Stories of impact from the frontlines of ADL’s work

 
March 21, 2013 1

Imagine If They Had Lived

Imag­ine a world where the hate crimes against Mar­tin Luther King Jr., Anne Frank and Matthew Shep­ard did not hap­pen. Now, dur­ing ADL’s Cen­ten­nial Year, fight big­otry and extrem­ism by shar­ing this video and pledg­ing to cre­ate a world with­out hate.

In honor of our Cen­ten­nial in 2013, ADL has launched the “Imag­ine a World With­out Hate™” video and action cam­paign, and we invite you to join in.

Take just 80 sec­onds of your time to watch this pow­er­ful video, which imag­ines a world with­out racism, homo­pho­bia or anti-Semitism — a world in which the hate vio­lence that took the lives of Mar­tin Luther King Jr., Anne Frank, Daniel Pearl, Matthew Shep­ard and oth­ers did not hap­pen. Imag­ine what these indi­vid­u­als could have con­tin­ued to con­tribute to soci­ety if big­otry, hate and extrem­ism had not cut their lives trag­i­cally short.

After 100 years of fight­ing big­otry and fos­ter­ing respect, we are cel­e­brat­ing our suc­cesses, while at the same time rec­og­niz­ing that we still have a long way to go to achieve the real­ity of a world with­out hate. Explore the Imag­ine Web Page at www.adl.org/imagine to take action as an indi­vid­ual, com­mu­nity, school or cor­po­ra­tion. Tell us what you will do to cre­ate a world with­out hate.

ADL is most grate­ful to the fam­i­lies of those fea­tured in the video, whose com­mit­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion made this cam­paign pos­si­ble, and to the Estate of John Lennon for grant­ing us the rights to use his beau­ti­ful and iconic song.

www.adl.org/imagine

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March 15, 2013 8

“So What Are You DOING About it?”… How ADL Counters Anti-Israel Activity on College Campuses

Amer­i­can col­lege cam­puses con­tinue to be a prov­ing ground for var­i­ous anti-Israel cam­paigns, tac­tics and mes­sages. Last week, our blog reported on sev­eral dif­fer­ent ini­tia­tives we’ve seen recently, includ­ing non­bind­ing Boy­cott Divest­ment and Sanc­tions (BDS) res­o­lu­tions at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, River­side and Irvine; Israeli Apartheid Week and, of course, uni­ver­sity spon­sor­ship of anti-Israel pro­grams.

So what role did ADL play to counter these mes­sages and advo­cate for Israel?

Out­reach to Uni­ver­sity Admin­is­tra­tors: ADL encour­aged the Chan­cel­lors at Irvine, River­side and San Diego to speak out against the non-binding divest­ment res­o­lu­tions that passed on these cam­puses and reas­sure the Jew­ish and pro-Israel com­mu­nity that the uni­ver­si­ties intend to fol­low the UC-wide pol­icy against divest­ment. The chan­cel­lors at all of these schools have com­mend­ably done so.

In a few days, Naim Ateek, the direc­tor of a “Pales­tin­ian Lib­er­a­tion The­ol­ogy” orga­ni­za­tion called Sabeel, is sched­uled to speak at Grand Val­ley State Uni­ver­sity and West­ern Michi­gan Uni­ver­sity. Ateek fre­quently uses Chris­t­ian imagery to demo­nize Israel and Zion­ism, includ­ing claims that Israel is engaged in a “cru­ci­fix­ion” cam­paign against Pales­tini­ans. Sim­i­larly, he has accused Israel of com­mit­ting a Holo­caust against the Pales­tini­ans. His appear­ances are spon­sored by aca­d­e­mic depart­ments at the two uni­ver­si­ties. ADL has com­mu­ni­cated to both uni­ver­si­ties that the school’s spon­sor­ships of Ateek are inap­pro­pri­ate and that the uni­ver­si­ties should con­sider host­ing pro-Israel speak­ers as well.

In the past few months, ADL staff has also met with high-level admin­is­tra­tors at a vari­ety of cam­puses to talk about how Jew­ish stu­dents expe­ri­ence anti-Israel activ­ity on cam­pus. We have brain­stormed with them about ways to make the col­lege cam­pus a true “mar­ket­place of ideas” where all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian con­flict are ade­quately rep­re­sented. Over the past 100 years, ADL has devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion as an hon­est and cred­i­ble voice for the Jew­ish com­mu­nity. ADL is there­fore uniquely posi­tioned to edu­cate uni­ver­sity offi­cials about the Jew­ish and pro-Israel community’s per­spec­tive and encour­age them to speak out against extreme anti-Israel activ­ity and anti-Semitism.

Expres­sions against Divest­ment: ADL responded to a non-binding Asso­ci­ated Stu­dents Coun­cil res­o­lu­tion urg­ing divest­ment at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, by sub­mit­ting a state­ment against divest­ment to the stu­dent sen­a­tors con­sid­er­ing the res­o­lu­tion. The state­ment, read dur­ing the pub­lic dis­cus­sion on the res­o­lu­tion, described how BDS doesn’t advance the cause of peace because it “deep­ens the divi­sions between Israelis and Pales­tini­ans” and places all the blame for the con­flict on Israel. The state­ment also warned that the res­o­lu­tion tar­geted com­pa­nies that help Israel bet­ter pro­tect its cit­i­zens and that a call for divest­ment would illus­trate the UCSD stu­dents’ lack of com­mit­ment to Israel’s legit­i­mate right to self-defense.

Expos­ing and Edu­cat­ing: In this week’s edi­tion of J., a Bay Area-based news­pa­per, the regional direc­tor of ADL’s Cen­tral Pacific office con­tributed an op-ed about how the three stated goals of the BDS move­ment demon­strate that the movement’s objec­tive is to iso­late Israel, not cre­ate the con­di­tions for peace. ADL reg­u­larly exposes anti-Israel activ­ity through op-eds, as well as our blog, web­site and other platforms.

Train­ing Stu­dents: In San Diego, ADL runs a pro­gram called I-Pitch for Israel which helps train pro-Israel stu­dents on cam­pus to lobby against divest­ment and other anti-Israel cam­paigns. Train­ing also includes infor­ma­tion about free speech rights and the myths and facts of the Israeli-Palestinian con­flict. Sev­eral I-Pitch par­tic­i­pants spoke out against divest­ment at the pub­lic dis­cus­sion as well.

As anti-Israel cam­paigns con­tinue to play out on col­lege cam­puses across the coun­try, ADL will stand with our part­ners in the local Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties and with stu­dents to counter these ini­tia­tives and advo­cate on behalf of Israel and the Jew­ish peo­ple. Do you have any other ideas for respond­ing to anti-Israel activ­ity? Use the space below to let us know!

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February 5, 2013 0

Religious Accommodation for Sikh Corrections Officer

Last week, respond­ing to appeals by The Sikh Coali­tion and ADL, the Ari­zona Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions agreed to allow a reli­gious accom­mo­da­tion for Ikhbinder Bassin, a ten-year employee of the Depart­ment and an obser­vant Sikh. 

As part of his reli­gious oblig­a­tions, Mr. Bassin does not cut his hair (includ­ing facial hair) and wears a kara (a reli­giously man­dated steel bracelet).  Upon his entry into his posi­tion in 2003, Mr. Bassin was granted a waiver from depart­men­tal pol­icy that pro­hibits the wear­ing of bracelets (other than for med­ical pur­poses) and from shear­ing his hair.  How­ever, in Decem­ber of 2012, close to his 10th anniver­sary, when Mr. Bassin would appar­ently become eli­gi­ble for extended employee ben­e­fits, he was noti­fied by a com­pli­ance offi­cer that he was not in com­pli­ance with Ari­zona Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions pol­icy.  The com­pli­ance offi­cer advised Mr. Bassin that he must com­ply or face pos­si­ble ter­mi­na­tion or reas­sign­ment into a non-uniform position.

Act­ing on Mr. Bassin’s behalf, The Sikh Coali­tion noti­fied the Depart­ment that under fed­eral and state law, includ­ing the First Amend­ment, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Arizona’s Free Exer­cise of Reli­gion Act, ter­mi­nat­ing or demot­ing Mr. Bassin for his reli­gious beliefs would vio­late the Department’s oblig­a­tions under the law.

With time run­ning out, and lit­tle indi­ca­tion that his reli­gious accom­mo­da­tion would be granted, Mr. Bassin reached out to ADL and other orga­ni­za­tions to advo­cate that his reli­gious rights be accom­mo­dated.  Fol­low­ing a con­sul­ta­tion with The Sikh Coali­tion, ADL endorsed their efforts, address­ing a let­ter to a vari­ety of Ari­zona gov­ern­ment stake­hold­ers. The League noti­fied these gov­ern­ment offi­cials that we agreed with The Sikh Coalition’s legal analy­sis, and urged a reli­gious accom­mo­da­tion for Mr. Bassin.  ADL’s Ari­zona regional office also signed on to an inter­faith coali­tion let­ter sup­port­ing Mr. Bassin’s request.  These coali­tion efforts paid off.

By grant­ing Mr. Bassin the requested accom­mo­da­tion, the Ari­zona Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions demon­strated a wel­come respect for fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of reli­gious lib­erty. When sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions arise else­where, other Depart­ments should fol­low Arizona’s lead.

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