ADL, CJP Newton reaction raises questions of integrity

By Alexandra Lapkin Burton says no written report exists - p. 2, par. 5

Advocate Staff Shrage says no benefit to viewing report - p.2, par. 8
December 27, 2013
Shrage says whether or not reports exist is “totally transparent” - p. 3 par. 3
Sharage changed mind about whether reports exist - p. 3 par. 4
Conflicting statements and lack of transparency undermine public trust

Controversy continues to swirl over a statement released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),
Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) and Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater
Boston ( JCRC) claiming that charges by Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) President
Charles Jacobs of anti-Israel material in the Newton Public Schools were groundless.

Following that statement and ambiguity over whether a referenced ADL report even existed, the
JCRC stated that it has also conducted an inquiry into alleged anti-Israel materials taught in 9th-
and 10th-grade history classes in the Newton Public Schools that is separate from that of the Anti-
Defamation League (ADL).

However, the JCRC – like the ADL before it – declined to share the details of their review with the
public, prompting some in the community – including an instructor at Brandeis University in
Waltham – to raise the question of transparency in local Jewish organizations.

“The Arab World Studies Notebook” and “A Muslim Primer” are two controversial texts that have
been used in the Newton Public Schools. The former, which claims that Israeli soldiers “killed
hundreds of Palestinian nurses,” was rejected by numerous school systems nationwide but Newton
included it in its high school curriculum until parent anger forced its removal.

Neither ADL nor JCRC has agreed to release its findings in order to support their joint statement
in a Letter to the Editor in the Nov. 15 issue of The Advocate, where the organizations’ leaders
wrote that they have done a “careful review of the materials at issue,” concluding, “We trust that
this is reassuring to members of our community.” In a subsequent interview reported in this
newspaper, ADL New England Regional Director Robert Trestan only reiterated that “the [APT] ad
is misleading. It is taken out of context.” While Trestan said a report of their investigation does not
exist, ADL’s New England Regional Board Chair, Jeffrey Robbins, said there is indeed such a
written analysis but it is not available to the media. “It’s an internal report,” he said. “People do
this stuff internally all the time. ... It involves all kinds of proprietary research.”

JCRC Executive Director Jeremy Burton said the point of the joint statement was only to respond
to APTs advertisement. “The letter is very specific.”

Joshua Katzen, an adjunct professor of real estate development at Brandeis and a Newton
resident, has been working with the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
(CAMERA), a media monitoring organization, with regard to the issues raised in the Newton
public school curriculum. He has also reached out to Robbins and asked for the organization to
disclose its findings, which were not provided to him.

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In response to the Jewish leadership’s unwillingness to provide the Jewish community with
detailed information from their reviews, Katzen said in an e-mail, “The failure of both
organizations to release the reports that they claim to have undertaken, by nameless non-experts,
indicates that no such reports were ever prepared.”

“While CAMERA has an expert on the subject, [Senior Research Analyst] Steve Stotsky, who made
serious and professional findings, there doesn’t appear to be anyone at either ADL or JCRC with
the credentials to analyze the curricula,” he continued. “Why on earth would they be refusing to
release the reports?” Katzen asked. “Only two explanations: Either the reports are slipshod and
amateur, or [they] don’t exist.”

For the past 18 months, when the concerns about the curriculum first surfaced, Burton said, “We
have been working directly with the [Newton] School Committee members,” which included
conversations and a review of materials that were listed in an advertisement taken out by
Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) in Boston area newspapers in October.

Burton added that the only “joint element” with the ADL’s review involved both organizations
(JCRC and ADL) reaching out to Jacobs to ask him for the materials that formed the basis of his
investigation. In a prior interview, which was included in the Nov. 29 issue of The Advocate,
Jacobs said, “I wish we could share our data with them. But sadly our prior experiences show that
we cannot trust them with information before we take it public.”

Burton said that despite conducting a thorough review of the Newton curriculum, JCRC has not
completed a “written report or briefing memo” of its analysis. He said that “we verbally walked our
leadership” over the materials that were taught at the schools. He said JCRC has “no pretention of
a report” which he could present for publication, but added that there are no other documents that
he could share with the Jewish community that reveal the details of the review.

Burton added that he has not inquired into the allegations of a more recent ad taken out by APT in
November, which compared a handout of maps given to Newton students, similar to those that
were featured in a recent MBTA ad that depict a shrinking Palestine and growing Israel in the
years since 1948.

Burton said that he has no specific response to APT’s second ad because he has not seen any
“backup” of Jacobs’ claims. “I think this back-and-forth of Jacobs attacking and us responding is a
waste of energy.” He added that he would prefer to “respond to actual attacks on the Jewish
community.”

Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) President Barry Shrage, who was one of the signatories to
the Nov. 15 statement, said he does not believe the Jewish community would benefit from the
release of the findings by ADL and JCRC. He added that the issue is not whether Jewish leaders
share their reviews, but “what’s happened in the classrooms. Very little materialized, and the
system responded right away.” (Matt Hill, Vice Chair of the Newton School Committee, is married
to Shrage’s cousin.) He added that instead of focusing on the report of the review conducted by the
organizations, the “real issue” that deserves attention is “what APT is trying to say.”

Implicitly acknowledging that there were in fact such materials in the Newton schools, Shrage
said, “In my view the question of existence [of materials listed on APT’s advertisement] is not the
issue, but rather how these materials were used.”

But others in the community question why impressionable high school students should be exposed
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to such anti-Israel materials at all, particularly if they are biased and factually incorrect.

Regarding the ADL’s responsibility to the Jewish community to share their findings, Shrage said,
“It’s up to them to share their documents. It’s not my job to pass judgment on other organizations.
… Some of the information is pertinent and some stuff is not shareable; that is a question for them.
… There’s no need to share anything.” He added that he stands by JCRC.

“The answer – what I see is totally transparent. Whether there is a document [ADL report] or not,
and there is no evidence that there is, [is not the issue],” he added.

While in a previous interview with the Jewish News Service ( JNS), Shrage was quoted as saying
that he had in fact seen reports by ADL and JCRC on the Newton curriculum, he said in the
interview with The Advocate for this story, “All the information that I got was verbal.”

When asked about how the situation reflects on transparency of the Jewish community
organizations, Shrage turned the attention on Jacobs’ group, saying, “What about APT? Where is
their transparency?” He went on to say that APT still has not answered questions to ADL and
JCRC’s inquiries.

In response to the question about his organization’s transparency, Jacobs said in an e-mail, “Our
ads and our many op-eds have disclosed the basis of our concerns.”

“I really doubted any report existed,” said Russel Pergament, long active in local media and
publisher of JNS. Pergament, who has known Shrage for “almost 30 years” called Shrage after
hearing he had seen a so-called report. “I pushed hard on the phone. I wanted facts. When I asked
how many pages the report was he said ‘about eight,’ so of course I am saddened by this whole
sordid pack of lies.

“What is really alarming here is to see Boston’s most powerful and well funded Jewish communal
organizations train their firepower on one courageous man, Charles Jacobs, who has time and
again come to the aid of Jewish high school and college students facing harassment, while these
groups often did nothing and, worse yet, even tried to undercut him. That they jointly, almost
conspiratorially, joined forces to try and take him down is worse than disgraceful. You have to
question their fitness to retain these positions of trust.”

Another prominent community figure, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed what
he said was on the minds of many in the community: “Instead of releasing any report or detailed
findings on which their statement is based, these organizations are asking us to blindly trust them
and their general conclusion on faith. And yet, how can we do that when they are saying two
inconsistent and contradictory things, at least one of which is therefore a lie? This is no longer just
a story about the Newton schools, but about accountability and how our communal organizations
and leadership operates.”

Jacobs observed, “It seems to me that ADL has done a disservice to the Jewish community and
Jewish leadership in Boston, by claiming to have done a thorough, quality investigation – which
they refuse to disclose, but which CJP, JCRC, AJC and leading Rabbis in the Boston area have
relied on.

“We do not believe ADL has any credible basis for its continuing claim that there is nothing for
Boston’s Jewish community to worry about. This is very unfortunate for a community that
desperately needs strong leadership at a time when Israel and its supporters are under attack in
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universities, in K-12, and in the media.”

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