ADL Head discusses AI, J7, and staying focused and united at Diplomatic Conference

For Jonathan Greenblatt, time stopped three years ago. “Every day since October 7, the calendar has been frozen on October 8,” the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said last Thursday at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference.What changed most is awareness, he said. People already knew Hamas was evil, but now they have seen that its genocidal aims against Jews were not abstract. “For them it wasn't rhetoric; it was real life,” he said.Greenblatt stressed that the Jewish world must avoid hesitation or infighting, even in an election season, and that Jews and their allies must “be in lockstep.” “This isn't just some abstract fight; it's an existential one, and it matters more than ever,” he said. “We need to be cold-eyed and ruthless about recognizing the challenges in front of us.”Greenblatt highlighted the importance of the “J7,” the ADL's term for the seven countries with the largest Diaspora Jewish communities, which together hold over 90% of Jews outside Israel. He said they each face a “Red-Green Alliance” between jihadists and the violently anti-Zionist left, plus rising right-wing extremism.Greenblatt also discussed the ADL's embrace of AI and how it is using it to further its impact. The organization's roughly 460 staff now use AI daily, and its new tool, Ora, aims to expand its educational reach from millions of children to hundreds of millions.“Artificial intelligence is not the future; it's here and now. This is the front line,” he said, putting it in the context of the ADL's 113-history of adapting to society-altering changes in culture and technology—from fighting Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent to confronting extremists online. “Every Jewish organization, every single one, should be focused on innovation.”Because bad actors use AI too, the ADL works directly with the companies building it, testing models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet, Meta and X. “We've had excellent collaboration in Silicon Valley,” he said. The moderator noted that the Jerusalem Post has tested all six leading models and found gaps in their countering of antisemitic extremist content.“We have to reclaim the public square,” he said. “We've got to reclaim the center.”This article was written in collaboration with the ADL.