. Foxman must go. He has lost his way. He is bad for the Jews, a shanda fur die goyim. The ADL had better act now before it experiences large-scale desertions–if it’s not already too late.

TedF

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Comments

  1. He is a complete shame to the Jewish people for not acknowledging genocide. I haven’t commented much on this simply because I agree with what’s already been said – to not acknowledge genocide for basically political reasons (Turkey’s relationship with Israel) is simply wrong, misguided, dishonest, and worse.

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    But firing Tarsy goes far beyond being wrong into the vindictive level. It shows the true top-down nature of the ADL. I had thought that New England’s dissent would be–at the least–a not completely idiotic move: have the national organization play its stupid little game of international politics where they would not acknowledge genocide, and then have the local level work with the Armenian community on issues of genocide and history. I knew that the ADL was a generally top-down organization, but I felt that for this particular case they’d use the difference between local and national levels to their advantage.

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    Instead, Foxman is digging the ADL into an incredibly bad hole where nobody wins, but most of all ADL is simply in the wrong.

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    This, in particular, made me incredibly upset:

    The national ADL leaders also said employees who do not agree with the ADL’s position should not differ pubicly, but should resign. “No organization can or should tolerate such an act of open defiance,” the letter said.

    Defiance? Tarsy acknowledged a basic historical FACT. Defiance? How about defying the mission of the ADL which is to promote good relations between different groups?

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    From my point of view, this goes to the heart of who Jews are as a people. Are we a group of people who are more interested in the survival of our institutions than the survival of truth? Are we a people that supports top-down decision making, rather than allowing people to voice what they feel is right? Are we a people whose organizations stifle or encourage dissent?

  2. Plaudits to Andy Tarsy for having the guts to risk his job – and lose it – in breaking with the national ADL on its hypocritical stand. Tarsy realized he had made a mistake in toeing the company line:

    “I have been in conflict over this issue for several weeks,” Tarsy said. “I regret at this point any characterization of the genocide that I made publicly other than to call it a genocide. I think that kind of candor about history is absolutely fundamental.”

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    Would that other leaders had the courage to admit error and change course like Tarsy.

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    Abe Foxman will be forced to resign sooner or later over this bungle.

  3. Until now I’d thought that the ADL would fix this problem with an apology, or at least a “clarification.”

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    Silly me. I guess I just haven’t been paying attention.

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    The problem is more fundamental than just an outspoken weirdo at the helm of the ADL, and it is time for the program’s other sponsors to reconsider that relationship.

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    It’s just not appropriate–it’s bizarre–for a town-based program to promote tolerance to be shaped in any way by the diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel.

  4. Due to the historical disingenuity of the national ADL, we have lost one of New England’s most distinguished leaders in the field of civil rights. But we have lost more–the Anti-Defamation League has been at the forefront of fighting intolerance against any group of Americans. Now its credibility has been seriously damaged, which benefits no one. The only silver lining might lie in increased public awareness of the Armenian Genocide. Maybe this controversy will benefit legislation in Congress to recognize the Genocide.

  5. …form their own organization.  I’m sure it will serve them well.

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    As a not so aside aside, Foxman seems to becoming a bit like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League.  For the good of the ADL, Foxman probably should resign.  But he won’t.  Like Donohue, Foxman is probably making too much money off his fax machine.

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    Sad, but probably true.  Follow the money.  Who in heck elected Foxman head of the ADL (or that matter Donohue head of the Catholic League)?

  8. For those of you who don’t know, Tarsy came to the town council meeting on Tuesday himself and got read the riot act from the mostly Armenian attendees while he towed the company line.  I’d like to think that direct contact with our residents was the last straw that convinced him to break with the ADL.

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    Shame on the ADL for firing him.

  9. Jamie Eldridge’s site for his campaign for state rep lists some sort of ongoing involvement with No Place for Hate. I’d be interested in hearing what he has to say about this mess that the ADL has created for itself and whether he plans to continue his involvement.

  10. There is absolutely no doubt that what happened to our Armenian friends in 1915 was horrific and an absolute crime against humanity. I don’t believe that anyone disputes this historical fact, Jew ,Christian or Muslim. The Turks in particular, surely know this.

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    We are now in the year 2007 when Israel needs all the friends it can gather….most of all the only Muslim friend they have that being Turkey. Given this scenario and this horror having happened now almost a hundred years ago,not that it can ever be forgotten , is it wise to destroy what has been a good relationship with the Turks ?
    Hopefully, Jewish and Turkish leadership will negotiate some “face saving’ global statements that will de-fuse this potentially very bad situation.
    It is understandable that the “local’ leadership of the ADL can take the position that it has taken but by the same token it is also understandable that the “global” leadership is seeking to maintain good relations with Turkey …. in any case , a difficult situation

    • I don’t think you’ll be hard pressed to find Israeli diplomatic situations trickier than what the ADL does in Watertown. I have every confidence that the Turks will not be threatened by the ADL, and that even if they are, some sort of reasonable arrangement can be made with regard to Israel’s relation with Turkey.

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      Israel does need Turkey as a strong ally. Fortunately, it doesn’t need the Ottoman Empire. A Jewish organization which fights for human rights, civil rights and peaceful coexistence in America–Jewish though it may be–must prioritize truth and history over a fear of political retribution that can be solved provided the Israelis show some level of diplomatic competence.

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      Unfortunately, it’s basic competence that the ADL seems to lack. They shouldn’t deny genocides. They shouldn’t have let this story blow up in their faces. They shouldn’t have fired a good regional organizer for speaking the truth. And there shouldn’t be more firings, though I have reason to suspect that there will be come Monday.

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      Israel and Jews needs all the friends it can gather–but we must win those friends by staying true to our values as Jews. I believe that we value truth, we value human rights, and we value dissent. But Foxman doesn’t. He values his own particular organizational style that says that its the top-down message or you’re out. He values putting today’s politics over historical fact. Those aren’t our values. It’s time for the ADL to clean house.

    • Does anyone seriously believe that the ADL’s position is actually going to affect Turkey’s relationship with Israel in any way? Are they an official arm of the Israeli government?

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      In any case, I thought ADL was trying to make itself into a general anti-discrimination organization, not just one fighting anti-Jewish discrimination. By insisting on this position, it seems that they are framing themselves as being a purely Jewish organization. That is really too bad.

    • Wow, think again. They to this day deny it, officially and otherwise. They get angry every time some other country officially recognizes what happened.

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      The US needs to put pressure on Turkey to own up. It’s not going to change Turkey’s status today as a friendly democracy, so what are they afraid of? Like Germany, which is certainly a major western ally we are proud to call friend, Turkey needs to purge itself of this taint by admitting what happened.

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      The ADL should lose support and money until such a time as it admits it was completely wrong, immoral, and discriminatory to deny the Armenian genocide.

      • I really think the ADL mess and the actions of Turkey are two different things.  I really would like Turkey to own up to the massacre, but given how on-the-edge the politics there have been recently, this probably isn’t the best moment to launch a pressure to change this in the country.  Turkey isn’t a monolith, and the forces on the rise there aren’t necessarily friendly to the US and Israel (note the runaway success of the anti-American film “Valley of the Wolves”).

  11. but can we really imagine a situation in which a position taken by the ADL would interfere in the internal standing of Jews in Turkey, or in the relationship between Turkey and Israel?  Jewish people and Jewish groups in the US take positions all the time on a variety of issues, often about a variety of countries in which Jews live or which have one type of relationship or another with Israel.  If human rights advocacy groups in the US start to bend their public positions for fear of offending someone in the world, they will be paralyzed into inaction.

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    We can also think about this another way.  If the situation of the Jews in Turkey — or the relationship between Turkey and Israel — is so fragile that a public statement by the ADL could so adversely affect it, then it is likely that said situation or relationship will run into serious problems for some other reason anyway.  However, an advocacy organize would have to be incredibly arrogant to believe that ITS position on a Congressional resolution will change world politics in a manner that would not otherwise happen for other, more fundamental reasons.

    • …it is the case that Turkey in the past has been very supportive of the state of Israel.  Turkey recognized Israel in 1949, and has been continuous in its recognition ever since.  I would be a bit wary of the current Turkish government under Erdogan, leader of an overtly Muslim-connected party, but he has maintained a rather secular course–which, of course he must do if he wants Turkey to be accepted into the European Union.

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      BTW, from what I have read, Turkey itself has a thriving, albeit relatively small, Jewish population, mostly in and around Istanbul.

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      Going up a bit to the post

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      The action comes one day after Tarsy and the New England board bravely stood up against the ridiculous position staked out by the ADL’s national leader, Abraham Foxman, on the Armenian Genocide, namely, that it’s not that ADL’s, the Jewish people’s, or even the U.S. Congress’s role to say whether the Armenian genocide was a genocide.

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      Parsing this from reverse, no it isn’t the US Congress’s role to pass a meaningless resolution that chastises another country (particularly an ally) for not using a particular word to characterize something that happened almost a century ago.  I wonder how Americans would feel if Turkey’s parliament were to pass a meaningless resolution to chastize the US for Negro slavery and lynchings, the mass displacement (I’m being kind, it’s the trail of tears) of Amerinds or putting Americans of Japanese descent in concentration camps.

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      Quite frankly, doesn’t the US Congress have better things to spend its time on than considering meaningless resolutions?  Things like…passing a budget?  Who the heck was pushing this meaningless resolution in Congress anyway?

  12. The JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Council) is the communal voice of Boston’s Jews on public concerns. They issued a strong statement yesterday:

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    The Jewish community has had a warm and collegial relationship with the Armeinain community in greater Boston for many years.  The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston released the following statement on April 21st 2005 in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the genocide:

    ?Today we join together with the Armenian community to remember the darkest chapter of Armenian history, when, in 1915, the Ottoman Empire initiated a policy of genocide that continued until 1922. More than one and a half million Armenian men, women and children were systematically murdered and the survivors scattered around the world.

    ?The Armenian genocide represented a failure of the international community to intervene against the worst possible crime, the destruction of a people. We must never forget the Armenian genocide and maintain our guard against those who deny its occurrence.?

    In light of the current controversy between the ADL and the Armenian community, we stand by that statement and applaud the N.E. Regional chapter of ADL and its Director, Andrew Tarsy, for their bold and unprecedented action of standing up to their National body.  We stand with them and in support of the local Armenian community which has always recognized the Holocaust and been with us each and every year to commemorate it.

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    • I just don’t understand…I mean, both ethnic groups went through something horrible. Shouldn’t that mean they are natural allies and the ADL should be bending over backwards to fight for Armenians’ right to acknowledgment like they do for Jewish interests??

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      Thank goodness the JCRC has stood with their brothers in this. The ADL needs to learn a damned lesson.

  13. …I know what “goyim” refers to, and I know what “fur die” refers to.  But what does “shanda” refer to?

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    This is just a question, and is not intended to start a flame war.

    • A shanda or schande for the goyim is any action by a Jew that brings pleasure or satisfaction to non-Jews at the expense of the Jewish community.  The phrase is the result of a head-on collision between English and Yiddish.  I’ve seen it labeled a very effective use of guilt leverage.

        • Schadenfreude is from an outer perspective, whereas a schande is from the inner perspective.  The person speaking about receiving a schande for the goyim isn’t happy about it, whereas someone experiencing schadenfreude by definition is.  Regardless, I’ve only word th eword ‘schande’ used in this context.

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