ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt Image by ADL

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, likened African migrants in Israel to the “Dreamers” at the heart of a contentious U.S. immigration debate and suggested that deporting them would make Israel appear racist.

“African refugees, who seem like the Dreamers in the U.S. — young people who by dint of their parents’ decisions have grown up in this country — who speak fluent Hebrew, when you start physically picking them up and sending them over the border back to South Sudan or Rwanda all the while, while you don’t do the same to Ukrainians or Eastern Europeans who overstay their visas, guys, this is not going to end well,” Greenblatt said Wednesday at the annual conference of Israel’s Institute for National Strategic Studies.

Greenblatt has joined calls on Israel not to deport the African migrants, but casting the call in terms that suggested that it would look racist is an escalation of the debate.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Dreamers is a term coined by immigration advocates to describe illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

Much of the organized Jewish community, including the ADL, has lined up with Democrats and immigration advocates who call for removing the threat of deportation of the Dreamers.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year announced plans to deport or jail some 38,000 African migrants seeking asylum status. A range of major U.S. Jewish groups has called on Netanyahu to abandon the plan.

Greenblatt warned that the deportation would further erode U.S. Jewish support for Israel, which has taken hits over restrictions on non-Orthodox Jewish activity in Israel and previously because of tensions between the governments of Netanyahu and former President Barack Obama.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re in the middle of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount