An Evening with Emmaia Gelman, author of The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State


Join us for an evening of learning and discussion around Emmaia Gelman’s book, The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State – the first-ever history of the Anti-Defamation League and its determined, century-long alliance with Western empire.

We will gather Sunday, November 22 from 7:00 – 9:00pm at a Brookline location. The exact location will be shared with you before the event in a separate email.

REGISTER HERE.

This event is co-sponsored by the Israel/Palestine Committee (IPC) and Acting For Racial & Economic Justice (AFREJ) Committee of Boston Workers Circle as well as JVP-Boston, Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts (TIM), MTA Rank and File 4 Palestine, and Collective Action Against White Supremacy (CAAWS).

About the Book:
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 the US empire.

About the Author:
Emmaia Gelman is the founding director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, which examines the political and ideological work of Zionist institutions in Palestine and transnational contexts. She researches the history of ideas about race, queerness, safety, and rights, and their production as levers in surveillance, “anti-terror”, and war. Her teaching spans academic and community spaces. She co-hosts the podcast Unpacking Zionism. Emmaia is co-chair of the American Studies Association Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, and a longtime activist in New York City.  Emmaia also co-edited, along with Heike Schotten, The Anti-Defamation League: A Critical Reader.

About the Moderator:
Merrie Najimy is an Arab American, veteran public-school educator of more than 30 years. Her pedagogy and practice are grounded in anti-racism. She served as the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association from 2018-2022, where she led a social justice, anti-racist agenda and helped to transform the MTA into a fighting union. In 2024 she cofounded NEA Educators for Palestine and MTA Rank and File 4 Palestine. Both are union caucuses that work to educate about Palestinian history and push the unions to protect academic freedom and grow the divestment movement.

REGISTER HERE.