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"A gutsy, razor-sharp demystification of a powerful organization."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The first-ever history of the Anti-Defamation League and its determined, century-long alliance with Western empire.
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.
"Many people assume that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is committed to fighting antisemitism and other forms of racial bigotry. After all, it bills itself as a civil rights organization and throughout its long history, it has battled housing discrimination against people of color and challenged racist groups including White Citizens Councils. Nonetheless, Emmaia Gelman, founding director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, argues that this reputation is unwarranted."
“Writer-activist-teacher Emmaia Gelman’s fascinating history of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a more than 100-year-old organization founded by German Jewish immigrants to the United States, situates the group squarely on the political Right.”
“Emmaia Gelman’s new book, The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State, is a history of the group, framing it not as a racial justice organization but as a deputy sheriff for the US empire. Gelman shows how the ADL crafts a narrative for the public that pushes Western imperialism rather than equality.”