For nearly 30 years, as national director of the ADL, Abe Foxman was the American Jewish community’s public face and voice in the battle against antisemitism and racism. Under his leadership, the ADL developed into the world’s most recognized organization implementing anti-racist educational programs, while also tracking antisemitism in the US and internationally.
Foxman, who passed away on May 10, 2026, understood the power of words to shape people’s actions:
“What we deal with is words. We’ve learned that words have the power to kill, that words unchallenged, left in silence, words of bigotry, are part of our tradition.” He would often quote Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who stated that “the crematoriums of Auschwitz did not begin with bricks; they began with words.”
A tireless advocate for the Jewish people and the state of Israel, Foxman also
fought white supremacy and discrimination against other groups, including Muslim, members of the LGBTQ community and immigrants. “We have always believed you can’t fight one kind of defamation without fighting the other,” Foxman said.
But Foxman’s main objective was defending Jews and the state of Israel. He would often take to task Israel’s critics for being animated by antisemitism. “If the only nationalism that you find apartheid in is Jewish nationalism, then you’re an anti-Semite,” he argued.
Born in Poland in 1940, Foxman was hidden by his Roman Catholic nanny in Vilnius, Lithuania, who baptized him and successfully taught him to live as a Christian until the war’s end, thus escaping Nazi detection. After the war, when his parents, who had survived the war, returned to collect their son, a bitter court battle ensued before he was restored to his family
“She did it out of love — for me, for the church, for Jesus,” Foxman said “She risked her life for me for four years, every day. … She was guilty of human frailty. … But my life was preserved by an act of compassion by a non-Jew. … And in my work I pay tribute to what motivated her, the goodness in her.”
A strong advocate of Holocaust education and combatting Holocaust denial Foxman accompanied a group of 250 ADL supporters on the 2005 March of the Living. The trip was facilitated Dr. David Machlis, Vice Chair of International March of the Living.
Dr. Machlis recalled the spellbinding effect Foxman’s words had on participants in the March.
“I remember listening to him speaking to his group and then later on Erev Yom Hashoah in Krakow’s Jewish Quarter. People were mesmerized by him. They worshiped every word he said. He was among the most moving and dynamic speakers I’ve ever heard.”
“His commitment to fighting antisemitism was unparalleled. But he was extremely balanced in his approach, taking on hatred from both sides, the far right and the far left – the hate on both sides.”
“This was a very sad day for me”, Dr. Machlis said upon learning of Foxman’s passing. Machlis, whose friendship with Foxman spanned several decades, recalled, “Before every Chag (Jewish holiday) I would write to him and within 5 minutes, if not less, he would write back, and he always ended his note with: “Hugs”.
“In his own way, he was strong but loving. When he had to be strong, he was strong, but loving without a doubt”, he added.
“We have lost a giant of a Jewish leader”, noted Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, President of the International March of the Living, “the likes of which we will not see again soon. It is up to each one of us to carry on his legacy of standing up for the Jewish people and Israel, combatting Holocaust denial, and fighting antisemitism and all forms of hatred and bigotry.”
Sources: JTA, Times of Israel, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune
