The ADL forgets things that we should never forget.

I share wholeheartedly Paul Krugman’s “shock” at the Anti-Defamation League’s opposition to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero. The temple I grew up as a member of and at which my older son and I each were bar mitzvahed has a long history, exemplified by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld, in the fight for civil rights and interfaith relations. Even more to the point, however, the temple’s present building was completed in 1957, but only after a bitter lawsuit against the City of Beachwood that required the temple to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The litigation was over zoning matters, but you’re quite naive if you think the opposition was motivated by zoning concerns.