Editorial: What do we lose by leaving the Anti-Defamation League?

GateHouse News Service
Thu Sep 20, 2007, 06:00 AM EDT

Lexington –

This Friday, Lexington’s No Place for Hate steering committee will
host its first official meeting since August, when Watertown severed
its ties with No Place for Hate, a program sponsored by the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), over the league’s ambiguous position on
the World War I-era massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in present-day
Turkey.

Since then Arlington, Belmont, and other Massachusetts communities
have suspended or nullified their involvement in the No Place for Hate
program.

The Lexington committee will meet this week with representatives of
Lexington’s Armenian population, who have asked the town also cut its
ties with the ADL. While there are benefits to the association with
the ADL, it doesn’t need that association to be effective.

The No Place for Hate committee is most effective on the local,
grassroots level. It can continue that without the troubling
association with the ADL.

Lexington’s No Place for Hate group started eight years ago. Its
steering committee is a dynamic mix of lay leaders, clergy, elected
officials and residents. Lexington was one of the first communities to
participate in the program, according to Jill Smilow, chairman of
Lexington’s No Place for Hate committee.

It has helped secure about $7,000 in grants for diversity training
workshops, civil discourse training and programs recognizing Martin
Luther King Jr. Day. Each year, the Lexington steering committee
participates in a regional conference of No Place for Hate groups,
allowing it to hear about regional issues.

Smilow said its agenda is to be sure everyone has a voice. It has held
study circles to address challenges and issues specific to Lexington
and its ability to foster and promote dialogue within town is
paramount to its value here. It also provides a somewhat intimate
forum for people from all walks of life – a police chief, a minister,
a selectman, a housewife – to share ideas and talk about the issues of
the day.

It is in this local role that No Place for Hate serves the town best.
Its inclusive, non-partisan forum fills a communication hole left when
regular folks are too busy or too timid to bring social issues to the
forefront of Lexington’s larger committees, or Board of Selectmen, or
Town Meeting. It has a more active role in promoting tolerance than
other groups handling the myriad issues expected of government.

Speaking just for herself, Smilow said the fact there was genocide is
"unequivocal." But Smilow, an active member of the regional ADL, says
there is value in remaining with the ADL’s network and the best way to
affect change is to remain within its ranks.

Lexington’s very lucky to have her working to achieve that. It does
not, however, need the entire committee to remain with the group in
order to accomplish this. By not suspending its involvement or cutting
it completely, the No Place for Hate committee could promote the type
of rift in town it is supposed to prevent.

Source: 62979