The ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt Could Learn Something About Nazis from Patton Oswalt

Yesterday, Patton Oswalt posted this on Bluesky, which comes from Michael B. Tager. Inasmuch as things can go viral on Bluesky, this story did. It’s well worth reading, and there’s a valuable lesson here for people like Jonathan Greenblatt.

Jonathan Greenblatt is the head of the Anti-Defamation League. There was a time when I was fairly certain that the ADL wasn’t the absolute worst, though the ADL has always been the kind of organization that would pull me out of Shabbat services to accuse me of antisemitism for suggesting the ADL is the worst.

That said, the ADL was behind some activist efforts to pressure advertisers to leave Twitter over its antisemitic content, at least until Elon Musk threatened to sue the ADL over lost Twitter revenue. A few weeks later, the ADL mysteriously resumed running its own ads on Twitter, and Musk stopped threatening to sue.

Cut to Inauguration Day, when Elon Musk clearly performed a Nazi salute. There is no debate about this. There’s no debate, either, about its intentionality. The only question is whether he performed the salute to troll the libs or because Elon Musk is, in fact, a Nazi. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a distinction without a difference.

Jonathan Greenblatt could have condemned Elon Musk for the Nazi salute. It was his right and responsibility to do so. At the very least, he could have stayed silent. Instead, Greenblatt actually defended Musk. He called it a “new day” and suggested the Nazi salute was unintentional. Elon Musk “thanked” Greenblatt with a laughing emoji.

Jonathan Greenblatt served the Nazi a beer. And the Nazi brought his friends. Before long, Jonathan Greenblatt was the bartender in a Nazi bar, where Elon Musk yukked it up with his Nazi buddies. Great job, Greenblatt.

At this point, after Greenblatt had served the Nazi a beer and allowed all his friends into the bar, he decided maybe he didn’t want to be the proprietor of a Nazi bar after all.

You gave the Nazi a seat at your bar, Greenblatt. What did you expect to happen? If a Nazi walks into a bar and GIVES THE NAZI SALUTE, you ask that Nazi to leave. The number one rule of running an organization supposedly designed to protect Jewish people from antisemitism is this: You brook no Nazis!

Jonathan Greenblatt has failed the ADL. He has failed Jewish people. He has failed the Palestinian people. If there’s any hope of rehabilitating the ADL’s sorry reputation, Jonathan Greenblatt needs to go.