Jonathan Greenblatt

Jonathan Greenblatt has served as CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League since 2015, leading the organization that has tracked and documented American antisemitism for over a century through a period of unprecedented crisis. Born in 1970, Greenblatt earned a bachelor's degree from Tufts University and an MBA from Harvard Business School before building a career at the intersection of commerce and social impact — co-founding the social enterprise platform GOOD and working in the Obama White House as Special Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation from 2011 to 2014. His succession of Abraham Foxman, who led the ADL for nearly three decades, marked a generational transition in the organization's approach: Greenblatt brought a tech-sector sensibility, digital-native communications strategy, and a willingness to engage platforms directly on content moderation in ways his predecessors had not.

The years since October 7, 2023, have been the defining period of Greenblatt's leadership. The ADL documented a 140 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching a record high, with a particular concentration in pro-Hamas demonstrations and campus environments. Greenblatt became one of the most visible national voices demanding accountability from universities for their failure to protect Jewish students — testifying before Congress, appearing on national television, and publishing data that provided the evidential foundation for institutional pressure campaigns by donors and politicians. His confrontation with Elon Musk over content moderation on X became a sustained public dispute that cost the ADL institutional goodwill in some right-leaning circles while underscoring the organization's willingness to hold the world's richest man accountable publicly.

The ADL under Greenblatt has also been a consistent voice on Israel's right of self-defense, while navigating the politically complex question of how an American civil rights organization should relate to Israeli military operations. His management of that balance has drawn criticism from both left (for what critics call inadequate attention to Palestinian civilian casualties) and right (for what critics call insufficient clarity on anti-Zionism as antisemitism). That he has sustained the organization's influence and expanded its operations through this period of maximum controversy reflects organizational competence under fire. At Rank 19, Greenblatt is the institutional defender — the CEO of the institution that provides the documented, credentialed evidence base on which pro-Israel advocacy organizations and elected officials rely.