The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State

“A gutsy, razor-sharp demystification of a powerful organization.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The first-ever history of the Anti-Defamation League and its determined, century-long alliance with Western empire.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a major US political organization, yet its politics have gone largely unexamined. While the ADL is often portrayed as a defender against antisemitism and racism, its history shows that it is better understood as a proponent of the racial state and US empire. From “correcting” the embarrassing racial difference of immigrant Jews to policing the leftist politics of Black, Arab, and Jewish groups, the ADL pursued a conservative version of civil rights paired with aggressive anti-communism. Even as it became an authority on white nationalism in the 1970s, the ADL joined with the emerging anti-left, anti-Arab, and pro-Western neoconservative movement.

​This history presaged the ADL’s work, from the 1980s to the present, in developing the hate crimes framework as a pro-state policing project, which soon merged with the “War on Terror,” the “antisemitism scare,” and anti-Palestinian racism. The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State presents the ADL’s history through its conflicts with social justice movements, illuminating the ADL’s outsize role in shaping the ideas about race and rights that have underwritten US empire.

Author: Emmaia Gelman
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 06/16/2026
Pages: 342
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.00w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780520410442
Language: English