ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt responds to Bret Stephens (INSIDE Call me Back sneak peek)

Summary

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Call Me Back with Dan Senor

Inside Call Me Back Sneak Peek: ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt Responds to Bret Stephens

Date: February 14, 2026
Host: Dan Senor
Guest: Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

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Episode Overview

This special “Inside Call Me Back” segment features Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, as he responds to prominent columnist Bret Stephens’ recent criticisms of organized Jewish institutional priorities, specifically targeting ADL’s approach in battling antisemitism. The conversation explores the critique raised at Stephens’ State of World Jewry address, analyzes the rise in antisemitic attitudes and incidents in the US, and discusses the controversy around a high-profile Super Bowl ad from the Blue Square Alliance. The dialogue candidly examines the balance between investing in Jewish security vs. identity, and the dilemmas facing Jewish organizations today.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Bret Stephens Speech & Greenblatt’s Reaction

[01:20 - 05:20]

• Dan sets the context: Bret Stephens, at a major address, argued Jewish institutions devote too much effort to fighting antisemitism, suggesting energy could be better spent elsewhere. Stephens named ADL and Greenblatt specifically.
• Greenblatt’s candid reflections on attending the speech as Stephens’ guest:
  • “He said to me before, ‘I’m going to be a little bit provocative tonight.’ And I thought, well, that's typical Bret.” [02:44]
  • During the event, Stephens provocatively suggested that ADL, UJA, and AJC “should all be dismantled.”
  • Greenblatt recounts his initial surprise but also sees common ground in Stephens’ advocacy for building Jewish identity.

Notable Quote

“All the things he talked about—the need to invest in our sense of self, to improve our relationship with Israel, our sense of Jewish peoplehood, Jewish culture, our center of civilization—I agree with all of that. But I don’t think these are mutually exclusive. Jewish security is inseparable from Jewish identity. We can’t flourish and succeed if we don’t feel safe.”
— Jonathan Greenblatt [04:09]

Memorable Exchange

Dan: “It’s always dangerous when they preface with the menschie...”
Greenblatt: “And you’re like, here we go...” [04:09]

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2. The Data: Rise in Antisemitism in the US

[05:20 - 07:28]

• Greenblatt shares empirical trends ADL tracks on antisemitic attitudes and incidents:
  • Since the 1960s, antisemitic attitudes had dropped from 30% to 8–12% of Americans.
  • A sudden spike: 11% (2019) → 20% (2022) → 24% (2024), with the latest (soon to be released) data described as “worse.”
  • Verified antisemitic acts rose from 942 in 2015 to 9354 in 2024, with reports swelling from 2800 to over 31,000.

Notable Quote

“The percent of Americans with intense antisemitic attitudes has more than doubled as a share of the population in the last five years... In 2024, more than 31,000 and 9,354 were real. From 2015 to 2024, we had a 10 times increase in anti-Jewish acts.”
— Jonathan Greenblatt [06:49]

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3. Backlash to Institutional Messaging: The Blue Square Super Bowl Ad

[07:28 - 10:40]

• Dan discusses backlash within the Jewish community to a Super Bowl ad produced by the Blue Square Alliance, intended to highlight antisemitic bullying in schools.

  • Critiques: The ad leans too heavily into Jewish victimhood, depicts the Jewish character as needing non-Jewish validation, and may not match the current reality of antisemitism (“dirty Jew” slurs feel outdated vs. “dangerous Zionist” rhetoric).

• Greenblatt clarifies the ADL was not involved in developing the ad, but supports the Blue Square campaign.

  • Points out the ad’s goal was to broadcast Jewish kids’ experiences in a way accessible to mainstream (non-Jewish) American audiences.
  • ADL conducted independent research, finding that the ad tested well with a large sample.

Notable Quote

“We weren’t involved…I’ve seen the criticisms that it leans too much into Jewish victimhood…It sort of fails to reflect the realities, the felt experience, to use a term, of Jews today. I see a lot of attacks on ‘dirty Zionists’.”
— Jonathan Greenblatt [09:17]

“What it was trying to do was send a message of what Jewish kids are experiencing in places where non-Jewish audiences aren’t even aware it’s happening… We ran our own totally independent test of that ad… and the ad tested well.”
— Jonathan Greenblatt [10:01]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:20 — Context: Bret Stephens’ speech and its critique of ADL
• 03:16 — Stephens specifically calls for dismantling major Jewish organizations
• 05:20 — Empirical data on the rising tide of antisemitic attitudes and incidents
• 06:49 — Preview of new (worse) data soon to be released
• 07:28 — Introduction of the Blue Square Alliance Super Bowl ad controversy
• 08:58 — Greenblatt addresses criticisms of the ad and distinction with reality
• 10:01 — ADL’s research on the ad and its intended message

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Tone & Language

The conversation is frank, introspective, and informed by data, combining a tone of deep concern with a determination to both protect Jewish security and build robust Jewish identity. Both host and guest juggle the urgency of rising antisemitism with the need to avoid reinforcing a culture of victimhood, echoing the broader dilemmas facing Jewish leaders worldwide.

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Summary

This “Inside Call Me Back” episode offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at the dilemmas—and the sometimes bruising debate—among Jewish leaders in the US. Greenblatt earnestly responds to Bret Stephens’ provocative critique, defends the work of institution-building alongside security, and shares sobering statistics on the rise of antisemitism. The controversy over the Blue Square Alliance Super Bowl ad becomes a lens for how Jewish organizations try to navigate communicating to both in-group and mainstream America in a fraught environment. For listeners looking to understand the real tensions, data, and narratives shaping Jewish communal debates today, this episode is essential and thought-provoking.

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Transcript

[A]

You are listening to an art media podcast. Hi, it's Dan. This is a sneak peek from the members only edition of our show inside Call me Back, where we pull back the curtain and have the conversations we typically have after the cameras stop rolling. I hope you enjoyed this segment, and if you want to get the full episode and support our mission at arc Media, please become an inside Call Me Back member by following the link in the description or by going to arkmedia.org that's arkmedia.org and to all our insiders, thank you. It's your support that keeps the lights on at Ark Media. Following last week's, let's say, controversial episode with Bret Stephens, today we have another special inside Call me back guest, Jonathan Greenblatt, who runs the adl, the Anti Defamation League. We have a lot of issues to get into with Jonathan that were partly sparked by Brett's speech, but just some other issues more generally. Jonathan, welcome back to call me Back. And welcome to the inside.

[B]

Thank you for having me, Dan. I'm a listener, I'm a subscriber, so it's really a pleasure to be on.

[A]

Our favorite kind of guest. All right, so as I mentioned in yesterday's Call me Back episode, you and I have been talking this week about you coming on to respond to Brett's State of the World. I don't want to make it just a response to that, although that sparked up a lot of conversations that I know you have views on as well. But I just want to set the stage here in terms of how we wound up in this conversation today. So our friend, our mutual friend, Bret Stephens is planning to deliver the State of World jewelry address a little over a week ago at the 92nd Street Y. And you attend because he invites you.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And during the speech, he makes the case. And it wasn't the central part of his speech, but a point in his speech was making the case. Case against the priorities of institutional Jewish organizations in this moment. And that he thinks too much time and effort and resources is being dedicated to fighting anti Semitism and that those resources and the time and the energy would be better directed elsewhere. But he mentioned the ADL very specifically, even mentioned you by name very specifically.

[B]

He did. He did.

[A]

And I was just thinking, what on earth are you thinking? He invited you to the speech.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You made a point of going to the speech to be supportive of him, and then he drops this rhetorical bomb seemingly directed at your organization. What were you thinking as that was happening? I'm just curious.

[B]

Yeah. So Brett is a Good friend. We've known each other for years. I have so much respect for him and appreciate his thoughtfulness. And the New York Times is not exactly an easy place to work. And yet he is a voice that we need. So he invited me to the speech. So I said to my wife, we're going to go and support him. We went to the reception beforehand where I saw him and he said to going to be a little bit provocative tonight. And I thought, well, that's typical Brett. So it doesn't surprise me, right?

[A]

He didn't tell you where the provocation was going to be directed, but yeah, exactly. Talk about burying the lead.

[B]

Uh huh. Burying the lead. So I'm sitting in the audience, like in the third row, and the speech starts as you said. First it was a speech and then it was a Q and A, like a seated dialogue with David Ingber. So in the speech he basically said, yes, this is a wasted effort. Yes, less money should go to fighting antisemitism and more should go to building Jewish identity, which on some level I strongly agree with this idea. We want our community, we want our young people to have a strong sense of Jewish identity. I agree with that. And then he talked again. There was more to the speech than that. Afterwards, in the seated Q and A, someone handed Rabbi Ingber a question on an index card which said, the ADL's the biggest organization fighting against what should they do differently? And then, yes, Brett said, actually the head of the adl, Jonathan Greenblatt, is in the audience. And David said, yes, he is. And then Brett said, he's the menschiest guy. And David said, yes, he is.

[A]

It's always dangerous when they preface with the menchi exactly.

[B]

And you're like, here we go. And he says, yeah, but ADL and UJA and American Jewish Committee, I think they probably should all be dismantled. And so then I turned to my wife and I basically said, oh, well, didn't see that coming. But what was interesting is that all the things he talked about, the need to invest in our sense of self, to improve our relationship with Israel, our sense of our Jewish peoplehood, our sense of Jewish culture, our center of civilization. I agree with all of that, but I don't think that these are mutually exclusive. And I think Jewish security is inseparable from Jewish identity. And we can't flourish and succeed if we don't feel safe. And I agree as well. I'll just say that we need to break this pathology of victimhood. Like, I think being safe doesn't mean we necessarily need to retreat. Being secure doesn't mean we need to submit to some idea that we're perennial victims. On the other hand, that doesn't preclude us from fortifying our institutions and from taking the right precautions so we can be as safe as possible.

[A]

You gave me some data about a year ago. We were just talking on the podcast about just the overall rise of anti Semitism in the us Violent antisemitism, vandalism, harassment. As you just said, you had over 30,000 reports, I think in 2024. Can you just refresh my memory on the actual rise we've seen over the last couple years? Just put some data around it.

[B]

So I'll talk about attitudes and incidents first. Attitudes. We've been measuring anti Jewish attitudes in America since the 1960s. We have more longitudinal data than any other organization. We've just been doing it for longer. So when we started doing these surveys, and these are again, attitudinal surveys, the 1960s, roughly 30% of Americans, non Jewish Americans, held intense or elevated antisemitic attitudes. And then over time, that number from 1963 on, it went down, down, down, and stayed between roughly 8 and 12% a year, every year. So we do these surveys every two years. So 8%, 9%, 10%. That's about what we found was the range, which is great. We ran the study in 2019. 11% of Americans have had elevated antisemitic attitudes. We ran the study in 2022. The number went from 11%, Dan. To 20%. And then we ran it again in 24. It was up to 24%. And we're about to release the new data next month.

[A]

Can you give us a preview of that? Is there anything we should be looking out for?

[B]

It's worse. So the percent of Americans with intense antisemitic attitudes has more than doubled as a share of the population in the last five. So that's attitudes and then also incidents. When I started on the job in the year 2015, we had 27, 2800 reports and we determined that 942 were real. In the year 2024, more than 31,000 and 9354 were real. So from 2015 to 2024, we had a 10 times increase in anti Jewish acts.

[A]

I think part of the backlash that Brett was reflecting, again, less directed at you poor, you know, he just happened to be in the audience.

[B]

I'm an easy target.

[A]

I know. But some of the backlash was resonated. What Brett said resonated with a lot of Jews. At least in the US right now. And there was that and then within a week of his speech at the Super Bowl. And there's all this buildup in the week leading up to the super bowl of another ad by the Blue Square alliance that this third year in a row, the third super bowl in a row, I think that they have spent 10 plus million dollars on an ad that will appear in the super bowl. And then obviously gets a lot of earned media and a lot of traffic in social media. So it gets a lot of attention. It's not just about the singular ad. And the message of the ad is wimpy, small cowering Jew in high school getting picked on for being a Jew by being called a quote unquote dirty Jew. Which feels kind of quaint these days relative to how most Jews are described in anti Semitic incidents. But it's called dirty Jew. And the way he's protected is by the big, tall, seemingly strong, not Jewish classmate who comes to his protection and gives him a hug. And that ad touched a nerve, negative nerve. People were really ticked off by it. And I know you are not an official representing the Blue Square alliance, but your support of the organization, I think ADL has some kind of partnership with them. And I see you're wearing the blue square pin right now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What was the point of that ad?

[B]

I saw the ad and we weren't involved. I didn't preview the ad, I weren't involved in designing the ad. And I've seen the criticisms that it leans too much into Jewish victimhood. And you kind of laid it out.

[A]

In your description, the Jew needing validation from a non Jew to be protected.

[B]

Right. So there's that. And it also is the point you made that it sort of fails to reflect the realities the felt experience, to use a term of Jews. Today I see a lot of attacks on dirty Zionists.

[A]

That's it. It makes the old antisemitism old meaning from a period, maybe kind of post World War II. It wasn't so much violence, it was just the Jew is dirty, the Jew is the other. But it wasn't Jew as dangerous. And what we have now is the Jew as dangerous. Why is the Jew dangerous? Cuz the Jew supports a genocidal state and we see this manifested endlessly. Do you see what I mean? It's not the dirty Jew anymore. It's like reflective of something. Because it felt to me like the blue square lines doesn't want to get to what's really going on.

[B]

But look, here's the thing. As you said it was the Super Bowl. You have to keep in mind that what it was trying to do was to send a message of what Jewish kids are experiencing in kind of places where non Jewish audiences are just not aware that it's even happening. Now, I can tell you we have a center on antisemitism research, and I staffed with PhDs. So again, we didn't preview the ad. We weren't involved in the ad. But we ran our own totally independent test of that ad where we tested it with a sample set of 2,000 people to see how it tested. And the ad tested well.

[A]

That's it for our sneak peek today. If you want to catch the full episode, please subscribe to Inside. Call me back by following the link in the description or by going to ark media.org that's ark media.org your support is what allows us to do what we do here at Ark Media. I hope to see you there. Call Me back is produced and edited by Lon Benatar. Arc Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aretti. Our production manager is Brittany Cohn. Sound and video editing by Liquid Audio. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.