Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s nearly two-year war in Gaza since have convulsed not only the region but the world. Here in the United States, the rise in antisemitic incidents and questions of how criticism of Israel relates to antisemitism have become central to debates around free speech, immigration, national security and, fundamentally, what it means to feel safe and welcome in this country.

Navigating all these debates is Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, or A.D.L. Founded more than 100 years ago, the A.D.L.’s stated mission is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Under Greenblatt’s decade-long tenure, the A.D.L. has tracked and reported on a precipitous increase in antisemitism on the right and, in more recent years, on the left. The organization is often seen as the arbiter of what is and isn’t antisemitic.

At the same time, pro-Palestinian advocates within and outside the Jewish community say the A.D.L. has entered the political fray in ways that put it in tension with its founding civil rights mission and its ability to adjudicate fairly by, for instance, aligning with the Trump administration in its fight with universities, and by supporting the arrest of the Palestinian protester and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil. Greenblatt and I dug into all of this, as well as into his belief that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. I also wanted to ask Greenblatt about the war and how critics of the Israeli government, including some Jews, talk about it.

With outrage over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza growing, and college students soon returning to campuses that have been roiled by the threat of funding cuts and years of tension over what some see as legitimate protest and others as anti-Jewish hate, I sat down twice with Greenblatt to talk about how he and the A.D.L. view this fraught moment.

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I want to start with a big question that I know you think about a lot. What is the situation, in your estimation, for Jews in America right now? I think this is a time of great concern for Jews all over the United States. At A.D.L., we track antisemitism, we measure attitudes and we also track incidents. And we’ve never really seen a time like this, at least not in recent memory. So on the one hand, elevated or intense antisemitic attitudes, as a percent of the population, have more than doubled in the last five years. And we also track incidents. What I can tell you is, last year, 2024, was the worst year we had ever recorded in terms of acts of harassment, vandalism and violence directed at Jewish people or Jewish institutions. That was the fifth time in the last six years that we’ve broken a new record. And if I look back over the 10 years since I became A.D.L. C.E.O., the number’s up 10 times where it was when I started on the job.

We’ve seen indisputable acts of antisemitic violence: the fatal shooting of two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, the firebombing in Colorado in June against peaceful protesters calling for the release of the hostages, arson at the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. So there have been many high-profile cases of violence against Jews in this country, and that is terrible. There is a debate that I want to understand your perspective on, about what constitutes antisemitism in this country. We have pro-Palestinian speech. We have criticism of the Israeli government. We have anti-Zionism, and we have antisemitism. How do you distinguish among those? Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic. If you’re looking for an organization that criticizes the Israeli government, Israeli politicians, Israeli policies, I’d point you to ADL.org, because we do it. There is a robust debate in the Jewish community. And I think you see heated criticism in the Jewish community of policies of the Israeli government.

When it crosses a line is when it’s not a criticism of Israeli policy per se, but we see things like, for example, the demonization of all Israeli people. Demonizing an entire group of people for a policy of government you don’t like, I would say that’s antisemitism. Second, delegitimizing the state itself, its right to exist. And then, No. 3, double standards when you talk about Israel versus other countries. So when I see demonization or delegitimization or double standards, that’s where I think, Is this really criticism of Israel, or is this something else? Now, let’s talk about anti-Zionism. And by the way, to talk about anti-Zionism, we need to talk about Zionism.

Please define both. So Zionism is, simply put, the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancient homeland. That’s what it is. Zionism is essential to the Jewish tradition. The idea of Jews returning to Israel, we’ve been talking about it since Moses, literally. Political Zionism is newer, 125 years, but that notion of self-determination in the homeland doesn’t exclude Palestinians, doesn’t exclude any other group. It’s saying Jews have the right, this sort of liberation movement, to go back to where they’re from. Anti-Zionism is the belief that Jews do not have that right. It is an ideology which is committed to saying we will do what we can to prevent Jewish self-determination in their homeland. Anti-Zionism is an ideology of nihilism, Lulu, which would literally seek to not just delegitimize but eliminate the Jewish state. And that’s very problematic.

So you have equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. It is.

In preparation for this conversation, I talked to a lot of different people, and one of the things I heard is that anti-Zionism for them is a desire to have the rights of Palestinians equal to the rights of Jews in Israel and the Palestinian territories, which would ultimately mean that the country is not majority Jewish — the idea of the one-state solution. Is that definition of anti-Zionism antisemitic to you? If you believe that only Jewish people don’t have the right to self-determination, that’s antisemitic because it’s holding out Jews to a double standard you don’t accord to other people. So if you believe my definition of Zionism — which is really not my definition, it’s widely accepted — it’s peculiar to me how anti-Zionism isn’t the opposite of that. How people choose to interpret it, to embellish it, dress it up as something other than what it is — but the reality is, if you believe how I laid out Zionism, then anti-Zionism is pretty simple.

I think the challenge is if someone defines their view of anti-Zionism in a way that allows for Jews to exist in a state of Israel but that grants Palestinians rights, but you’re seeing that as antisemitic, people don’t feel like they have the space to have a different view without being tagged with something that is pretty serious. I can appreciate that for some people, this idea is an abstraction. Oh, anti-Zionism, it means such and such to me. I get that. But let me tell you what anti-Zionism doesn’t mean to me but what it results in: It’s a lunatic trying to burn down the governor’s mansion with his family sleeping in it because of his, quote, position on Palestine. It is, again, firebombing elderly people because you want to “end all Zionists.”

In talking to people who are self-described anti-Zionists, starting with the idea that that is the way they feel — that everyone should have rights in Israel and Palestine and Palestinian territories — to then extrapolate that they are somehow connected to murder, arson — I am not connecting those people. That’s kind of a sleight of hand, and not fair.

I’m really not trying to do a sleight of hand. I’m just trying to understand. You say that anti-Zionism leads to, that this is the inevitable end to this kind of belief. And so I think what people who hold those beliefs might say is that that is a sort of exaggeration and sleight of hand because they don’t want the annihilation of Jews. They might not want that. They might not understand what it means. They might not be steeped in the context. They might not be familiar with all of the history — but all I know is what I see every day. All I know are the thousands and thousands of people who contact us because they have been, as I’ve described already, targeted and victimized. Not because of what they believe but because of who they are. And again, when you normalize language like “from the river to the sea,” like “globalize the intifada,” like “Israel is a Nazi state,” this creates the conditions in which people feel not just compelled but almost obligated to do horrible things. So I think ideas have consequences, and it starts with words. And what I am saying to you is, again, Zionism is one thing. The opposite of that is not some, well, look, let’s have an ideal one state where everyone is. I’m not talking about that. I’m focused here in America on the felt experience of Jewish people.

I’m sure you saw my colleague Ezra Klein’s recent piece on divisions within the Jewish community, because this is not just an active debate outside of the Jewish community. These definitions and how they’re interpreted are also very vigorously debated within the Jewish community. Absolutely.

In that piece, he argues that the war in Gaza, and Israel’s actions over the past year there, have broken the consensus around the central place Israel has for American Jews. And there was this one line in the piece that really struck me, about how we think about the idea of self-determination. He writes: “The question is not whether Israel has the right to exist. It is whether Israel has the right to dominate.” So it’s just important that I come back to — my focus really every single day is the lived experience of Jewish people here. So I am not someone who is opining on the politics and the geostrategic issues. That’s important. Ezra has the luxury of doing that as a columnist. I don’t.

The reason I delve into this is because when we are discussing anti-Zionism, at the crux of that debate is that you believe anti-Zionism means the destruction of the Jewish state, and other people interpret it as the current incarnation of how Israel expresses its right to exist, the domination of the Palestinians. Again, I just disagree with this. I disagree with characterizing this phenomenon as something that it isn’t. I won’t concede that point because I don’t think it’s correct. And then, second, as it relates to Israel, look, the reality is the country inside the state of Israel has equal rights for its Arab citizens, whether they are of the Druze faith or the Christian faith or the Muslim faith, whether they self-identify as Palestinians or Bedouins or Arab Israelis. You’ve spent a lot of time there —

And I would say, at a minimum, there are many examples of treatment that is not equitable. And I think that’s what’s so hard for many people about the clear distinction that you’re making. Israel is a democracy unlike all the other countries in the region. It’s imperfect like all democracies on the planet, including the one we’re living in today. And we hold it to a very high standard because it’s a democracy. And we may object to certain things, practices that that state is doing. And yet somehow people use that to rationalize and justify actions against American Jews here.

I don’t know that any rational person is supporting Jews’ being treated badly in America. What I’m trying to understand is: What are these different buckets, how are they defined and then how does that actually play out in real life in the United States? So, for example, I want to talk a little bit about the situation on college campuses. Shortly after Oct. 7, the A.D.L. and the Brandeis Center wrote a letter to nearly 200 universities. You said that the group Students for Justice in Palestine, which is a group that the A.D.L. has focused on, should be investigated for materially supporting a foreign terrorist organization, which can carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Critics of that letter and that position have said that the A.D.L. is trying to suppress pro-Palestinian speech, because the definition of material support for terrorism is actually vague in the statutes. Let’s talk about the letter. To set the stage: I believe in a two-state solution. I believe that Israelis will never truly have safety and security unless Palestinians also have a degree of dignity and equality in a state of their own. Let’s just establish that. But let’s talk about S.J.P.

Oct. 7 was this extraordinary moment. And on the 8th, the person who runs our Center on Extremism, the group at A.D.L. that monitors and disrupts extremist threats, reached out to me and said, You need to see this. And one of our people was in an S.J.P. national chat on Oct. 8. And in the chat, they released or published for people to use who were in the S.J.P. chat an organizing tool kit, discussion guides, in plural, and talking points about what had happened on the 7th. Now, mind you, we were literally still trying to figure out what was going on on the 8th. I’m sure you remember, you were covering the story. There was still fighting going on. We didn’t know exactly what had happened, who had perpetrated it, and yet S.J.P. on the 8th already had their narrative very well developed.

One of the things that caught our attention on the 8th is they went from referring to the state of Israel to only referring to it as “the Zionist entity.” “Zionist entity” is how the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah refer to Israel. On the 8th, they used terms like “genocide” to describe what was happening in Gaza. And they also talked about, they were sort of praising what had happened on the 7th, the direct conflict with “the Zionist entity.” So this definitely got our attention. This is not what you see from other groups on campus. There was a level of language here that seemed wholesale adopted from Hamas. And then what we proceeded to see was S.J.P. continue to amplify and spread narratives through their social media, through their on-the-ground protests, and use tactics that were way beyond anything we’d ever seen before from groups criticizing Israel on college campuses.

The Supreme Court held in 2010 that the law applies only to actions “performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” and not to independent advocacy. So are you saying that you believe those materials came from Hamas directly? I don’t know where it was coming from. We felt like this was a group with a pattern of behavior that already had our attention that was clearly expressing a desire to escalate right here, and we thought it merited attention. I absolutely stand by that. Does that mean that they’re in direct correspondence? I don’t know.

Two hundred schools, students being looked into for material support for terrorism — that is a very serious allegation that the Supreme Court already looked at and said basically you have to be in direct coordination with a terrorist entity. Again, I’m just wondering, did you believe that that’s what was happening? The language they were using, the tactics they were expressing support for were in direct alignment with a terrorist organization.

That is a different thing than being directed by and in communication with a terrorist organization. You know, we track extremists, and we’ve been doing it for decades and decades. This gives us a degree of pattern recognition. And we clearly saw extraordinarily concerning behavior that led us to think this needs to be looked at. Guess what? All of our concerns have borne out to be correct about what was going to happen on those campuses. Since those days, Jewish students have been targeted, victimized and vilified. In large part by campaigns organized and executed by S.J.P. That’s literally happened on our campuses. And I can go line by line and tell you the stories of all the individuals who’ve experienced this.

I don’t want to belabor the point, I just think it’s slightly different what you’re talking about — what actually happened on campuses — and the accusation of material support for terrorism, right? On March 5, at the takeover for the Barnard Library right here in New York City, CUAD — they banned the S.J.P. chapter at Columbia for its behavior, and the students immediately reconstituted it as “CUAD” — and those students literally handed out Hamas literature. How do I know that? Because I went to the campus the following morning. And the students who were there in the library as it was taken over by the CUAD students said, “Here, Jonathan, look at what they were handing out” — pamphlets that said “Hamas media office” on it. I’ll bring one the next time we meet so you can see it for yourself. So look, did Hamas send that to them? Did they download it? I don’t really know what the process of coordinating was. But you can’t hand out ISIS literature in front of the Low Library at Columbia. I guess you could, and you may be detained for doing that. Is that speech or is that conduct?

[We reached out to the National Students for Justice in Palestine and Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Neither group responded to requests for comment on Greenblatt’s claims about their organizations in this interview. But S.J.P. has previously denied the A.D.L.’s allegations that they have provided material support for terrorism.]

In the same vein, I’d like to understand your position on Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate who was initially detained under a different law that says his actions were a foreign-policy threat and that he can be deported because of that. He is married to an American. He has a green card. The A.D.L. supported his arrest when it happened, posting on X, “We appreciate the Trump administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism — this action further illustrates that resolve by holding alleged perpetrators responsible for their actions.” Are you comfortable with the way this administration has been using the threat of deportation against protesters? First of all, we’ve been doing civil rights for over 100 years in freedom of speech, freedom of expression, the ability to protest without fear of political reprisal. This is fundamental to our belief system. And so for me it’s not about speech — it’s about conduct. There’s lots of ways you can protest the actions of what’s happening, of the Israeli government, things in the Middle East, without using violent rhetoric or justifying violence. There’s lots of groups who do this, who don’t use this kind of language or these tactics.

On CNN, Khalil said publicly, “Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement.” And when asked, he wouldn’t condemn Hamas at the same time, in that same interview.

I would ask you, though, about, again, the legal repercussions for some of these issues over speech. That’s what I’m asking. If you read the full post, what I said when Mr. Khalil was detained was that he needed due process. And I continue to believe he and every other person who is detained or arrested — due process is also fundamental to our legal system.

That law had been very rarely used at that point. And this is where language becomes so important, because at a trial about his deportations and others, a senior State Department official testified that student-visa holders are having their social media screened for criticism of Israel, including the current war in Gaza. And in his testimony, this official said, and I’m quoting, “In my understanding, anti-Semites will sometimes try to hide their views and say that they’re not against Jews, they’re just against Israel, which is a farcical argument.” He added, “It’s just a dodge.” And so I’m just wondering how you think this is all being implemented. Should students not get visas if they’ve criticized Israel? Of course that’s absurd. What I’m focused on is not what people think but what they do. This is why these conversations about anti-Zionism as if they’re some abstraction are kind of problematic for me. Because I deal in the reality. Again, the lived experience of Jewish students.

But this is the reality. This is a reality of how this is now being implemented by policy in this government. I don’t know who that State Department official was, but I don’t agree that you can keep people out of the United States because they are antisemitic or racist or sexist or express any other prejudices. I don’t believe in this concept of “thought police.” That’s not what we do at A.D.L., and I certainly wouldn’t want to see that codified into the criminal code.

One concern that I’ve heard, referring to what the State Department official said and the actions of this administration, is that this government might be using antisemitism selectively to screen people with whom it might be ideologically opposed. Well, obviously, that would be a problem. I don’t think antisemitism should be used as a political football by elected officials from either side. And so to the extent that the Trump administration or any administration would use it as a pretext to go after people who they don’t like or with whom they don’t agree on a broader set of issues, clearly I wouldn’t agree with that.

I talked to Greenblatt again several days later.

Since we last spoke, a lot has happened in the war in Gaza. There is mounting outrage in Israel over terrible images of one of the hostages having to dig his own grave, looking incredibly gaunt. “Starved,” I think is the word.

“Starved" is the word. And we’ve seen a mounting international outcry that has also been voiced in Israel over the mass starvation in Gaza. The beloved and prominent Israeli author David Grossman has now called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide, “with immense pain and a broken heart,” and said that “the occupation has corrupted us.” And I did wonder what you feel about that characterization coming from someone who’s often seen as a moral compass in Israel. I think David is an extraordinary author and in many ways one of the muses of the Jewish state, who’s sacrificed so much. I don’t begrudge him at all of his heartfelt opinions. Look, the situation in Gaza is a tragedy of immense proportions. The suffering, the starvation, it is heart-wrenching. It pains me every day. I would never purport to be a moral compass like David Grossman, but I do feel that my job requires me to have a kind of moral clarity.

Having heard that the word “genocide” is viewed when used against the Israeli state as basically an attack on Israel’s existence itself, I just wonder if you view it that way or if you don’t. Well again, I don’t begrudge David. I do think what’s happening in Gaza is a terrible, catastrophic situation. I don’t think it’s a genocide. Because that’s a legal definition which means an intentional effort. I don’t have the dictionary in front of me.

I have it here. It’s a U.N., legal definition, and it says, “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” So in fairness, I don’t have that definition in front of me, and I haven’t read it like you have before this, but what I’ll simply say is that I don’t believe the Israeli government is committing genocide. I don’t think they are intentionally trying to destroy or annihilate a group of people. I do think this is a war that was started by Hamas. I do think Hamas has made the decision to black-market and hoard the aid that comes in. The Hamas government has chosen to build tunnels below, not to create protective structures above. So we could ask ourselves questions about who is really bringing the catastrophe to the Gazan people.

But look, at the end of the day, for me, it’s not about how we define these things. We talked about this last time — anti-Zionism isn’t an interpretation. It’s a fact. And the pain and hunger and tragedy in Gaza is a fact, and the deaths of civilians are a fact, and the status of the hostages is a fact. So the facts compel me to say, without any hesitation, this war needs to end. The hostages need to come home. The aid needs to flow in. And we need people on both sides to be able to live in some modicum of peace. That’s what I want.

The reason I bring up the use of the word “genocide” — and we should also say that Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister of Israel, is now calling Israel’s actions “war crimes” — is that these questions on the words that one uses are at the heart of what I hear many people asking about this war, including Jews, which is how can they support Zionism if this is the current manifestation of Zionism? Look, it’s like how can you support Islam if Ayatollah Khomeini is the progenitor of it? How can you help support Christianity if the Crusades happened? How can you support America if you disagree with President Trump’s policies? Or even in the face of larger-scale disasters like slavery? So again, Zionism is the right of a people to self-determination. You can be upset with the policies of a government. But again, if you didn’t say in the wake of enslavement of Africans, America should be destroyed. If you didn’t say in wake of the Crusades, Christianity has no legitimacy. If you don’t say in the wake of the oppression of women for centuries, Islam has no right, then why would you feel differently about this?

What people are trying to understand is how far that right to self-determination extends. If self-determination means having a nation that is majority Jewish, does the right to self-determination permit Israel to deny others their civil and human rights to maintain it? I think that’s fair. It’s a reasonable question to ask. And the reality is that people inside the state of Israel have civil and human rights. If you’re looking for a country anywhere in the world that treats everyone perfectly, I don’t think you’ll find one. If you’re looking for a country in the Middle East, a democracy with corrective capacity, that’s the state of Israel. And the rights that are enjoyed by minorities there, if you just compare it to other countries in the region, Muslims and Druze and religious minorities have more, and ethnic minorities have more rights in Israel than in any other country in the region.

I do want to bring the conversation back to the United States and the work that the A.D.L. is doing. The A.D.L. just came out with a report rating states on how they’re doing on combating antisemitism. Can you talk me through briefly why you wanted to look at states? Because I think it’s the first time you’ve done it, right? First time we’ve done it. So we call it the Jewish Policy Index. And indeed, it takes a state-by-state view about policies and practices to evaluate how they are doing in the work of fighting antisemitism and hate. It’s data driven. It’s grounded in evidence. You can see that we basically tiered the states into three different categories, let’s say: OK, better and best. And we lay out why we think they are doing as such. What are their laws? What are their practices? What are their policies? So that a state that is OK can see the path forward to do better. And it’s a work in progress. My hope would be that over the ensuing years, we’ll work with all of the states, Republicans or Democrats, whoever might be in office, to try to demonstrate how they can pursue a path forward that will keep their Jewish citizens as safe and secure as possible and allow them to enjoy the same rights, the same privileges, as do all other people in that state.

On this idea of working with both parties, The Forward, which is a progressive Jewish outlet, reported a few months ago that in a speech to Republican attorneys general this summer, you said that student activists were “frothing at the mouth, looking like they just came out of Mosul.” You said that there is a “convergence of what I call the radical left and, like, Islamist groups here in the U.S.” And you praised the Trump administration’s punishing of universities like Harvard and others, saying, “God bless Secretary McMahon,” referring to the secretary of education. I know you made those comments in what you consider to be a closed-door meeting, but is there anything you’d like to clarify? Absolutely. So, No. 1, I certainly was talking about activists, but only those who are completely masked, who don’t show their identity, who are dressed like other people we’ve seen unfortunately on the field of battle, and those student activists who are screaming and harassing and threatening other students. So that’s No. 1. So when I say “frothing at the mouth,” I was referring to that very small percentage of these activists.

No. 2, I also talked about, as you said, the administration’s approach to dealing with the antisemitism on campuses, and I praised Secretary McMahon. And I should say right here up front, I have worked with the prior education secretary, and I’ve worked with this education secretary. And I credit the Biden administration for their national strategy to counter antisemitism, a really important document. No one had done what the Biden administration had done before in elevating antisemitism to a federal priority. And A.D.L., in full disclosure, worked with them on that, and they get a lot of credit for adopting the plan. And then I give credit to the Trump administration for actually implementing aspects of the plan and taking a strong view, again, in the face of real, not imagined, real acts of hate, real acts of discrimination.

Now that being said, I praised Secretary McMahon in that meeting. Maybe I went a little overboard saying “God bless.” And at the same time, when I met with Secretary McMahon, I met with her in her office and told her, “Yes, I appreciate what you’re doing on these universities leaning in, and I’m worried about overreach, because going too far could not only harm the universities, it harms our whole country.” And the fact of the matter is, pulling back funding for research can have lots of deleterious impacts. So I said to her and to the antisemitism task force, “Yes, lean in, but don’t go too far.”

What would be a sign that this administration has overcorrected, in your view? I think to the extent that research stopped happening. Ph.D.s stopped being granted. Breakthrough innovation was halted. Those would be things that would be evidence to me of it going too far. On the other hand, we just saw the settlement with Columbia, and there was another recent settlement. Those are encouraging because it shows me that schools demonstrate they’re going to take this seriously, and the administration shows that they’re going to work with them and reinstate the funding. That’s a good outcome for everybody, I think.

I’ve heard the criticism that the A.D.L. is increasingly aligning itself with the administration, with Israel, with the right, and it’s sacrificing its longstanding commitment to broader civil rights. In between our two conversations, there was an article in New York magazine that came out reflecting some of those criticisms, which you have roundly rejected, we should say. But I’m wondering, do you see how the intensity of the language you used in that meeting could lead someone to that conclusion? First of all, the piece that you’re referring to relied almost entirely on vague anonymous sources. I’m surprised that you are even asking me about it, to be honest. That said, again, we helped to write the national strategy to counter antisemitism released by the Biden administration. We were deeply involved in that. We’re working as well with the Trump administration. This is what we do. I just don’t even agree with the premise that we are somehow aligning with the right or aligning with the administration. We are an institution at A.D.L. And one of the features about being an institution is you work with the other institutions. So I get and I take the feedback, and I hear the criticism, and I simply would say, we’ve worked with presidential administrations over generations, right and left. We don’t agree with them on everything, but where we can find common ground, we try. And where we have a point of disagreement, we make that known.

I know you’ve looked at a lot of the polling, and you know that Israel has lost a lot of support, even among Jews, especially among young Jews. Do you ever worry that you might have positioned the A.D.L. in such a way that the younger generation of Jews won’t see you as defending them and the things that they believe in? What’s interesting, 90 percent of Jews in the polling that I’ve seen believe in the right of the state of Israel to exist. They are Zionists. And so, to young Jewish people, the vast majority of them identify with and feel positively about their Jewish identity and have a strong association with the state of Israel. All the data shows this. And so I think the majority of them, from whom I’ve heard, appreciate the work that A.D.L. does for them and their communities. So I don’t really think about this question, how have you positioned A.D.L.? A.D.L. has had a core position.

So you think young Jews who might self-describe as anti-Zionist or have problems with the state of Israel at the moment — Well, come on, wait a second. I have problems with policies of the state of Israel. But when you talk about the young Jews who define as anti-Zionist — there are young Hispanic people who support President Trump’s policies at the border. There are young Hispanic people who voted for President Trump, but the vast majority and the mainstream organizations fighting for the rights of immigrants don’t agree with that. There are Blacks for Trump, and there’s a whole movement among a portion of African Americans who deeply believe in the president. But like, would you say to the NAACP C.E.O., “Why don’t you represent them?”

It’s less why don’t you represent them. It’s more a question of, as an organization that helps define antisemitism and has defined it as anti-Zionism, at a moment when these things are being debated, we’ve seen expressed, and I’ve heard it from a lot younger Jews, that there is — What polls are you seeing? I understand anecdotally you may have heard it from some people. I believe there may be a bit of a selection bias there. Have you gone to any of the mainstream synagogues in New York City, the ones with the largest membership, and asked them? I would encourage you to go to 92nd Street Y. Go to the West Side J.C.C. Go to Central, Park Avenue, Rodeph Sholom, go to KJ. Go to all these large Jewish synagogues and ask where their young people are. Like, you can go to Brooklyn and find three synagogues.

And I appreciate you answering the question — But you’re giving the audience a very narrow, biased view, as if that’s where all Jewish young people are.

I’m asking a question, and you’re responding and saying that’s not what you think it is and you are not worried about it. I’m responding to the question and saying I don’t think on a day-to-day basis, how am I positioning A.D.L. I’m focused on defending the Jewish people. And those who want to pontificate, it must be nice. This is not you, but it must be nice for those people in the commentariat to have these views. And so, yeah, I do think it is fair to say many Jewish people are upset about the war, aspects of its prosecution, the human toll, etc. That doesn’t mean they think we should eliminate the Jewish state. And I think that’s the logic behind your question. That’s why I don’t agree with the logic, Lulu. There’s so much you get right. And on this, you’re just wrong.

You know, we started this conversation talking about how this is a terrible time for American Jews, no matter how they feel about the war. You’ve spent the last 10 years of your life focused on protecting Jews in this country. What do you want the audience to understand about how they can help fight antisemitism? Like to the ordinary person, you mean?

Yeah, to the ordinary person. That’s a good question. I deal with so many people who are dealing with pain, but usually it’s A.D.L. coming in to try to help them. But on a person-to-person, human level, I really believe in this idea of radical empathy and being there for others, not because it’s a quid pro quo, but because it’s the right thing to do, and opening your heart. So I guess what I would say to the non-Jewish person at the individual level is, No. 1, when you see something say something. Speak up, and try to have that radical empathy for your Jewish peer or colleague or friend or family member and go to them and try to, when something happens, say something.

No. 2, I think we can all educate ourselves and get the facts. And I think for me, in an environment where young people aren’t getting their news from the Times, but from TikTok, it behooves all of us to try to be digitally literate, to take information from a variety of sources, so we better understand the issues, rather than taking one source and thinking, Oh, now I know it all.

And then No. 3, showing up matters. One of the most powerful things that I did in my job was when Reverend Al Sharpton and I went down to Florida for a memorial service after a young Black woman was shot and killed in an act of senseless violence. And being there in that Black church environment I hadn’t been in before, just being present, just showing up really mattered. And I got lots of positive feedback from the parishioners who probably didn’t expect to see the head of the A.D.L. sitting in the pews for the service. We can all show up in lots of ways, but showing up for another community, maybe in a way that’s unexpected, can be incredibly meaningful.

Gaza has frayed a lot of relationships. I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it — institutions, governments. And I’m wondering how you look at that at the A.D.L., because you have been at the crux of many of these debates. They are controversial, and they are difficult, as we have seen. So how do you think the A.D.L. comes out the other side of it? So, No. 1, we deal with antisemitism, and I’m afraid that the antisemitism we’ve seen to rise to such high levels, I hope and believe it will come down. I don’t know if it’s going to get back to the levels we were at, say in 2015, 2014, 2013. I worry that increased anti-Jewish hate is now part of the norm. I worry about that. I just do. And so we’re going to have to cope with that reality, like it or not.

I worry about communal ties that have been frayed between the Jewish and Muslim communities, for sure. So many Muslim people, like Jewish people, are outraged by what’s happened in the war, just like they were outraged by what happened on Oct. 7. How they come together and forge bonds, I think, is really important.

And I just worry on a day-to-day basis, again, about Jewish people having a sense of insecurity. You know, I was just talking with a family. Their Jewish child is at summer camp. They had security drills at the summer camp. That’s crazy at a Jewish summer camp, having security drills, but they have a whole new protocol because of the very real fear of threats. I worry that that’s the new norm. So I do think on the other side, not just of the war, but of this last decade, when we’ve seen such a rise of hate, when we’ve seen hate from podcasters on the right and on the left, when we’ve seen explicit acts of violence, from Pittsburgh to Boulder, coming from all sides, I worry that American Jews are now living with a kind of anxiety that’s well founded. The work to turn that around, the work to get back to where Jewish people, like all people, can feel safe in the places where they worship, in the place where they work and live, that’s what I want to see us get back to. That’s going to be really hard, and I think it’s going to take a long time.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music or the New York Times Audio app.

Director of photography (video): Zack Canepari