(As delivered)
Thank you. Thank you all for coming here today.
It feels as if a lifetime has elapsed since we last convened a year ago. Then, we were reeling from the horrors and pain of October 7th and its aftermath.
Now, a year later. We find ourselves in a different world.
First and foremost, many of the hostages – thank, God -- have come home, including many these past few weeks.
Like you, nothing made me happier than to see those families hug their loved ones. I can watch those videos all day.
And let me just say: we cannot rest until every single one of them -- the living and the deceased -- are back in Israel. Bring them home now.
Another thing that’s different: after months of allowing the harassment, intimidation, and even violence against Jewish students and faculty, many university presidents, certainly not all, but many have rediscovered the virtues of actually enforcing their policies on encampments and harassment.
And now- a new administration has taken office in Washington and made it abundantly clear that it will redouble the federal government’s efforts to fight antisemitism on campus, in K-12 schools, and in international organizations. And you know, regardless of who you voted for, this is something to celebrate and support.
As we convene here today, Sinwar and Nasrallah no longer walk the Earth.
Assad is in exile.
The Islamic Republic of Iran -- the world's largest state-sponsor of antisemitism and terror -- is in retreat, and its proxies are shells of what they once were.
So maybe, just maybe, we are turning the corner…coming out of one of the darkest periods in Jewish history since the end of World War II.
But to think that everything can go back to normal is a fantasy.
We still have right-wing extremists – freed from prison and emboldened in the United States…and their compatriots organizing and mobilizing in political parties across Europe.
Beyond our shores, I don’t remember a time when Diaspora communities faced more uncertainty. We are seeing waves of violence in once-safe places like Sydney and Toronto. Synagogues torched, homes defaced, cars vandalized – this is the new norm for Jews in so many liberal democracies.
College campuses in US may not be aflame, but not a single day goes by without ADL getting a call about a student who was harassed or attacked, or about a campus group that wants to glorify Hamas terrorists…kick Hillel off campus…or force their university to adopt BDS.
We still have self-described “progressives” -- in major non-profits, professional associations, news outlets, and in elected office --- who see themselves as the “parity police,” refusing to acknowledge anti-Jewish hate on its own and gaslighting us about what is or is not antisemitic.
Suffice to say, all of us at ADL are still very, very busy.
Because, no matter where you stand, there’s no going back. The ground beneath us has profoundly shifted since 10/7.
We are in a new era.
One author went so far as to argue that the “golden age” of American Jewry is over.
A distinguished historian noted that for the first time since 1948, Jewish Americans are now feeling something our ancestors in Poland, Germany, Tunisia, Iraq, or wherever they lived knew far too well: fear.
Fear.
Many of us are old enough to remember when our grandparents would lower their voices when talking about Jewish things in public…I remember being to behave so as not to bring shame on the Jews…Others actually changed their names to something more “acceptable.”
That was done out of fear.
And over the years its true, these old behaviors faded away -- they weren’t necessary. They seemed as outdated as plastic covering the living room couches or rotary phones.
But let me ask you, as you're sitting here today:
How many of you have changed vacation plans in the past year? Maybe decided not to travel to London or Paris? Or if you did, you probably took off your Star of David necklace or thought twice before visiting a Jewish site.
How many of us have children looking at colleges and find ourselves crossing off the list amazing, world-class universities -- places that many of us attended or wish we could have – because of their antisemitism?
How many of our synagogues and JCCs now have bulletproof glass, metal detectors, and armed security?
Let me ask you: do the churches in your town or YMCAs have take these precautions?
I’m willing to bet: not one.
How many of you have changed your account names on Uber or DoorDash so they don't sound Jewish.
Or removed a mezuzah from your front door?
That, my friends, is the return of fear.
Check the date. Regardless of what your calendar might say, today is October 8th -- and we live in a very different world.
Here in the US, the percentage of Americans with “significant” or "elevated" antisemitic attitudes jumped last year to 24 percent, more than double the 2019 figure and the highest level we’ve seen since 1964.
And for the first time since we started doing these analyses , the younger generation is now notably more antisemitic than the older generation. That is an ominous sign if there ever was one.
Unsurprisingly, the number of anti-Jewish incidents in the US has reached record levels in four of the past five years. And in the 12 months after 10/7, there were more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in America; that’s the highest number ADL has ever recorded in any single 12-month period since we started tracking such data in the 1970s.
Or again, on college campuses, more than 83 percent of Jewish students have witnessed or experienced antisemitism since 10/7.
1 in 4 actually have taken extra security measures to protect themselves.
Here. In America.
If fear is back, we know why.
It is shocking.
It is unreal.
And it is unacceptable.
And so, in the face of this very real fear…we must do better.
We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. As the old saying goes, that’s the very definition of insanity.
And at ADL and at all organizations, we must identify what works and what doesn’t deliver results, fix what has fallen short, stop doing what flat-out doesn’t work, and constantly, relentlessly, ruthlessly innovate.
We can’t rest on our laurels. We simply can’t keep doing something because it’s tradition or because some donor likes it.
Hard times force us to make hard choices.
And that's exactly what we’re doing at ADL.
When I stood before you a year ago, I said we would pivot. I said that a new world requires new strategies and new approaches to fight antisemitism -- and that is what’s happening at ADL.
Let me give you some specific examples.
First, in a world where it is increasingly acceptable to be antisemitic, condemnation is not enough.
Because when there is no moral shame, you can’t just scold someone into action.
But data doesn’t lie.
Data is what drives change.
So, last year, we launched an annual campus report card to document and judge college campuses on how they treat their Jewish community. We developed a rigorous rubric and gave out grades from A to F -- something these academic institutions definitely understand.
We hoped that bad grades would prod these colleges and universities into action, and eventually everyone would get an A -- not because of grade inflation, but because they were able to see how they were failing -- and ideally they would want to fix it.
In the past year since we published the first report card, ADL offices across the country engaged, on a sustained basis, with 70 percent of the schools we rated.
We provided concrete recommendations on new policies and gave hands-on advice to administrators. I myself spoke to dozens of university presidents one-on-one, giving them counsel and criticism, pushing them to do better.
And today, I am proud to announce we just released our second annual report card, and I’m delighted to share that more than one-third of the schools we assessed in 2024 improved by one-whole letter grade.
Ten percent jumped two grades.
You can check it out yourself. Go to ADL.org/CampusReportCard – to see all the grades, but after do it after this session, if you don't mind.
Seeing how this approach is working, ADL has launched the Ratings and Assessment Institute to apply this same model of rigorous, data-based evaluations to new sectors, such as: state governments, public companies, and professional associations.
We will hold them all accountable.
Second example of our pivot, we are going to court.
ADL has filed more lawsuits in the last 12 months than we had done in our first 112 years of existence.
These actions include litigation against extremist groups, universities, school districts, corporations and a landmark $4 billion lawsuit that we filed, on behalf of American victims of 10/7, against Iran for the Islamic Republic’s role in facilitating the attack.
And let me tell you, we are going to win.
We also realized that it was too difficult for people to get the legal help they needed. So we partnered with our friends at the Brandeis Center, Hillel International, the law firm Gibson Dunn and numerous other white shoe firms to create and set up CALL, a first-of-its-kind legal hotline for students and staff at colleges and universities who have been victimized by antisemitism, but previously did not know where to go.
In less than 18 months, the CALL system has handled more than 800 individual Title VI complaints.
And I’m happy to report that, based on its success, we have begun to expand CALL to handle cases of discrimination against students, parents, and teachers in K-12 school districts where the issues also are rampant and virtually unmonitored.
Third example of our pivot, we are moving upstream to interrupt antisemitism before it even happens.
The ADL Center on Antisemitism Research quietly has matured into a world-class center of excellence in social science, conducting a wide range of research from highly targeted focus groups to large-scale surveys to randomized control trials, all focused on practical issues such as how we improve the efficacy of our programs or how we interrupt intolerance before it takes root.
Their insights now inform everything we do at ADL from our Instagram feed to our educational curricula.
Fourth example of our pivot, we are finding new ways to harness our power.
Many companies are now targeted by BDS campaigns that seek to demonize Israel and create hostile workplaces for Jewish employees.
Last year alone, 75 percent of the Fortune 500 were targeted by BDS efforts.
That’s why JLens, a subsidiary of ADL, launched the first-ever Jewish exchange-traded fund or ETF just last week.
It started trading this past Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange -- with the ticker of “TOV” – the Hebrew word for good.
It’s the first Jewish ETF in the world and, beyond the financial benefits, TOV will unlock the latent power of shareholder advocacy in a way that the Jewish community has never tapped.
So, when the BDS hooligans try to schedule a die-in at a shareholders’ meetings or to propose some preposterous resolution to force a company to divest from Israel, TOV will give us a seat at the table so we can punch back.
And believe me, we will.
Finally, ADL doesn’t just innovate in a lab, we show up and step right into the ring.
Hours after the horrific pogrom against Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam late last year, I was there on the ground in that city…having a one-on-one with the Dutch Prime Minister in his residence, telling him that he must take action to protect his Jewish citizens.
Showing up is what ADL does, day in and day out, in your cities and towns across America and around the world.
Take what happened last summer, when our Center on Extremism learned that there would be far-right, extremist demonstrations in Nashville, Tennessee.
Our Atlanta office took that intel, alerted local law enforcement and elected leaders in Nashville that these groups planned to march and disturb city council meetings. We gave them the details, we shared with them the specifics, so they could stop it from happening, and we also helped prepare them for any eventuality.
And we didn’t stop there.
We also provided model ordinances to the Nashville City Council that would help that city combat these groups.
And guess what happened? They passed new laws, and now Nashville is a safer and more inclusive city using the ADL modeled legislation.
Or look at what happened in Chicago, Illinois last year.
A group of anti-Israel therapists took it upon themselves to compile a Facebook list of Zionists, targeting mental health professionals simply for the offense of being Jewish or supporting the Jewish state, threatening their livelihoods and reputations.
This wasn’t just an attack on individuals; it was an attack on the integrity of an entire profession. And we weren’t going to let that stand.
ADL’s Incident Response Team leapt into action, working with our Center for Technology and Society to press Meta to have the group removed for violating platform policies around doxxing.
But this wasn’t just about shutting down a Facebook page — it was about real accountability.
So we engaged directly with Illinois state regulators, pushing them to sanction the therapists behind the page, who initiated the campaign, including stripping them of their licenses.
We are tracking the outcome closely, but a message has been sent and delivered -- and now, others will think twice before they target the Jewish community.
You see, this is what ADL does. Sometimes out in front, sometimes behind the scenes, but always, always, always being true to our core purpose: to protect the Jewish people.
Look at some of last year’s numbers, our score board, if you will:
- Our analysts provided law enforcement with more than 2,700 assists to law enforcement, actionable intelligence that helped police to prevent crimes and protect endangered communities.
- Our Synagogues in Action program reached more than 150,000 households through more than 450 synagogues in 45 states plus DC and Canada.
- And ADL's educational materials reached more than five million schoolchildren across America.
I know and I appreciate it, that a lot of attention gets paid to our statements and many of you might not agree with every position we take or every item we post.
And you know, that's just fine, because we don’t just tweet about bigots. We take them on and take their bigotry apart, piece by piece.
And so, I know, I feel the fear that's out there. We all wish we could turn back the clock to October 6.
But, when I think about this past year, yes there is fear, but there is hope.
Hope in the ordinary Americans who know it’s wrong to vandalize synagogues and to harass their Jewish neighbors…
Hope in the silenced majority, many of whom have never even met a Jew, but know it’s wrong to attack students on campus or seniors walking to worship.
And so I know there is hope.
And while we are inspired by this hope, I also acknowledge that hope is not a strategy.
That is why we at ADL will not cede a single inch to the antisemites…
We will not stop finding new ways to prevent bigotry – and stop the bigots in their tracks….
And we will never relent in fighting for our community with everything we've got.
For our kids…
For our future…
because never is now.
Thank you. Thank you.
Am Israel Chai.