Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Abe Foxman put his foot in it during his interview with the Jewish Forward discussing the Armenian genocide. His tortured defense of his actions continue to ring false. First he claims he didn’t make a mistake when everybody and their bubbe knows he did. In this explanation, he makes it appear that the Armenian community, rather than historical truth or moral justice, forced him to concede to using the word “genocide:”

We’ve never denied that there was a massacre, we [just] didn’t engage in the g-word,” Foxman said. “Now, they’ve insisted on the g-word. Fine.

The problem for Abe Foxman is that everything is a political consideration and nothing is a moral consideration. For him, there are interests, but not values. How can the ADL continue to allow itself to be led by such a morally vacuous personality?

And furthermore, Foxman makes the astounding contention that the Armenian genocide is not an issue with which the ADL should deal:

I still don’t think it’s our issue, but so many people believe it is our issue… I said okay,” Foxman said.

Not “our issue?” If genocide is not an issue for the ADL then what is? What were they created for? If Leo Frank’s lynching was worth protesting in 1913 why isn’t Armenian genocide?

I can’t begin to explain how misplaced Abe Foxman’s priorities are. At least one senior ADL leader understands this:

“Are we an organization of principle? Are we an organization that will stand up for what’s right and wrong? Or are our principles put through some kind of filter that involves Israel’s self-interest?”, said a member of ADL’s national executive committee who requested anonymity. There is “that subtext here.”