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(IsraelNN.com) Anti-Defamation League (ADL) director Abe Foxman said Tuesday afternoon that mainstream media are turning against Israel. One of the guests at the three-day Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, he told Voice of Israel government radio, "Painting Israel as the cause of the nakba [catastrophe] has taken root in the mainstream." Foxman pointed out that both The New York Times and the Washington Post published front-page articles on Israel's Independence Day that focused on Arab suffering as well as Jewish celebrations instead of describing the miracle of the re-establishment of the Jewish state. He added that American Secretary of State Condoleezza...

It's common knowledge that Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, is less than taken, shall we say, with the Catholic Church. (Note, for example, his insistence that Catholics refrain from talking about the Gospel with Jews, an activity that Foxman apparently believes is "proselytizing".) And he's certainly entitled to his opinion, although I think he's a bit cranky about things, as evidenced by his remarks about Pope Benedict's inter-religious meeting in Washington, D.C. last week (as reported by the New Jersey Jewish Standard): Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, who attended a meeting with the pope at the...

NJDC'S Guide to Responding to Obama, Clinton, and Edwards Smears aimed at Jewish Voters contains a statement from Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. This statement leaves little doubt that Barack Obama must distance himself from the prominent racist and anti-Semite Al Sharpton if he expects voters to take him for anything but a sick and demented practical joke on the American people. ADL National Director Abraham Foxman released a statement saying: "We welcome Barack Obama's condemnation of the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Minister Louis Farrakhan, and his making clear that he did not agree with his church's decision to honor...

Foxman and Sharpton Issue Joint Statement on Symbols of Hate New York, NY, November 1, 2007….Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, and Rev. Al Sharpton, President of the National Action Network, today issued the following statement regarding the series of recent displays of nooses and swastikas in our community: The recent epidemic of nooses and swastikas appearing in various places in our communities are acts of hate and are intended to intimidate and instill fear. Such acts are despicable, and we call upon all people of good will – of all races, religions and ethnicities – to...

NEW YORK, September 6, 2007--Abe Foxman’s limo circled the 92nd Street Y warily a couple of times to give him a chance to survey the scene across the street. A group of 40 to 50 young Armenians and Jews were protesting the Anti-Defamation League’s continued lobbying to have HR/SR 106 (a symbolic Congressional resolution that recognizes the Armenian Genocide) die without a floor vote, at the behest of Turkey.Finally, Foxman ducked into the building to participate in a panel discussion on "anti-Semitism in the modern world and its implications." Ironically, the discussion was moderated by Fordham Law Professor Thane Rosenbaum,...

ADL Responds To Open Letter From CAIR; Releases Photo Of Group's Leader Speaking Next To Hezbollah Flag http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Teror_92/5122_92.htm ADL Responds To Open Letter From CAIR; Releases Photo Of Group's Leader Speaking Next To Hezbollah Flag New York, NY, August 30, 2007 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in response to an "open letter" from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) suggesting that their organization has "acted numerous times … to condemn terrorism," today released a photograph of CAIR's executive director speaking at a podium next to a known anti-Semite and the flag of the terrorist group Hezbollah. Glen S. Lewy, ADL...

Petra, Jordan — Some of Israel’s strongest supporters chastised the country’s leadership this week for failing to take up opportunities to solve the long-standing conflict with neighboring Arab countries. The criticisms were aired Tuesday at the third annual Petra Conference in Jordan, a meeting of Nobel laureates and distinguished figures who brainstorm together to improve the world. In an onstage interview before some 200 well-heeled participants and the world media, co-host Elie Wiesel grilled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over his country’s conditions for making peace with the Palestinians. “What does it mean?” asked Wiesel, one of Israel’s most prominent...

...The Anti-Defamation League, which has an annual budget of more than $50 million, offers “anti-bias education and diversity training” through its World of Difference Institute; plays a major advocacy role in keeping church and state separate; monitors a vast array of extremist activity...But the league is, in the end, mostly Abe. Foxman is a domineering character who over the years, according to critics, has driven out potential rivals and successors... ....How, then, to explain so one-sided a policy? “The unmatched power,” they argue, “of the Israel lobby.” Mearsheimer and Walt, distinguished figures who teach at the University of Chicago and...

Just when you thought the Anti-Defamation League couldn’t conceivably get any worse, comes the news that the ADL has effectively joined the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to bash Dennis Prager, a popular Jewish author, speaker and talk show host. In a November 29th column, posted at Townhall.com, Prager criticized Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress, for declaring he’ll bring the Koran with him to his swearing-in ceremony. Prager’s calls this “the narcissism of multiculturalism.” The author of several best-selling books on Judaism and a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Prager notes that...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - An American Jewish leader on Thursday urged Pope Benedict to help protect Jews from Iran, saying it and its president were examples of a new "global malignancy" of anti-Semitism that could bring another Holocaust. Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, made his comments in an address to the Pope during an audience at the Vatican. "We hope you will declare the Church's commitment to do everything in its power to prevent another Holocaust against the Jewish people from any party of the globe, including Iran," Foxman told the Pope. "In...

ADL Blasts Christian Supremacist TV Special & Book Blaming Darwin For Hitler New York, NY, August 22, 2006 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today blasted a television documentary produced by Christian broadcaster Dr. D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries that attempts to link Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to Adolf Hitler and the atrocities of the Holocaust. ADL also denounced Coral Ridge Ministries for misleading Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute for the NIH, and wrongfully using him as part of its twisted documentary, "Darwin's Deadly Legacy." After being contacted by the ADL about...

Examining which issues raise its organizational blood-pressure, it is easy to see that the ADL chiefly represents two categories of Jews. One: Jews for whom the doctrines of secular fundamentalism and of the Democratic Party have replaced the authentic principles of Judaism. Two: Jews who consider Christian conservatives to be a far greater peril than Islamic extremism. It now turns out that the ADL represents yet a third category of Jews: those passionately dedicated to defending Darwin. Once again, like a friendly and frolicsome puppy with a large, bushy tail that constantly knocks down expensive vases, the ADL, though filled...

NEW YORK - The National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Abraham Foxman, yesterday accused United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan of demonstrating "blatant one-sidedness" in his comments about Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. "I am stunned that the UN secretary general cannot find his tongue except to criticize and denounce Israel, and is unable to raise his voice to denounce Hezbollah's daily firing of hundreds of rockets that are specifically intended to hurt civilians," Foxman said yesterday in an exclusive interview with Haaretz. "In addition, [Annan] has not bothered to mention the loss of life in Israel as...

Mel Gibson has become the designated Hitler-of-the-Month for August 2006, displacing both Saddam Hussein and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the previous front-runners. However, conservative Christians, before rushing to condemn or defend their fallen hero, might ponder the incident for a moment, before presuming to form an opinion. To give credit where it is due, Zev Chafets, in his LA Times commentary “Slurring More than His Words”, makes several valuable points. To begin with, Mr. Gibson’s first line of defense—the Tequila made him do it—is absurd. As Chafets commnts, “Evidently Gibson wants people to believe that, although he personally loves Jews, the...

Mel Gibson's Apology OK With Catholic League Monday, July 31, 2006 3:51 p.m. EDT Catholic League President Bill Donohue commented today on the furor over the comments Mel Gibson allegedly made after his arrest for drunk driving Friday morning: "What Mel Gibson apparently said is indefensible. The remark attributed to him, ‘The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,’ is anti-Semitic and irresponsible. Fortunately, he has apologized for his bigoted outburst. "Unfortunately, his apology is being rejected by some who should know better. To wit: Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, has branded Gibson’s apology ‘unremorseful...

The widely publicized and condemned remarks by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Israel and the Holocaust reflect the range of anti-Jewish thinking in the post-Holocaust era. It has often been said that after 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, it was not respectable to be openly anti-Semitic. Often hatred of Jews manifested itself in hatred of the State of Israel, not merely legitimate critiques of Israeli policy, but denial of Israel's right to exist and seeing the Jewish state as the source of all evil in the Middle East, if not the world. In recent years, however, in...

Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman tells reporters in Jerusalem that U.S. Evangelicals are threat to America's religious pluralism. In an interview with Ynetnews, Foxman says he is not concerned with Christian support for Israel, does not see Spielberg's new film as attack on Israel U.S. Evangelicals are threatening America's rich tradition of religious pluralism, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Director Abraham Foxman told a press conference in Jerusalem Tuesday. While referring to American Christian Evangelicals as "our friends," Foxman went on to warn: "If they succeed on their domestic agenda, to change the balance of the separation of church and state, and...

Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman on Tuesday defended Steven Spielberg's new film Munich from criticism that it morally equates Israel with terrorists and is historically inaccurate. "We do not think this is an attack on Israel. We do not think this is a film of moral equivalency," Foxman told a group of journalists. He said the movie, which recounts the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian group Black September at the 1972 Munich Olympics, portrays that tragedy as an act of "brutal terrorism" with no humanizing of the perpetrators. Most of the film, however, is devoted to...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Jewish leaders to devise strategyBy Julia DuinTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished December 5, 2005 A group of Jewish leaders meets in New York this week to develop a response to the religious right, which they say is eroding civil liberties and planning to "christianize America."     Led by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the private meeting is set for today, said an assistant to Mr. Yoffie.     Both men were unavailable for comment Friday, and neither organization would divulge details of the meeting, including who...

Abraham Foxman has gone from nuisance to embarrassment to self-parody. The national leader of the Anti-Defamation League has declared war on conservative Christians. In doing so, he's not only attacking the best friends Israel and the Jewish people have, he's also repudiating Torah-based morality.

ADL Director Abraham Foxman's wide-ranging attack on evangelical Christians, whom he has accused of launching a campaign to "Christianize America," is still reverberating in the United States. The leader of the Reform movement, Rabbi Eric Yoffe, echoed Foxman at that movement's biennial convention by condemning zealots on the religious right. The issue has always been highly sensitive in Jewish quarters. Most Jews back a total separation between church and state even when it conflicts with crucial, long-term Jewish interests such as seeking state aid to subsidize the secular curriculum of Jewish day schools. For some time there has been a...

For a media columnist facing a deadline and a slow news week, Abraham Foxman is truly a gift that keeps on giving. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League can barely open his mouth without inviting incredulity and ridicule from anyone not currently on the ADL’s payroll (and probably many who are). Foxman’s latest foray into the absurd came earlier this month when, in a speech at the ADL’s national conference in New York, he drew an apocalyptic picture of conservative Christians laying waste to the citadels of American democracy and urged organized Jewry to come together to man the...

For a media columnist facing a deadline and a slow news week, Abraham Foxman is truly a gift that keeps on giving. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League can barely open his mouth without inviting incredulity and ridicule from anyone not currently on the ADL’s payroll (and probably many who are). Foxman’s latest foray into the absurd came earlier this month when, in a speech at the ADL’s national conference in New York, he drew an apocalyptic picture of conservative Christians laying waste to the citadels of American democracy and urged organized Jewry to come together to man the...

Abraham Foxman has gone from nuisance to embarrassment to self-parody. The national leader of the Anti-Defamation League has declared war on conservative Christians. In doing so, he's not only attacking the best friends Israel and the Jewish people have, he's also repudiating Torah-based morality. At a New York meeting of the ADL's national leadership recently, Foxman experienced a near total meltdown. Groups like Focus on The Family and American Family Association are leading a full-scale assault on tolerance and diversity, Foxman foamed. As reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Foxman declared: "Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated,...

Warning that the Evangelical right has made alarming gains in social and political influence, a leading Jewish church-state watchdog is calling for a tougher and more unified Jewish response. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, speaking to the group’s national leadership here last week, signaled a sharp shift in ADL policy by directly attacking several prominent religious right groups and challenging their motives, which he said include nothing less than “Christianizing America.” Among the groups he cited were the powerful Focus on the Family ministry and the Family Research Council. Foxman said as these groups seek to use...

Abraham Foxman has gone from nuisance to embarrassment to self-parody. The national leader of the Anti-Defamation League has declared war on conservative Christians. In doing so, he's not only attacking the best friends Israel and the Jewish people have, he's also repudiating Torah-based morality. At a New York meeting of the ADL's national leadership recently, Foxman experienced a near total meltdown. Groups like Focus on The Family and American Family Association are leading a full-scale assault on tolerance and diversity, Foxman foamed.As reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Foxman declared: "Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified,...

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League - the one major American Jewish organization whose primary goal is fighting anti-Semitism - is worried. American Jews, he believes, are threatened, not by anti-Semites, but by the non-anti-Semitic Christian Right. In an address to the League's national commission in New York last weekend, Foxman said: "Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!" Gevalt! And what are...

ADL Urges Joint Effort Against Right Blasts Campaign To 'Christianize' American Life By E.J. KESSLER November 11, 2005 Warning of a growing campaign to "Christianize America," the national director of the Anti-Defamation League is calling on Jewish organizations to join him in coordinating a communal strategy for confronting the political and cultural initiatives of religious conservative groups. In a speech last week at the ADL's national conference in New York, Abraham Foxman blasted several conservative organizations, including Focus on the Family, The American Family Association and the Family Research Council. He declared that such groups "had built infrastructures throughout the...

The ADL, considered the largest Jewish organization in America, has in the past spearheaded campaigns against religious preachers and Christian elements deemed unusually extreme. But this is the first all-out media assault by an ADL head on the U.S. Christian establishment. He noted that churches and organizations of this sort have always been active in America, but they had never before been so aggressive and determined. "They intend to Christianize all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional, collegiate and...

Why not the right to pray voluntarily at military school events? The New York-based Anti-Defamation League informed the US Naval Academy in Annapolis that prayers at mealtimes were to be shut down. Abraham Foxman wrote the academy’s superintendent stating that mealtime petitions to the Almighty were out of step with the American way. Therefore, they should be forbidden. The chaplain should be shown the exit sign. Midshipmen should sit down to their meals with no thought of thanking the Lord for the food. To have prayer before meals at the academy was unAmerican in that it forced those in attendance...

The Anti-Defamation League has called on Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin to apologize for comparing alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay to torture and killing by the Nazi regime. "Whatever your views on the treatment of detainees and alleged excesses at the Guantanamo Bay facility, it is inappropriate and insensitive to suggest that actions by American troops in any way resemble actions taken by Nazis in their treatment of prisoners," wrote ADL head Abraham Foxman in a letter to the Illinois lawmaker. [See video of the remarks here.]

Despite actor/director Mel Gibson’s attempt to “soften” the more explicit content of his major blockbuster “The Passion of the Christ,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is still protesting the movie for its alleged role as a vehicle for anti-Semitism. Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued a press-release on Tuesday regarding the recent re-release of the film, saying that while Gibson removed six minutes of violence and gore, he, “chose to leave untouched the anti-Jewish elements of the original, including scenes where Jews are portrayed as villains and responsible for the death of Jesus.” “As we come into the Christian holy...

In 1941, when Abraham Foxman was a year old, his parents and a nursemaid carried him east from his Polish homeland to Vilna in an effort to outrun the Nazis. But they failed, and the Nazis ordered his parents and the other Jews of Vilna into a ghetto. “My parents decided to leave me with the nanny, a decision that ultimately saved my life and their lives because they were able to care for themselves rather than being tied to a child,” Foxman said. The nanny, Bronislawa Kurpi, had Foxman baptized Henrik Stanislous Kurpi and for the next four years...

Lone Ranger Abe Rides Again Posted 12/29/2004 By EDITORIAL BOARD Leave it to the ADL`s Abe Foxman, long the Lone Ranger of Jewish organizational life, to turn logic on its head and caution Israel not to promote aliyah. According to Foxman, an appeal for aliyah is not a suggested remedy for anti-Semitism, but a cause of it. Several months ago, as the extent of the virulence of anti-Semitic sentiment in France became increasingly apparent, Israel`s prime minister invited French Jews to consider aliyah as an option. Not only would Jews find refuge from the rising threat of a growing Muslim...

I truly do not understand why these detractors will not let up. Michael Medved accurately pointed out that the REACTION towards Gibson's film, rather than the film itself, would lead to antisemitism and I agree. These protests and denouncements have gone from offensive to downright annoying/obnoxious. I read that Tom O'Neil, another fool who makes inane points about the film, say that the Academy, which he points out is heavily Jewish populated, were cussing and swearing throughout a screening for the Academy Awards. I am very irritated that Bill Donahue got flack for candidly discussing the prevalance of Jews in...

NEW YORK - Columbia University president Lee Bollinger plans "specific steps" soon in response to allegations that professors and lecturers at the Ivy League university made vitriolic and malicious comments against Israel in classes. Bollinger made the pledge in a Wednesday phone call to Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman. Bollinger didn't detail the character of the steps, but emphasized "the matter will be handled immediately." New York's Columbia University was recently embarrassed by reports that Middle Eastern professors are exploiting their academic standing to express extreme political views on Israel, using slanderous and defamatory statements. The allegations against the...

The lesson to be learned from recent differences between many American Jews and conservative Christians-on Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" and on equal rights for gays- is not to walk away from relationships with evangelicals. It is not to reject evangelical support for Israel. It is not to view the evangelical community in a simplistic way. It is not the lesson Arlene Stein offers in her op-ed piece. It is, rather, to reinforce a dual approach: working for and welcoming conservative Christian support for Israel at a particularly difficult time for the Jewish state and, at the...

Though they liked ‘The Passion,’ Christian evangelicals are our friends By Abraham H. Foxman National Director of the Anti-Defamation League This op-ed originally appeared in the JTA on March 8, 2004. Posted: March 10, 2004 The lesson to be learned from recent differences between many American Jews and conservative Christians — on Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” and on equal rights for gays — is not to walk away from relationships with evangelicals. It is not to reject evangelical support for Israel. It is not to view the evangelical community in a simplistic way. It is...

<p>The national director of the Anti-Defamation League insists Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" fuels violence against Jews, despite recent polls by two Jewish groups suggesting the film is not anti-Semitic. "This movie has not dissuaded anybody" from anti-Semitism, Abraham Foxman said yesterday. "People still have that point of view." As a result of the ADL's campaign against the movie, Mr. Foxman said his New York office has received "hundreds and hundreds" of anti-Jewish e-mails and letters, and the group's 30 national offices have received reports of Jewish children being called "Christ killers" in school. He declined to say how many actual complaints have been filed with the ADL, only that there are "enough to cause concern. We are still cataloguing them." Mr. Foxman first began raising concerns about the film last June. He was unable to gain admittance into one of the many previews around the country for sympathetic backers, so he and his interfaith consultant, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, posed as clergy to gain admittance to a Jan. 21 preview shown to 5,000 pastors at an Orlando, Fla., church. The next morning in an interview with The Washington Times, he said there was "no ambiguity in this film as to who is responsible." "There are two guilty parties: the Jews and some sadistic Romans," he said. "Even the sadistic Roman soldiers at the end feel compassion [for Christ] and the Jews do not." Two months later, he has not changed his mind. "I have always said the film may fuel anti-Semitism, but I never said it was anti-Semitic," he said. The nature of "The Passion" is, "when you walk out, you are angry at those who set [Christ] up." However, according to a poll released Monday by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco, only 2 percent of the 1,003 adults polled said "The Passion" is more likely to make them hold all Jews responsible. Eighty-three percent said it did not make them blame contemporary Jews and 9 percent said the film made them less likely to do so. In a subgroup of 146 persons polled who had seen the film, 80 percent said it had no effect on their views, 5 percent said it made them hold Jews responsible and 12 percent said it made them less likely to do so. Another recent poll of 2,500 people, 85 percent of whom are evangelical Christians, conducted by the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, showed only 1.7 percent of respondents blamed all Jews for Christ's death. Mr. Foxman called both polls "wishful thinking." "I think it's too early to say," he added. "I hope both polls are right, but the hate mail we have received in the last nine months is so ugly, so intense. People sign their names, talk about their faith and love of Jesus, then ask whether Jews have learned anything from the Holocaust yet." One in four Americans blame Jews for causing the death of Christ, he said, citing a December ADL poll of 1,200 Americans. An ABC/Primetime poll taken around the same time showed that less than one in 10 Americans said yes when asked if Jews "today" are responsible for Christ's death.</p>

As we all know, Abe Foxman denounced the movie. I heard he recanted, but am unable to find any evidence. I would like to write a letter to my local Jewish paper explaining just how much Foxman has done to "improve" Jewish/Christian relations with his whining, as well as make a few well-chosen remarks about his credibility. Can anyone supply me with a link to the article where Foxman recants? Thanks.

Christian History Corner: Why some Jews fear The PassionMel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ gives Christians the chance to disavow a shameful history of anti-Semitism.By Collin Hansen | posted 02/20/2004 The Passion of the Christ scares Abraham Foxman. The Anti-Defamation League's national director, currently cast in the role of reluctant film critic, has spent months warning anyone and everyone that The Passion will dramatically strain Christian-Jewish relations and revive age-old Christian hatred for Jews. While most Christians in the West balk at this suggestion, Foxman cannot be dissuaded. He knows the grim history. "For almost 2,000 years in Western...

As this letter from Bill Donohoe of the Catholic League, two years ago, noted, the Disney/Miramax sex movie, "40 days and 40 nights" not only mocked Lent (and, hence, Christianity), it heaped insult on injury by opening during Lent. Wasn't this an example of Christian bashing by Hollywood (and by two Jewish executives)? But WHERE WAS ABE FOXMAN TO DENOUNCE THIS SACRILIGE? Apparently he can only denounce Christian movies, like Mel's. I for one am tired of the Passion being labeled "controversial," when anti-christian crap is put out incessently by the Hollywood trash and hate merchants -- without a peep...

Mel Gibson's Passion doesn't have to be divisive You don't expect the national director of the Anti-Defamation League to play film critic, but here was Abraham Foxman on Friday in Boca Raton, with praise for Mel Gibson. "He's brilliant, the movie is brilliant," Foxman said of Gibson's not-yet-released movie The Passion of the Christ. "He's earned a reputation as a creative genius, and he applies it to the film. It's very moving. It's very graphic. It's too graphic, but that was its intention." The movie is Gibson's own passion: a reported $25 million re-creation of Jesus' last 12 hours, which...

Geneva Initiative architects Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo met US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington Friday in spite of growing resistance to their plan. The meeting lasted 40 minutes, and before continuing to their meeting with UN Gen.-Sec. Kofi Annan, the two met with the President's adviser on Middle Eastern affairs Elliot Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and his assistant David Sutherfield. Powell told Beilin and Abed Rabbo that their initiative did not affect the Road Map timetable, which envisions a Palestinian State by 2005, and the two said after the meeting that Powell regarded...

A leading critic of Mel Gibson's controversial film about the death of Jesus has resigned from his post at the Anti-Defamation League. Eugene Korn, the ADL's director of interfaith affairs, told the Forward that his resignation last week represented a "mutual decision" resulting from his need for "a more reflective and contemplative environment." Korn's departure has some Jewish communal observers suggesting that a more diplomatic approach is needed in dealing with Gibson's upcoming film, "The Passion of Christ." Though the organization's strong rebuke of Gibson and his film was hailed by officials at several Jewish organizations, it has been criticized...

<p>NEW YORK - The head of the Anti-Defamation League accused Mel Gibson on Friday of holding anti-Semitic beliefs based on the actor's response to criticism of his coming movie depicting Jesus' death.</p> <p>Abraham Foxman, national director of the Jewish civil rights organization, insisted he was not calling Gibson an anti-Semite. But Foxman said the actor "entertains views that can only be described as anti-Semitic."</p>

As prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has stirred squalls of criticism with his flamboyant statements — that a German legislator was like a Nazi commandant, that Islamic culture was inferior to Western culture and, most recently, that Benito Mussolini "did not murder anyone." The last comment raised an uproar in Italy last week, given that Mussolini's Fascist regime helped the Nazis deport more than 7,000 Jews, killed political opponents and waged campaigns of conquest that left hundreds of thousands of people dead. But Mr. Berlusconi has at least one loyal defender in New York City. Yesterday, Abraham H. Foxman,...

TESTING THE FAITH Mel Gibson working with Jewish leaders ADL rep screens 'The Passion,' breaks confidentiality agreement Posted: August 14, 2003 10:25 a.m. Eastern By Joseph Farah © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Faced with rising criticism of his unreleased movie, "The Passion," by the Anti-Defamation League, Mel Gibson is working with other Jewish leaders to "develop a strategy alongside this film to build bridges of understanding between various faith communities," says a statement by his marketing and media representatives released to some 300 people who have seen the film by special invitation. The move comes after Gibson's Icon Pictures invited representatives of...

Anti-Defamation League Note: This op-ed originally appeared in the New York Sun on August 4, 2003. Discussions about Mel Gibson's forthcoming movie "The Passion" have taken a disturbing turn. Rather than focusing on an effort to find out whether Mr. Gibson is making a movie on the death of Jesus that is consistent with church teachings and free of the anti-Semitism that haunted passion dramas for centuries, the very raising of questions is now being depicted as a part of the culture wars that have overwhelmed American society in recent years. Movie critic Michael Medved put the issue in the...

Real anti-Semitism Posted: July 24, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Why is it that some Jewish leaders in the United States seem to be more concerned about non-existent anti-Semitism in Mel Gibson's new movie than the very real anti-Semitism expressed by the so-called "moderate" prime minister of the Palestinian Authority? Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League is on something of a one-man crusade against Mel Gibson's "The Passion," a reverential epic on the suffering death of Jesus Christ. Check out the ADL website if you think I'm exaggerating. At the same time, Mahmoud Abbas – Yasser Arafat's...