NEW YORK — Releasing a sweeping survey that included 53,100 adults in 102 countries, the Anti-Defamation League, America’s premier civil rights advocacy group, revealed that the Anti-Defamation League is poised to remain in business indefinitely, reversing fears that progressive and enlightened attitudes of the Information Age would soon make anti-Semitic activism obsolete.
“For the first time we have a real sense of how pervasive and persistent anti-Semitism is today around the world,” ADL national director Abraham Foxman said to reporters, adding that recent public outrage against Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling had worried ADL personnel that prejudice was rapidly dying out. “When this survey was still in the planning stages, there was fear that enlightened attitudes of a changing world would make the Anti-Defamation League and its mission redundant, forcing us all to find new careers. Thankfully, unlike many workers in America today, we at the ADL are clearly in no danger of losing our jobs.”
Among the results promising continued employment for all ADL employees are revelations that one in four adults worldwide are “deeply infected with anti-Semitic attitudes,” nearly half have never heard of the Holocaust, and three-quarters have never met a Jewish person. Foxman called the study “[A] welcome relief during a bleak job market.”
“Most of us have been fighting racism and discrimination our whole lives. Face it, we’re not really cut out for anything else. I probably couldn’t get a job at Home Depot, and I’m a leading international authority on bigotry,” Foxman added. “It’s nice to see some guarantees in black and white.”
“Our research shows that, far from becoming obsolete and unnecessary in the 21st century, the Anti-Defamation League will continue to have its hands full, combating ignorance and bias. Even if budget cuts forced us to focus only the West, there’d still be plenty to do,” he said, referring to the finding that 19 percent of North Americans and 24 percent of Europeans are anti-Semitic.”
“This is what college professors must feel like when they get tenure,” Foxman noted.
