After two decades of detecting anti-Semitism, Jonathan Bernstein has hung up his radar gun.
The longtime regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s San Francisco office stepped down this week. “There are multiple factors going on,” he told j. “The main thing is I’ve been with ADL one month shy of 20 years. I feel like it’s time for me to take a step back and look at some other opportunities.”
Meanwhile, a grateful Bay Area Jewish community has been lavishing him with gratitude.
“He’s an extraordinary leader,” said Rabbi Jane Litman, the Western regional director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. “People feel comfortable calling him when there’s a situation that requires wisdom, sensitivity and courage. He’s easy to work with, and not everybody in the Jewish community is.”
“Jonathan understood the ADL mission in the broad sense,” said Akiva Tor, the consul general of Israel for the Pacific Northwest region. “In order to defeat anti-Semitism, one has to defeat racism in general and promote the American way regarding civil rights for all.”
“I join the chorus of those that sing his praises,” added state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). “Among his many talents is his politically strategic mind. He understands that the struggle for respect and dignity for the Jewish community is directly linked to the struggle for respect and dignity for all minority communities.”
A behind-the-scenes coalition builder, Bernstein, 47, squirms in the face of such accolades, but he’ll have to endure them a bit longer. The ADL regional board and staff are throwing him a farewell party on April 10.
No doubt that night he’ll hear testimonials to his performance. During his tenure, fundraising jumped from $1.2 million annually to $3.6 million. But more important than the ADL coffers have been his responses to anti-Semitic hate crimes and his efforts to make sure the Jewish community had the back of other ethnic groups under attack.
Bernstein himself said simply, “I felt I was just doing my job, and I do have the advantage of having the ADL name behind me.”
That’s been true since 1990, when the U.C. Berkeley graduate applied for a job at the ADL in Los Angeles. Before that, the native of Southern California had grown up exposed to the world of ethnic diversity, thanks to his mother, a college professor who studied indigenous populations.
At age 14, he moved with his family to Israel when his mother landed a job with the Hebrew University. The move launched a lifelong love of the Jewish state.
“I went to a regular Israeli high school, struggled with the language but had a great time,” he recalled. “My mother had to come back, but I didn’t want to leave, and as a 15-year-old moved to a kibbutz up north with an adopted family. I’m still very much connected to Israel and friends there, and try to find every chance to get back there.”
While an undergrad at U.C. Berkeley, Bernstein noticed the anti-Israel sentiment on campus. It bothered him enough to influence his career choice.
“I wanted to work at an organization that had a powerful, positive mission, but also one [where] I felt they really got things done,” he said. “The ADL came to mind, and I haven’t been disappointed.
His first post-college assignment with the ADL sent him back to campus, doing fieldwork at colleges and universities. After three years he took a break to complete his postgraduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the University of Texas at Austin.
Then it was back to battling anti-Semitism with the ADL. It didn’t take long before he was named regional director of the organization’s Houston office.
“We look first of all for leadership,” said Ken Jacobson, the deputy national director of ADL and a 40-year veteran of the organization. “There are certain basics: intelligence, judgment, a passion for the cause. All those things Jonathan had.”
An unforgettable time during his tenure in Texas came after the 1998 murder of James Byrd Jr., an African American man dragged to his death from the back of a pickup truck.
That horrendous hate crime inflamed residents, and brought out armed marchers from both the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panther Party, all seeking to exploit the situation. Bernstein and the ADL sought to bring calm to the region.
“We worked closely with the Byrd family,” Bernstein recalled. “They were remarkable. Others may have wanted revenge, and they were a voice of reason and peace. We monitored the trial, shared information on hate groups, and lobbied the legislature to enhance Texas hate crime law, which was very weak.”
The ADL even organized a rededication of Byrd’s grave after vandals desecrated it.
After several years in Texas, Bernstein took over the regional directorship of the ADL’s Bay Area office in 1999. He already knew of the unique challenges he faced in this nominally tolerant region.
Within months of his arrival, Bernstein dealt with the firebombing of two Sacramento synagogues. In 2002, he stared down the California Department of Education when it funded a charter school system run by Muslim extremists. And in 2005 he led the outcry over an anti-Semitic assault in a San Francisco pizzeria.
But sometimes he had to put out fires within the local Jewish community.
Said Bernstein, “One of the more difficult issues for us in the Bay Area is getting leaders to speak out against anti-Semitism when it occurs, because sometimes they worry they will be portrayed as being supportive of Israel. That sounds crazy, but that’s the way it is.”
In 2007, Bernstein played a key role in organizing and presiding over “Finding Our Voice,” a conference for progressive Jews from across the political spectrum, from AIPAC to Jewish Voice for Peace.
The goal was to seek strategies for that politically diverse community to come together and stand up against anti-Semitism.
“People tried to hijack that conference on both sides,” remembered Litman. “It was wonderful how [Bernstein] continued to set a tone and keep the structure civil and clear. The conference taught [participants] how to stand up when we think something has drifted from legitimate critique to wholesale denial of Israel’s right to exist.”
Added Leno, who attended and spoke at the conference, “There was a sense of trepidation going into the day. I thought it was a challenging subject and that it needed to be confronted. But at the end of the day everyone felt very accomplished and empowered.”
Bernstein remembers the emotions the conference elicited. “People would talk about how hurt they were,” he said. “Some were strongly pro-Israel, some were critics, but what brought them together was that some in their respective movements were using their anger toward Israel to promote anti-Semitism. They recognized it crossed a line.”
Though his career has been marked by responses to events like the Byrd murder and the Sacramento synagogue bombings, Bernstein said the day-to-day work is just as important.
“You have to take a sense of reward from all the little battles you win along the way,” he said. “You just have to keep plugging away and being responsive as each issue comes up. That’s also what makes the work interesting. You walk in and your day ends up being different from what you expected.”
With Bernstein’s departure, ADL Associate Director Nina Grotch will assume the duties of regional director.
Bernstein said he hasn’t made up his mind on what career path to follow, but his friends are not worried.
“I haven’t heard where his talents will go next,” said Litman, “but wherever he goes, they’re lucky. He’s a prize.”