Abraham Foxman

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Abraham H. Foxman is the current National Director and chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.

Abraham Foxman (right) with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople.

1 Early Life
2 Education
3 Career
4 Awards
5 Controversy
6 References

[edit] Early Life

Born in 1940 Poland to Jewish parents, Abraham Henry Foxman is the only son of Joseph and Helen Foxman.^[1] Foxman's Polish Catholic nanny saved him from the Holocaust in 1940 by baptizing him into the Roman Catholic Church. He was raised Catholic until reunited with his parents in 1944. Most of the members of his family were murdered in Nazi concentration camps.^{[citation needed]} Foxman's father supported Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism. As a young man Foxman belonged to Betar, the Jabotinsky youth movement.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Education

Foxman emigrated to the United States in 1950 with his parents.^[2] He graduated from Yeshivah of Flatbush, in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the City College of New York and graduated with honors in history. Foxman also holds a law degree from the New York University School of Law. He did graduate work in Jewish studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and in international economics at New York's New School University.

[edit] Career

Foxman has worked for the Anti-Defamation League since 1965. The ADL promoted him to National Director in 1987. Foxman has adopted liberal policies at the ADL, supporting the ill-fated Oslo Accords. Throughout his tenure he has obtained meetings with many world leaders, including past U.S. Presidents, current President George W. Bush, many Middle Eastern leaders, and Pope John Paul II.

[edit] Awards

Foxman has been awarded several honors from non-profit groups, religious figures and statesmen. In 1998 Foxman received the Interfaith Committee of Remembrance Lifetime Achievement Award "as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and discrimination."^[3] Foxman won the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Leadership Award on April 18th, 2002 from the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies.^[4] On October 16, 2006 Foxman was presented with the Legion of Honor by Jacques Chirac, France's highest civilian honor.^[5]

[edit] Controversy

In recent years he has become a controversial figure because of his central role in winning a presidential pardon from former United States President Bill Clinton for Marc Rich, the international businessman who gave $250,000 to the ADL while Foxman worked for his pardon.^[6] Foxman's support for gay rights and Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip in 2005 put him at odds with many Orthodox Jews.^[7]