Jonathan Greenblatt

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Jonathan Greenblatt
Jonathan Greenblatt 2024 (cropped).jpg
Greenblatt in 2024
6th Director of the Anti-Defamation League
Assumed office
July 20, 2015

Greenblatt founded the Impact Economy Initiative at the Aspen Institute to help policy makers create an enabling environment for the emerging market of social enterprise and impact investing. The Initiative worked with thought leaders across impact sectors, including co-convening the Impact Economy Summit at the White House in October 2011. [17]

Other ventures

Greenblatt served as an operating partner at Satori Capital, a private equity firm focused on conscious capitalism, and was an active angel investor. [18] He also served as a member of the faculty at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, [19] where he developed and taught its coursework on social entrepreneurship.

Obama administration

In the fall of 2011, Greenblatt was appointed to serve as Special Assistant to the President for President Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation (SICP) in the United States Domestic Policy Council. [20] As Director, he led the Office's efforts to utilize human capital and financial capital to bring attention to community solutions. The Office focused on issues such as national service, civic engagement, impact investing, and social enterprise. [21]

In his role as Director of SICP, Greenblatt took an active role in supporting AmeriCorps, [22] supporting social entrepreneurs, [23] and working with the G8 taskforce to support social impact investment. [24] Greenblatt was involved in a number of administration priorities, including preventing gun violence [25] and #GivingTuesday. [26] Greenblatt left the administration in 2014 and was succeeded by David Wilkinson. [27]

"Real Facebook Oversight Board"

On September 30, 2020, Greenblatt was named as one of the 25 members of the "Real Facebook Oversight Board", a group of academics, researchers and civil rights leaders created to counter the existing Facebook Oversight Board, an independent monitoring group over Facebook which they view as insufficient. [28]

Anti-Defamation League

Greenblatt was named CEO of the Anti-Defamation League in 2014. Under his leadership, the organization placed less emphasis on civil liberties and more on advocacy for Israel and the interests of donors. Greenblatt's tenure has seen increased partnerships with law enforcement agencies and support for anti-BDS legislation such as the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. His support for the Department of Education's assistant secretary for civil rights Kenneth L. Marcus and president Trump's Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism drew criticism from employees of ADL's Civil Rights Division. [29]

In a 2022 speech to ADL leaders, Greenblatt said that "anti-Zionism is antisemitism". [30] The Times of Israel noted that the "speech marked a rare moment of the organization unequivocally" making that assertion. [31] The remarks upset activists and Jewish groups critical of Israel, and also set off controversy within the ADL. [32] Internal ADL messages seen by The Guardian included a senior manager at ADL’s Center on Extremism writing in protest that: "There is no comparison between white supremacists and insurrectionists and those who espouse anti-Israel rhetoric, and to suggest otherwise is both intellectually dishonest and damaging to our reputation as experts in extremism." [32] The newspaper reported that the speech, which "put opposition to Israel on a par with white supremacy as a source of antisemitism", had sparked controversy. [32] The ADL told The Intercept that it did not consider the protests antisemitic, but Greenblatt labelled the protesting groups as hate groups. [33] [34] Greenblatt accused groups including Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine of being "Iranian proxies". [35] These statements by Greenblatt were cited by editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to support marking the ADL as "generally unreliable" on the topic of the Israel-Palestine conflict. [36]

Following Elon Musk's announcement he was buying Twitter in 2022, Greenblatt praised Musk as "amazing entrepreneur and extraordinary innovator" and "the Henry Ford of our time." Car manufacturer Henry Ford was one of the most prominent antisemites in the history of the United States. Greenblatt had previously criticized Donald Trump for praising Ford. Greenblatt apologized for the comparison, saying that "Admittedly, the Henry Ford reference was wrong even though he was an innovator in the automobile industry. I certainly was not trying to praise Ford and didn’t intend to minimize his contemptible antisemitism in any way.” [37] In November 2023, Greenblatt again praised Musk, lauding his "leadership in fighting hate" after Musk said that X would suspend accounts which used the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Greenblatt's praise of Musk came a day after Musk endorsed an antisemitic tweet which said “Jews push the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” Musk had also supported "#BantheADL", a campaign driven by white nationalists. Greenblatt was criticized for his comments, including by employees of the ADL. [38] Greenblatt later defended himself by noting he had criticized Musk's antisemitic post "right away", having called it "indisputably dangerous." Greenblatt said that "“It’s important that he made a good policy decision and announced that he was no longer going to tolerate language … genocidal language that call to eradicate the state of Israel and annihilate the 7 million people who live there." Greenblatt further said “I’m not saying ‘Oh, he’s off the hook because he said this on Friday,’ or ‘Oh, he’ll always be bad because he said this on Wednesday.'” [39] When Musk gave a gesture resembling a Nazi salute in a speech following the Second inauguration of Donald Trump, Greenblatt again defended Musk, saying “I think it was an awkward gesture. I don't think it was intended to be a fascist salute.” [40]

Personal life

Greenblatt is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. [41] He is married to Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, an Iranian Jewish political refugee to the United States who is the founder and director of The Alliance for Rights of All Minorities (ARAM), a non-profit. [42] They have three children. [41] [43] [44]

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