Why did the ADL slam Whoopi Goldberg but give ‘grace’ to Elon Musk?
As a Black Jew, I wonder why some antisemitic actions get a pass
Whoopi Goldberg faced criticism from the ADL for comments she made about Jews and race on The View in 2022. Photo by amie McCarthy/Getty Images
Tamar Manasseh January 24, 2025
When the Anti-Defamation League, the self-described “leading anti-hate organization in the world,” gave Elon Musk an immediate pass for the Nazi salute he gave at President Donald Trump’s inauguration, I thought of Whoopi Goldberg.
In 2022, Goldberg made a comment that the Holocaust wasn’t about race, rather that it was a beef between two groups of white people. Back then, the ADL, more specifically its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, took to social media to tell the world that Goldberg’s “comments about the Holocaust and race are deeply offensive and incredibly ignorant.”
Goldberg went on to demand an apology and demand Goldberg, “actually commit to educating herself on the true nature of #antisemitism.”
Not long after that, Greenblatt was invited on to “The View” where he and Goldberg hashed things out. Goldberg said that she “misspoke” and that she stood with the Jewish people.
The next day, ABC suspended Goldberg for two weeks.
At the time, I wrote an open letter in the Forward telling Greenblatt that if he truly wanted to build bridges to the African American community, he would call upon ABC to reverse its decision and reinstate Goldberg. Greenblatt did go on CNN to argue that Goldberg shouldn’t be “canceled” — but the suspension wasn’t rescinded.
So much for the benefit of the doubt.
As for me, I learned the hard way that being critical of an organization like the ADL can get you cancelled by the American Jewish community. After my piece was published, many of the Jewish donors to my organization, MASK, discontinued their support.
African Americans are not blind. And those of us who identify as Jewish have 20/20 vision.
After Musk gave his Nazi salute — twice — the ADL assured the world that Musk’s gesture was most definitely, absolutely, positively not a Nazi salute and asked for “a bit of grace” and “perhaps even the benefit of the doubt.”
Because I live in an African American neighborhood that is overwhelmingly not Jewish, I have to pick a side when Blacks are called out for alleged antisemitism. When the ADL decides it has no grace for a Black woman like Whoopi Goldberg, and is quick to decry antisemitic comments from a Black man like Nick Cannon, I feel it in my neighborhood.
Even Greenblatt and Cannon’s reconciliation plays differently in the African American community than it does in white America. Black people understand what it means to get “Nick Cannoned,” and are afraid of running afoul of the ADL.
Now when that same organization that is so quick to decry antisemitism when it comes from people in my community, but seems to have an abundance of it for a South African-raised oligarch whom even Steven Bannon has called a racist and a “truly evil guy,” I can not sit back in silence.
I choose to give grace to the ones who deserve it, and Musk certainly does not deserve it.
True moral leaders speak truth to power; being an apologist for the richest man in the world is not a good look. Especially when you are never as generous with your grace when it comes to people who look like me.
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