ABSTRACT
For over a century now, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has been in the forefront in countering extremism, primarily from the political right in the United States. Through numerous measures – including training and educational programmes, sponsoring hate crime legislation, monitoring cyberspace, and intelligence sharing with various law enforcement agencies – the ADL has done much to neutralise the Extreme Right. Ostensibly created to safeguard Jewish interests, the ADL has managed to frame its agenda as consistent with the national interest. By doing so, it has been hugely successful, as it has garnered not only substantial support in the Jewish community, but also respectability in the mainstream media, government, and entertainment industry. In recent years, however, the ADL has been in the forefront of efforts to regulate social media platforms, which has occasioned criticism from some quarters that fear censorship could become the norm for those views that fall outside boundaries of mainstream discourse. Furthermore, the increasing heterogeneity of the US population and rising political polarisation in American politics could lead to new variants of antisemitism other than those usually associated with right-wing extremism. Thus, the ADL will continue to face challenges in the future.
