Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, admitted failure in his organization’s — and the wider Jewish community’s — efforts to combat the “inferno of antisemitism” that has rocked the world over the past 15 months, in remarks made in the Knesset this morning. 

Greenblatt and other American Jewish leaders who appeared in the Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs called on Israeli lawmakers and the State of Israel to take seriously the need to address global antisemitism.

“Nobody likes to admit when they’ve fallen short. I don’t like to lose. I personally hate to lose. However, sometimes we need to acknowledge the reality, and I believe it takes confidence to express humility,” he said. “What I learned from working in Silicon Valley, it’s OK to fail as long as you fail forward and learn from it. So that’s what needs to happen now.”

Greenblatt did not offer concrete recommendations to innovate the field of combating antisemitism, but said that fresh thinking was sorely needed.

“Otherwise, as Einstein said, we’ll be doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It’s the definition of insanity. So starting with ADL and the rest of the NGO sector in the U.S. and around the world, we’ve got to start doing things differently. And the same goes here in Israel. This means that the problem won’t be solved by yet another new Knesset task force. It won’t be solved by the government just throwing money at the problem. It won’t be solved by the IDF spokesperson’s unit issuing updated talking points or suddenly using TikTok. Like us in America, you need to adopt new strategies to experiment with creative tactics to study the results and scale what works,” he said.  “We need the kind of genius that manufactured Apollo Gold Pagers and infiltrated Hezbollah for over a decade to prepare for this battle. We need the kind of courage that executed Operation Deep Layer inside Syria and destroyed Iranian missile manufacturing capabilities to undertake this mission. This is the kind of ingenuity and inventiveness that have always been a hallmark of the State of Israel, that have always been a characteristic of the Jewish people. I know we can do it.”

The Knesset committee, which is led by Oded Forer, a member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, and among other things tracks antisemitism around the world, also heard from representatives of the Jewish Federations of North America, the City of New York, Aish, the World Zionist Organization and other Jewish and Israeli groups from around the world. 

“Today marks exactly 15 months since Oct. 7. Not a moment has passed without us reflecting on that terrible day, thinking about the victims and their families and working tirelessly to free the remaining hostages still cruelly held in Gaza,” Greenblatt said.

“Not only was it the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Oct. 7 lit a fuse of an inferno that’s still blazing around the world today. It’s an inferno of antisemitism. ADL has been tracking anti-Jewish incidents since the 1970s and we’ve processed more than 10,000 anti-Jewish acts in the United States in the 12 months since Oct. 7. That’s a 200%-plus increase compared to the same period of time in the prior year. But this isn’t limited to America,” he said.

Greenblatt pushed for the State of Israel to consider the fight against antisemitism online and around the world to be another front (alongside Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran) that the country must contend with.

“Capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding on to Mount Hermon. Libelous tweets certainly might seem less deadly than missiles from Yemen. But this is urgent because the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its allies perform online as much as offline. Make no mistake, it’s real,” he said.

Jamie Geller, the chief marketing officer of Aish, stressed the need for education and engagement, noting that recent surveys show that large percentages of American Jews are not connected to Jewish organizations.

“Education has to be part and parcel to the fight against antisemitism because otherwise the majority of Jewish people are left… unable to stand up and be proud and will reject their Judaism and reject Israel in turn. [But] if we educate them, they can be soldiers in the fight with us,” she said. 

While Greenblatt and Geller highlighted the Jewish communal world’s inability to address the meteoric rise in antisemitism over the past 15 months, Shira Hutt, the executive vice president of JFNA, noted the successful efforts of individual Jewish communities in response to local antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents.

“Over the past few years, 146 local federations that make up the Jewish Federations of North America have committed to building and supporting professionally run and led security initiatives that include under its umbrella every Jewish institution and interacts with every law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the community. This has come at an enormous cost in dollars and in focus, but it has been essential,” Hutt said.

She listed a number of examples, from an anti-Israel city council resolution in Fort Collins, Colo., that the local federation was able to have withdrawn to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia working to get a local teacher removed from her position after she made threats against Zionists online. 

“There are many organizations that play an important role and we are grateful for their national partnership, but the local civil engagement of every community is an indispensable component of the solution,” Hutt said.