Antisemitism, Israel, and Jewish Identity

Is it antisemitic for Wikipedia to systematically out Jews? From Hitler’s Nuremberg Race Laws, which defined “Jewishness” as a race rather than a religion, to the rise of modern far-right antisemites like Nick Fuentes, an obsession with Jewish identity is a classic signature of antisemites who want the world to believe that Jews have too much influence.

On the other hand, some Jews are proud to tout global Jewish accomplishments. Like everything Jewish, the question is complicated.

Consider two Wikipedia entries for people prominent in the world of finance: hedge fund operator Mark Cuban and the late Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker. You might have thought that Cuban is some kind of Hispanic surname. But as the Wikipedia bio explains, “Cuban is Jewish, and grew up in Mt. Lebanon, an affluent suburb of Pittsburgh, in a working-class family. His paternal grandfather changed the surname from ‘Chabenisky’ to ‘Cuban’ after his family emigrated from Russian Empire (modern territory of Ukraine) through Ellis Island. His maternal grandfather was a Bessarabian Jewish immigrant and his maternal grandmother was from Lithuania.” That sure is a lot of detail.

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By contrast, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Volcker’s ethnic origins: “Volcker was born in Cape May, New Jersey, the son of Alma Louise (née Klippel, 1892–1990) and Paul Adolph Volcker (1889–1960). All his grandparents were of German origin.” That’s it. We don’t learn anything about Volcker’s religion, much less his grandparents’.

In general, Wikipedia listings don’t identify the religions of most people, though they do often have brief references to ethnicity. But Jews get more detail. Wikipedia doesn’t care whether a person is observant or whether they note Jewish identity in their own biographies. As in the Nuremberg laws, once a Jew, always a Jew.

In some cases, Wikipedia even includes the Yiddish version of surnames, which seems to have no purpose except to underscore otherness. Here’s the section on the ethnic background of Mel Brooks:

Where does this come from?

As we all know, Wikipedia entries are written and edited by volunteer editors, and anyone in the general public can add material. There are paid staff who supervise the enterprise.

There may well be a small group of Wikipedia sleuths determined to let no Jew be left behind. But is this antisemitic? It’s a tricky question. There are at least three websites, all prideful, devoted to documenting the identity and valor of Jewish baseball players (who are rarer than, say, Jewish investment bankers).

I should add by way of disclaimer that I cherish Wikipedia. In contrast to Google and the other platform monopolies, Wikipedia does not track my queries in order to sell my data. Imagine if Google were a similar public utility, or conversely, if Wikipedia were a for-profit enterprise.

Back in January, I asked Wikipedia’s leadership to look into just who is going out of their way to flag Jews, and whether this might be antisemitic. Wikipedia’s media department says they are looking into it. I will update when and if they respond.

I also put the question to the Anti-Defamation League. If anyone has sensitive antennae to anything that might smack of antisemitism, it surely would be the ADL, right? And there I stumbled on an even more interesting story.

The ADL, it turns out, has a whole unit devoted to Wikipedia. I discussed the issue with the leader of that unit, whom the ADL let me speak to on background. But the unit couldn’t care less about whether Wikipedia’s entries on American Jews might be antisemitic. Rather, the unit’s main work is challenging Wikipedia’s entries on Palestine and Israel.

A 2025 ADL report on Wikipedia claims to have found “widespread antisemitic and anti-Israel bias on Wikipedia, including clear evidence of a coordinated campaign to manipulate Wikipedia’s content related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” According to the report, a group of at least 30 editors acted in concert “to circumvent Wikipedia’s policies to introduce antisemitic narratives, anti-Israel bias, and misleading information.”

Wikipedia has not only challenged these supposed findings. Its current entry on ADL includes this statement: “In June 2024, the community of the English Wikipedia reached a consensus that the ADL was ‘generally unreliable’ on the topic of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, including ‘the intersection of antisemitism and the [Israeli–Palestinian] conflict, such as labeling pro-Palestinian activists as antisemitic.’” The item added: “Wikipedia’s perennial sources list noted ‘that outside of the topic of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the ADL is a generally reliable source, including for topics related to hate groups and extremism in the U.S.’”

THE ADL HAS LONG BEEN DEVOTED to Israel in addition to battling domestic antisemitism, but under Jonathan Greenblatt, whose tenure as CEO since 2015 coincides with the rapacious behavior and growing global isolation of Israel, the Zionist mission has increasingly crowded out the domestic one and impeached the ADL’s own credibility.

In a 2022 speech to ADL leaders, Greenblatt flatly said that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” ADL’s annual reports on antisemitic incidents include peaceful protests criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza or expressing sympathy with Palestinians.

In January 2024, two-thirds of the ADL’s tally of more than 3,283 antisemitic incidents in the United States since October 7, 2023, were tied to the Gaza war. The ADL even classified anti-war protest events led by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace as anti-Israel, and hence antisemitic.

In shifting its emphasis and resources to trying to equate criticism of Israel’s behavior with antisemitism, the ADL has increasingly disinvested from its historic mission to promote tolerance. In December 2023, the ADL ended its anti-bias education program, A World of Difference. The program was founded in 1985 to address bias in all forms and was used in school curricula.

In June 2025, the ADL laid off 22 employees as part of a shift away from broader civil rights work in favor of focusing on its specific definition of antisemitism. Subsequently, the ADL deleted its Glossary of Extremism, which contained thousands of entries on neo-Nazi groups, militias, and antisemitic conspiracies, after facing criticism by Elon Musk.

Other ADL employees quit in protest against the shift in mission. Our former colleague, Jonathan Guyer, in a piece for The Guardian, quoted ADL researcher Stephen Rea: “I resigned because I felt that Jonathan Greenblatt’s comments were undermining my ability as a researcher to fight online hate and harassment.”

Another senior manager quoted anonymously sent a message to ADL colleagues: “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.”

The ADL has ceased to be an anti-bias group, and is mainly another arm of the Israel lobby. That is a loss for the historic Jewish role in promoting tolerance. It is far more damaging than the question of whether some Wikipedia editors have a morbid curiosity about who might be Jewish.

One of the most potent slanders against Jews is the charge of dual loyalty. The ADL, by making Zionism its paramount cause, lends credence to the slander. Ironically, the Anti-Defamation League has become a prime source of defamation.

By conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel’s behavior in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and elsewhere, the ADL not only exaggerates the prevalence of real antisemitism but invites it. As the saying goes, this is not good for the Jews.