Abraham Foxman

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Abraham H. Foxman (born 1940) is the current National Director and chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.

Abraham Foxman (right) with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.
Abraham Foxman (right) with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Born in Poland to Jewish parents, Abraham Henry Foxman is the only son of Joseph and Helen Foxman.[1] Foxman's Polish Catholic nanny saved him from the Holocaust in 1940. She had him by baptized into the Roman Catholic Church.[citation needed] He was raised Catholic until reunited with his parents in 1944. [2]

Most of the members of his family were murdered in German concentration camps.[citation needed] Foxman's father supported Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism. As a young man Foxman belonged to Betar, the Jabotinsky youth movement.[citation needed]

[edit] Education

Foxman emigrated to the United States in 1950 with his parents.[1] He graduated from Yeshivah of Flatbush, in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the City College of New York and graduated with honors in history. Foxman also holds a law degree from the New York University School of Law. He did graduate work in Jewish studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and in international economics at New York's New School University.

[edit] Career

Foxman has worked for the Anti-Defamation League since 1965. The ADL promoted him to National Director in 1987 after the death of long-time National Director Nathan Perlmutter. Foxman has adopted liberal policies at the ADL, supporting the ill-fated Oslo Accords. Throughout his tenure he has obtained meetings with many world leaders, including past U.S. Presidents, current President George W. Bush, many Middle Eastern leaders, Nelson Mandela, and Pope John Paul II.

[edit] Awards

Foxman has been awarded several honors from non-profit groups, religious figures and statesmen. In 1998 Foxman received the Interfaith Committee of Remembrance Lifetime Achievement Award "as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and discrimination."[3] Foxman won the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Leadership Award on April 18th, 2002 from the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.[4] On October 16, 2006 Foxman was presented with the Legion of Honor by Jacques Chirac, France's highest civilian honor.[5]

[edit] Controversies

Jude Wanniski, a Jewish journalist and conservative commentator who worked as associate editor of The Wall Street Journal, called for Abraham Foxman to be fired from his position as national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In a memorandum to Howard P. Berkowitz, National Chair of the ADL, Wanniski states: "I think you have to offer Abe Foxman an early retirement or flat out fire him...Abe (Foxman) has become drunk with power, swinging his weight around knowing he can label anyone who challenges him an anti-Semitic bigot." [6]

In recent years he has become a controversial figure because of his central role in winning a presidential pardon from former United States President Bill Clinton for Marc Rich, the international businessman who gave $250,000 to the ADL while Foxman worked for his pardon.[7]

Foxman's support for gay rights in America placed him at odds with many Orthodox Jews. Concerning the former, which involved his protest in 2000-2001 of a case in which "the Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America could exclude a gay scoutmaster because of his sexual orientation"; it was reported that "For many Jewish groups that work with the Boy Scouts -- mainly Reform temples and Jewish community centers -- the ensuing year has been marked by soul-searching, as they grappled with whether they should end their ties to the organization because of the organization's stance on gays," and that "Within the Jewish community, Orthodox groups supported the ruling, saying civic organizations should be empowered to determine their own message -- but most Jewish organizations condemned it as endorsing discrimination." According to that report published a year later, in 2001, "the Anti-Defamation League's national director, Abraham Foxman, and its national chairman, Howard Berkowitz, said in a statement at the time: "We are stunned that in the year 2000 the Supreme Court could issue such a decision.... This decision effectively states that as long as an organization avows an anti-homosexual position, it is free to discriminate against gay and lesbian Americans."[8]

Leading up to the 2005 commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the historic Million Man March in Washington, D.C., October 14-16, 2005, Foxman sent newswires out entitled "ADL Urges Prominent African-American Leaders to Reconsider Their Support of the Millions More Movement." Hip-Hop Summit Action Network Chairman, Russell Simmons, who engages in activism against anti-Semitism, released "the following response to ADL Director, Abraham Foxman's letter urging prominent Black leaders to reconsider their support for the upcoming Millions More Movement":

For over 50 years, Minister Farrakhan has labored to resurrect the downtrodden masses of African Americans up out of poverty and self-destruction. A few days ago I personally witnessed him affirm, "A Muslim can not hate a Jew. We are all members of the family of Abraham and all of us should maintain dialogue and mutual respect." Our work, commitment, and lives are all dedicated to uplifting all people through love, goodwill, equality, peace and justice for all…Simply put, you are misguided, arrogant, and very disrespectful of African Americans and most importantly your statements will unintentionally or intentionally lead to a negative impression of Jews in the minds of millions of African Americans. Similar to how you single-handedly caused millions of persons to flock to see the "Passion of Christ" in defiance of your call for non-attendance, you are going to precipitate a tremendous negative defiance of your demands that will again severely hurt and harm relations between Jews and African Americans.[9]

Foxman's support [in 2005?] for Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip has also raised conflict with the Orthodox Jewish community.[citations needed]

In October 2006, representing the ADL, Foxman protested former President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, saying that in the book Carter is "engaging in anti-Semitism.[10] As quoted a month later, in interview remarks cited for an article by James Traub published in The New York Times Magazine, Foxman says that he is, nevertheless, not calling the former president an "anti-Semite".[11]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Marquis' Who's Who in America, 60th Diamond Ed. (2006) 2: 1358.
  2. ^ 'When his parents were forced into a ghetto in Vilna, Lithuania, during War World II, they put the infant Abraham in the care of an uneducated Christian nanny, a warm and devoted protector whom he came to love as a mother. But he also learned from her the secret prejudices that can be hidden in a "good person." In his nanny's care, the little boy learned to spit at a Jew in the street, to mock him as "dirty Jew." He remembers now the warmth at her hearth and bosom, but she unwittingly gave him the cold, critical eye he casts toward bigotry now.' [1]
  3. ^ "Humanitarian Award Winners: Lifetime Achievement Award Winners: 1998," Interfaith Committee of Remembrance, accessed January 19, 2007.
  4. ^ "Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman is Recipient of Wallenberg Humanitarian Award," Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (News Release Archives), press release February 8, 2002, accessed January 19, 2007.
  5. ^ Associated Press, "French President Chirac Urges Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism," Haaretz [date?], [date accessed?].
  6. ^ Junde Wanniski, "Fire Abe Foxman!" October 28, 1998
  7. ^ Anthony York, "Politics: Read My Lips: No New Press Conferences: Plus: Another Casualty in the Marc Rich Pardon Debacle? Linda Chavez Says Campaign Finance Reform Is Dead. Alan Greenspan Is Dreamy," Salon.com March 29, 2001, accessed January 19, 2007.
  8. ^ As qtd. by Sharon Samber (for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency), "Jews Pained by Anti-Gay Scouts a Year After Court Ruling," The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California (formerly the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California), February 13, 2001, accessed January 19, 2007.
  9. ^ Russell Simmons, "Russell Simmons Responds to Abraham Foxman about the Millions More Movement: online posting, Millions More Movement May 9, 2005, accessed January 19, 2007.
  10. ^ James D. Besser, "Jewish Criticism of Carter Intensifies: Charge of Anti-Semitism from One Leader as Ex-president Deepens His Critique of Israeli Policy in West Bank," The Jewish Week December 15, 2005, accessed January 8, 2007.
  11. ^ James Traub,"Does Abe Foxman Have an Anti-Anti-Semite Problem?" New York Times Magazine January 14, 2007: 30-35, accessed January 14, 2007 online; January 18, 2007 in print.

[edit] External links

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