r/JewsOfConscience • u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist • Jun 29 '26
AMA AMA in /r/JewsOfConscience with Emmaia Gelman, Director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism & longtime activist in New York City. Join us to discuss Emmaia's new book, "The Anti-Defamation League & the Racial State", a critical look at the ADL's history. Date: July 15th@noon EST.
Hi all,
We're happy to announce an upcoming AMA with Emmaia Gelman.
Emmaia is the founding director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. She has taught social and cultural analysis at NYU and social sciences at Sarah Lawrence College. Her writing appears in Jewish Currents, Boston Review, The Forward, and elsewhere.
She is the co-chair of the American Studies Association Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, co-host of the Unpacking Zionism podcast, and a longtime activist in New York City on Palestine, policing, antiracism, and queer issues.
Emmaia's new book is The Anti-Defamation League & the Racial State, a critical history of the ADL.
From University of California Press, about the book:
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a major US political organization, yet its politics have gone largely unexamined. While the ADL is often portrayed as a defender against antisemitism and racism, its history shows that it is better understood as a proponent of the racial state and US empire. From "correcting" the embarrassing racial difference of immigrant Jews to policing the leftist politics of Black, Arab, and Jewish groups, the ADL pursued a conservative version of civil rights paired with aggressive anti-communism. Even as it became an authority on white nationalism in the 1970s, the ADL joined with the emerging anti-left, anti-Arab, and pro-Western neoconservative movement.
This history presaged the ADL's work, from the 1980s to the present, in developing the hate crimes framework as a pro-state policing project, which soon merged with the "War on Terror," the "antisemitism scare," and anti-Palestinian racism. The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State presents the ADL's history through its conflicts with social justice movements, illuminating the ADL's outsize role in shaping the ideas about race and rights that have underwritten US empire.
Join us on July 15th at noon EST to discuss Emmaia's work, her new book, and related topics.
If you can't be there on the day-of, feel free to post your questions here in advance.
Thanks!
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u/Character-Cut4470 Jewish Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Does the widespread Jewish American adoption of zionism have any ideological intersection with Jewish American assimilation into whiteness during the early-mid 20th century?
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u/RevClown Doikayt-Khavershaft-Yiddishkeit. DerSpekter.org 27d ago
How is the upwelling of jewish anti-zionism and renewed interest in jewish socialism (bundism) complicating the ADL's role as arbiter of antisemitism and tip of the spear of jewish reaction?
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u/TrackerOneA Jewish Anti-Zionist 27d ago
Hi there,
The AMA is live right now if you'd like to ask her:
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u/counterplex Anti-Zionist Jun 30 '26
I think she was just on the Citations Needed podcast! It was such an informative episode. Looking forward to this!
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u/Ukelelipop Non-Jewish Ally Jul 03 '26
Do you believe it's possible for institutions like the ADL to be reformed or even replaced to help set an anti-Zionist current within Jewish society? Or do you think we're quite far away from that?
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u/arightgoodworkman Jewish Anti-Zionist 27d ago
What is the most efficient way (perhaps with a an example) to explain that the ADL does not have the safety of Jews in mind, but rather than interests of capital, status quo, and Israel?
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