From the Frontlines

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism, hate and extremism through conversations with ADL staff who are living that battle every day.

The past few years have seen an extraordinary rise in antisemitism as captured by ADL’s Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents which basically shows a tripling of incidents nationwide since 10/7. Nowhere is that more evident than in New York and New Jersey which together account for more than 20% of incidents across the United States. Serious action needs to be taken. One step that has proven effective around the globe is the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism or IHRA for short. What is it? Why do we need it? and How can we make sure our states use it as an effective tool against antisemitism? is the subject of this podcast. It is an edited version of a webinar put on the by the ADL Long Island and ADL New Jersey activist groups in January 2026. It features two outstanding ADL colleagues:

1. Dan Granot, ADL’s Senior Director of Government Relations and Community engagement out of ADL’s Washington DC office.

2. Melissa Kraus Augenbraun, ADL’s Policy Director for the East Division.

To read more about the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism and ADL's views on it, visit https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/about-ihra-working-definition-antisemitism.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and extremism through conversations with ADL staff who are living that battle every day.

The frontline in this podcast is deeply personal because it's about one of our own. Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton University doctoral student, was kidnapped in Baghdad on March 21, 2023, while conducting research for her dissertation. Leading the fight for her release was her sister Emma Tsurkov who is the Director of Quantitative Research in ADL's Center for Antisemitism Research. She never stopped advocating, never stopped demanding action, and never gave up hope. On September 9th of this year, Elizabeth was finally freed and returned home to Israel. To tell that story, Emma joined this podcast to share her incredibly personal and powerful story.

To read the New York Times article on Elizabeth's ordeal mentioned in the podcast, visit: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/world/middleeast/tsurkov-kataib-torture-kidnap.html.

This conversation was recorded in November 2025.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate through conversations with ADL staff who are living that battle every day.

Today, that frontline extends far beyond American borders to university campuses around the world, where Jewish students are being forced to conceal fundamental aspects of their identity just to navigate campus life. According to a groundbreaking new global survey by ADL and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), more than three-quarters of Jewish university students worldwide are concealing their religious identity. This is the devastating reality revealed by the first comprehensive global study of its kind examining Jewish student experiences worldwide.

Dalia Grinfeld joined this podcast to discuss the survey's findings. She is ADL's Associate Director for European Affairs and has been instrumental in developing ADL's international response to campus antisemitism. Dalia has worked closely with WUJS on this unprecedented research engaging Jewish students from over 60 countries across six continents.

To read the full survey results, visit: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/2025-09/ADL-WUJS-Survey-Slide%3DDeck.pdf. You can also view the press release at this link: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/78-jewish-students-hide-their-religious-identity-campuses-worldwide-adl

This conversation was recorded in September 2025.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate through conversations with ADL staff who are living that battle every day.

According to a recent ADL survey, a significant number of Jewish faculty members have considered leaving their positions. One in three has experienced antisemitic incidents on their own campuses. Seventy-three percent report that antisemitism has worsened since October 7th. And many are staying silent about their Jewish identity out of fear for their careers and safety. This is the stark reality revealed by this groundbreaking new Faculty Survey conducted jointly by ADL and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) - the first comprehensive national study examining the experiences of Jewish faculty in American higher education.

The guest for this show is Masha Zemtsov, ADL's Associate Director for Advocacy. Masha has been instrumental in developing ADL's response to campus antisemitism and worked closely with AEN on this groundbreaking research, speaking directly with faculty members who are experiencing these troubling incidents firsthand.

To read the full survey results, visit: https://www.adl.org/resources/report/faculty-under-fire-antisemitism-and-anti-israel-bias-higher-education.

This conversation was recorded in September 2025.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate through conversations with ADL staff who are living that battle every day.

If you're a Jewish parent, student, or community member, you've probably wondered whether you are protected where you live or where your kids go to school. With antisemitic incidents at historic highs, we can't afford to fight blind. We need to know exactly where the policy protections are strong and where they're worryingly weak. For the first time, we now have those answers. ADL has just launched the Jewish Policy Index - a groundbreaking tool that systematically maps and assesses policies affecting Jewish communities across the United States. Which states have robust hate crime laws? Which states have adopted the so-called IHRA working definition of antisemitism? Which jurisdictions are leaving Jewish communities vulnerable through weak or non-existent protections? This isn't just about data collection; it's about identifying where we need to fight for stronger protections and where we can build on existing successes.

To tell us how this game-changing resource works and what it reveals about the state of policy protections for Jewish Americans, this edition of "From the Frontlines" featured Danny Barefoot. He is ADL’s Senior Director for its new Ratings and Assessments Institute. Danny leads the team responsible for creating this unprecedented nationwide policy tracking system.

To see the results of ADL's Jewish Policy Index and to use its interactive tools, visit https://www.adl.org/jpi.

This conversation was recorded in August 2025.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate through conversations with ADL staff who are living that battle every day.

Today's frontline is unlike any we've faced before - it's digital, it's rapidly evolving, and it's reshaping how hate spreads and how we fight it. Nowhere is this more clear than with artificial intelligence. The irony, though is that the same technology that holds incredible promise for fighting hate is also being weaponized to spread it at unprecedented speed and scale. Today's conversation explores both sides of this digital battleground with three experts who are literally on the frontlines of this technological fight.

1. Daniel Kelley, Director of Strategy and Operations at ADL's Center for Technology and Society. Daniel leads ADL’s efforts to understand how emerging technologies impact hate and extremism, and he's been instrumental in developing ADL's approach to AI governance.

2. Sara Aniano, a Disinformation Analyst at ADL's Center on Extremism. Sara tracks how AI is being used to create and spread false narratives that fuel antisemitism and other forms of hate, and her work helps us stay ahead of rapidly evolving disinformation tactics.

3. Tomer Poran, Vice President of Solution Strategy at ActiveFence, a company that uses AI to detect and counter online harms. Tomer brings a private sector perspective on how technology companies are grappling with these challenges and developing solutions.

Together, they help us understand not just the threats we face, but the tools we have to fight back.

This conversation was originally recorded in June 2025 as a moderated panel at ADL New York/New Jersey’s Annual Meeting. In the audience were the region’s top leaders and donors.

To read more about ADL's concerns about artificial intelligence, click here to view a recently released report on the subject from ADL's Center for Technology and Society: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/anti-jewish-and-anti-israel-bias-found-leading-ai-models-new-adl-report.

Correction: Please note that a statistic was used at minute 29:40 where Sara Aniano was talking about usage of ADL’s AI software. She said that it has analyzed "300 million text based messages," but she should have said "30 million text based messages."

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.

An unfortunate frontline since 10/7 has been the explosive rise in antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools in the United States. This is an important space for ADL as its staff works with thousands of schools across the nation touching millions of students each year. They respond to incidents of bias and hate in those schools, but they also provide programming to counter antisemitism, bias and discrimination, including teaching more than 125,000 educators to teach to about the Holocaust. That is why this rise in antisemitism in K-12 schools truly hits home. In response, ADL has become much more involved in advocacy in that space post 10/7 - so much so that a few months ago, ADL established the Ronald Birnbaum Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education. As one of its first initiatives, the Center decided to focus specifically on independent schools and and the situation there when it comes to antisemitism. The Center has just issued the report of its findings on independent schools across the nation, which is the subject of this show.

Shira Goodman joined this edition of "From the Frontlines" to tell us all of the details. She leads the Ronald Birnbaum Center and is ADL’s Vice President for Advocacy Shira Goodman.

To read the full report, visit: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/independent-k-12-schools-failing-respond-antisemitism.

This podcast was recorded in June 2025.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.

Right now, that frontline is a dangerous one for Jewish communities. Two weeks ago, in Boulder, Colorado, fifteen people were injured, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, and the attacker had 16 more Molotov cocktails ready to throw. The perpetrator spent a year planning to target peaceful Jewish community members showing solidarity with Israeli hostages.

This is the second violent attack on the U.S. Jewish community in just two weeks, and it follows closely on the heels of the torching of Governor Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania during Passover because of his support for Israel. Since January 2020, ADL's Center on Extremism has documented 16 terrorist plots or attacks targeting Jews, with nine of those incidents occurring within just the past 12 months. We are living through what we can only describe as an unprecedentedly high threat environment.

Susan Rona joined the podcast to discuss this attack and offer an insider look at what happened that day and what has been the aftermath. She is the Regional Director of ADL’s Mountain States Region based in Colorado and has been on the ground responding to this attack and supporting the affected community. Susan has been working around the clock with law enforcement, community leaders, and the victims in the aftermath of what the FBI is calling a targeted act of terrorism

This podcast was recorded on June 13, 2025.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.

Some people see the frontline for antisemitism as the antisemitism on the left. This is especially true post 10/7. Others feel that the threat from the right is what the Jewish people need to worry about. Indeed, the Jewish Voter Resource Center released the results of a survey just a few days ago which found that nearly half of Jewish voters said right-wing individuals and groups were a bigger threat in terms of antisemitism, while 34% viewed left-wing groups as a bigger problem. Clearly a big divide. A few weeks ago, ADL New York/New Jersey held a webinar which focused on just this issue by hosting a webinar entitled, “Is Antisemitism Worse on the Right or the Left?” The host for this podcast, Scott Richman, interviewed Oren Segal about his thoughts on this issue. Oren is the Senior Vice President for Counter Extremism and Intelligence. It was a rich and engaging conversation, and it is now being released as a podcast.

This conversation was originally recorded as a webinar in late February 2025.

"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.

The frontline since 10/7 has been the explosive rise in antisemitic incidents across the nation and around the globe. On April 22nd, ADL released its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents for 2024. This data shined a bright light on this rise which is on a scale and at a pace never seen before - at least not in the decades since ADL has been tracking this data. This podcast delves into those numbers and also offers a behind the scenes look at the audit and how it is compiled.

ADL’s Center on Extremism produces the audit, and the Center's Antisemitism Incident Specialist Rachel Sass joined the show to discuss the audit.

To read the full report, visit: https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2024.

This conversation was recorded for podcast in April 2025.