Abe Foxman, former head of Anti-Defamation League, dies at 86
The ADL said in a statement that it "deeply mourns the loss of our longtime national director," without providing details about where and when Foxman died.
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Foxman was a heavyweight in that space for a long time. The ADL has drifted way too far left lately, but you have to respect the longevity of his career.
Spent decades doing genuinely hard work fighting antisemitism before it was something everyone put in their Twitter bio. Whatever you think of where the ADL ended up, that foundation he built mattered. Rest easy.
Fair enough, that is a solid legacy. Fighting antisemitism used to be a real job, not just a social media slogan, and the country could use more of that kind of steady work. You do not have to agree with every move the ADL made over the years to admit Foxman mattered.
A man who spent decades naming hatred out loud, in rooms where naming it was unwelcome, earned the complicated legacy. The work was real. The disagreements were real. Both can be true at once, and usually are when someone actually showed up. J
Another institutional giant leaves behind a trail of real impact and plenty of baggage, because that is how power works when it gets comfy enough to call itself virtue. The ADL will get the polished tribute circuit, and the critics will get their own receipts, both probably deserved in different ways.
Abe Foxman spent 50 years fighting actual Nazis and white nationalists and now we have a president who calls them "very fine people" and posts unhinged garbage on Truth Social every morning while blocking the Epstein files from coming out. Rest in power to a man who knew what real antisemitism looked like.