Remembering Abe Foxman

When I started to work at ADL 55 years ago, with no intention to be there more than two or three years, it was the luckiest thing for me that there was a young lawyer at the organization, a few years older than me, by the name of Abe Foxman.

Early on we became friends simply because we had things in common. We both grew up in Orthodox families. We both went to Jewish day schools for elementary and high schools. We both were passionate Zionists.

What I came to learn quite soon, however, was how different was Abe’s background, which played such a huge role in who he became. Abe was born at the worst time for a Jewish child, on May 1, 1940, in Poland. It didn’t take long for his parents to recognize that they and their son would be in jeopardy as the Nazis took over the area. They made the decision to flee and turn the child over to his Catholic nanny.

And so, because of the courage and kindness of that nanny, portraying the child as her own, he survived the war and the Holocaust. Miraculously, his parents both survived the war as well and sought to retrieve their child after the war, only to meet with resistance from the nanny. A court case followed with the parents succeeding in getting Abe back. And as Abe later noted, he had been raised as a Catholic with an element of disdain for Jewish things, so the transition to his parents, complicated enough in itself, was made more difficult by the fact that his parents were religious Jews. 

All of this informed who Abe became as an adult. His passion, his commitment, his authenticity were all traced back to growing up in a family impacted by the greatest tragedy of the Jewish people and his determination that he must do all he could to make sure nothing like that could ever happen again. 

His work at ADL provided the perfect platform for him to act upon his beliefs. Joining ADL in 1965 right out of law school, he quickly moved from a legal position to work related to the well-being of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. At the same time, as he rose in the organization, his Orthodox background helped many supporters, largely secular and non-Orthodox, understand more about traditional Judaism. 

And so in time, he became the leader we all came to know, respect and love. Running ADL’s international affairs work, then becoming ADL’s national director in 1987, gave him a unique opportunity to implement his commitment to protect the Jewish people.

He became the Jewish leader most called upon when issues of antisemitism took hold, when the state of Israel was under assault in the media, when leaders wanted to hear an authentic voice on antisemitism, Israel and the state of American democracy. 

To say that I worked closely with Abe and that he guided me in my entire career would be an understatement. Abe was my direct boss for 35 years. He encouraged me to pursue my first serious career job at ADL and he was my biggest advocate in pushing for me for an ADL leadership award.

Because we both were strong-minded individuals, we also experienced moments of tension between us, but always overcame them in a way that even strengthened our relationship. Over the years, I did a lot of writing for Abe, which came so naturally for me because Abe and I were almost always on the same wavelength: On the need for directness in standing up against antisemitism and anti-Zionism, in the need to not only educate about the Holocaust but to make it relevant to current life, in the need to speak out on behalf of civil rights issues as an important element in improving life for Jews, and in the need to be proud of our Jewishness and to convey that to a wider audience. 

I was unbelievably blessed, as was ADL, to have Abe as a mentor, as a model for how to represent the Jewish people, and as an inspiration. Nothing made me prouder than when people mentioned me in the same breath as Abe. 

And the Jewish world was blessed to have Abe’s courage, leadership and insights for so many years.

Abe had a unique life, a unique career and unique influence on many individuals, no one more than me. I will miss him on a personal level, his warmth, his insight, his connection. 

I take solace in how lucky I was to be so close to him for so many years.