In the late 1990s, Abraham Foxman sought to help Israel’s foreign minister, Ariel Sharon, to improve his standing with top American officials following a prolonged estrangement resulting from Sharon’s tenure as defense minister during the Lebanon War.
Foxman, then the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent American-Jewish organization whose mandate is to combat anti-Jewish hatred, maintained close relations with both Sharon and the U.S. officials. Foxman persuaded the latter to hear Sharon out. A meeting was arranged in an unconventional setting: a helicopter ride over Judea and Samaria and Israel’s northern borders. Receiving a security briefing from Sharon, one of Israel’s legendary generals before entering politics, in that manner brought home the Jewish state’s defensive challenges and went a long way toward returning Sharon to America’s good graces.
Sharon soon became prime minister. The rapprochement Foxman had brokered would lead to the two countries working collaboratively during a challenging period that included the second intifada and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
“Abe was significantly responsible for having moved [the relationship] along” at that point, said Mark Medin, who served as Foxman’s top assistant for more than 10 years and joined him in the helicopter that day. Today he’s an executive of the UJA-Federation of New York, a philanthropic organization.
“Abe was uniquely positioned to kasher Sharon,” Medin said, meaning: to make okay. “It was because of the depth of relations Abe had in Washington and the depth of the trust they had in him [when he said] that Sharon needed to be engaged.”
Heading the ADL for 28 years and working for the organization for a half-century overall is the legacy of Foxman, who died on May 10 at age 86.
“He was one of the consequential voices in America. He fought racial, ethnic and religious hatred at all times. He possessed great moral clarity,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, who knew Foxman for four decades. “He was a real leader. He was the embodiment of the Jewish people.”
The two last met for lunch in Washington two months ago, and “he was the old Abe,” Makovsky said. “His mind was very alert.” (Foxman only recently donated his archives to the National Library of Israel, which is now beginning to catalog the contents. Makovsky serves as president of the board of directors of NLI USA.)
In 1997, Medin participated in an intensely personal experience for Foxman, who was born in Poland in 1940 and was safeguarded during the Holocaust by his nanny, Bronisława Kurpi, who baptized him as a Catholic and raised him. Foxman’s parents survived the Holocaust and reclaimed him, but only after a custody case was decided in their favor. The Foxmans then settled in New York.
Medin and Foxman traveled to Baronowicze (now in Belarus), the town where Foxman was born. He had no recollection of Baronowicze, having been there only until one year old, but hoped to see his first house. Foxman persuaded the present-day residents that he wasn’t there to reclaim the property. Medin recalled that Foxman had clearer memories of the church in Vilnius where he had spent time as a boy.
“It was obviously a very emotional experience,” Medin said.
Foxman would go on to meet three popes during his career at ADL. He became a leading figure not only in the organization but in American-Jewish organizational life more broadly, meeting with politicians worldwide to convey his concerns about antisemitism and to advocate for tolerance, American Jewry and Israel. Journalists appreciated his accessibility and his directness rather than resorting to formulaic talking points.
Foxman famously criticized public figures, including African-American activist Jesse Jackson, former President Jimmy Carter, actor Mel Gibson and rapper Kanye West, for engaging in antisemitic speech. He also believed in extending second chances and exhibited grace in accepting apologies.
Medin said he witnessed Foxman strongly disagreeing with an interlocutor, then hugging the person when their meeting ended.
“It was part of his special sauce,” he said.
In retirement, Foxman regularly took to X (Twitter) to express his views. In recent years, that meant opposing the near-daily incidents of antisemitic, anti-Israel expressions at home and abroad.
On March 17, he posted this regarding accusations that Israel and American Jews pushed the United States into war with Iran: “This is a very dangerous moment for the American Jewish community. An epidemic cutting across the right and the left, reinforcing and distributing the classic antisemitic canard of Jewish power and control. … It is imperative that from the president down, these dangerous antisemitic conspiracy theories be challenged, countered and exposed immediately!”
At their last meeting, earlier in March, Makovsky and Foxman discussed the ongoing threats to the safety of American Jews.
“He was worried,” Makovsky said. “It hurt me that he had to see this. It was like his life’s work was under assault.”
Writer-editor Hillel Kuttler can be reached at [email protected].
