Last Updated on 3 days ago by Vijay Kumar
Anti-Defamation League former national director Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor who spent decades fighting antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, died on May 10 in New York City. He was 86.
The death was confirmed by ADL spokesman Todd Gutnick, although no specific cause was announced. Foxman led the organization from 1987 until his retirement in 2015 and transformed it into one of the most influential Jewish advocacy groups in the United States.
Born on May 1, 1940, in Baranowicze, then part of Poland and now known as Baranavichy, Foxman survived the Holocaust as a child after his parents placed him in the care of a Polish Catholic nanny during the Nazi occupation. He was baptized and raised as a Catholic under the name Henryk Stanislaw Kurpi before reuniting with his Jewish parents after World War II.
Foxman later immigrated to the United States with his family and settled in Brooklyn. Despite arriving without speaking English, he eventually earned a political science degree from City College of New York and graduated from New York University School of Law in 1965.
The same year, Foxman joined the ADL as an assistant director in its law department. Over the following decades, he became one of America’s most recognizable advocates against antisemitism, hate speech and extremism.
Under his leadership, the organization expanded its global influence, monitored hate groups, promoted Holocaust education and advocated for civil rights causes including LGBTQ equality, immigrant rights and opposition to Islamophobia.
Foxman often argued that hateful language could lead to dangerous consequences, frequently citing Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said that “the crematoriums of Auschwitz did not begin with bricks; they began with words.”
Throughout his career, Foxman strongly defended the state of Israel and frequently challenged critics he believed crossed the line from political criticism into antisemitism. His outspoken positions sometimes generated controversy, particularly regarding Israeli-Palestinian issues and debates surrounding free speech.
In later years, Foxman also became known for encouraging public figures accused of antisemitic behavior to study Jewish history and seek reconciliation. However, he remained publicly critical of actor Mel Gibson after Gibson’s antisemitic remarks in 2006.
Foxman retired from the ADL in 2015 and later served at the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.
He is survived by his wife, Golda Bauman, whom he married in 1967, along with their two children and four grandchildren.
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