Abraham Foxman laid to rest, in elegy for last generation of Holocaust survivors |
JTA — As mourners gathered Tuesday for the funeral of Abraham Foxman, they were saying goodbye not only to one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the last half-century, but to one of the dwindling number whose moral authority was forged in the Holocaust itself.
Foxman, who died Sunday at 86, spent decades as one of the world’s most recognizable Jewish advocates, serving for nearly 30 years as the Anti-Defamation League’s top professional and another two decades before that in its leadership ranks. Presidents sought his counsel. Antisemites sought his absolution. Popes welcomed him. Prime ministers argued with him.
Many of the speakers at Park Avenue Synagogue credited his accomplishments to his outsized personality, his sense of humor and his intuitive leadership skills.
And yet his past hung heavy over the funeral, which also served as an elegy for the last generation of Holocaust survivors and how, like Foxman, they shaped Jewish communal life in the years after World War II and the founding of Israel.
Born in Poland, Foxman survived the war in the care of his Catholic nanny.
“His life story of rising from the ashes is our story,” said Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, in a video tribute. “It is the story of our people born in the world at war. The Holocaust shaped Abe’s character and defined his mission to combat antisemitism and hypocrisy, to call up racism and bias, to speak up for the Jewish people and a Jewish democratic state of Israel.”
President @Isaac_Herzog pays tribute to Abe Foxman, the distinguished Jewish leader and long-time head of the Anti-Defamation League, who died on Sunday: pic.twitter.com/8cm2kSjroR — Office of the President of Israel (@IsraelPresident) May 12, 2026
President @Isaac_Herzog pays tribute to Abe Foxman, the distinguished Jewish leader and long-time head of the Anti-Defamation League, who died on Sunday: pic.twitter.com/8cm2kSjroR
— Office of the President of Israel (@IsraelPresident) May 12, 2026
Others recalled that beyond fighting antisemitism, Foxman’s past inspired him to build a communal juggernaut that championed pluralism, democracy and civil rights.
“He knew exactly what the absence of those things looked like,” said Stacy Burdett, a former ADL colleague, referring to the........