Jonathan Greenblatt Explained

Jonathan Greenblatt
Office:6th Director of the Anti-Defamation League
Term Start:July 20, 2015
Predecessor:Abraham H. Foxman
Office2:Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation
President2:Barack Obama
Term End2:2014
Term Start2:2011
Predecessor2:Sonal Shah
Successor2:David Wilkinson
Birth Date:21 November 1970
Birth Place:Trumbull, Connecticut, U.S.
Party:Democratic
Spouse:Marjan Keypour
Children:3
Education:Tufts University (BA)
Northwestern University (MBA)

Jonathan Greenblatt (born November 21, 1970) is an American entrepreneur, corporate executive, and the sixth National Director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).[1] Prior to heading the ADL, Greenblatt served in the White House as Special Assistant to Barack Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.[2]

Early life and education

Greenblatt was born on November 21, 1970, in Trumbull, Connecticut, to a Conservative Jewish family.[3] [4] He graduated from Tufts University in 1992, earning a Bachelor of Arts.[5] After college, Greenblatt worked on Bill Clinton's successful presidential campaign in 1992 in Little Rock, Arkansas. He went on to join the administration as an aide in the Clinton White House and later the United States Department of Commerce, where he developed international economic policy with a focus on emerging markets and post-conflict economies.[6] Greenblatt also holds a master's in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Career

Ethos Water

In 2002, Greenblatt and his business school roommate, Peter Thum, founded Ethos Water, a premium bottled water social enterprise.[7] The company sought to help children around the world get access to free water by donating a portion of their profits to finance water programs in developing countries.[8] In 2005, Starbucks acquired the company for $8 million.[9] Following the acquisition, Greenblatt served as Starbucks Vice President of Global Consumer Products, scaling Ethos across the United States. Greenblatt also co-founded Ethos International, and served on the board of directors of the Starbucks Foundation, where he developed Ethos' global investment strategy that has invested millions of dollars to bring clean water to communities in need around the world, including Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, and Kenya.[10]

All for Good

Greenblatt also founded All for Good (AFG), the open source platform developed to enable more Americans to serve.[11] AFG is the largest aggregation of volunteer opportunities on the Web, and is supported by a coalition of leading companies, non-profits, and government agencies, all of whom shared a vision of using open data to increase the number of Americans that participate in service and volunteerism. Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, helped to sponsor the organization, and the open-source code was utilized by [serve.gov].[12] In 2011, AFG was acquired by the Points of Light Institute in a strategic partnership designed to help the organization scale.[13]

Good Worldwide

Greenblatt was formerly the CEO of GOOD Worldwide, LLC.[14] He led GOOD's transition from a publishing company to a diversified media company. Its products include the website GOOD.is and GOOD Magazine.[11] [15] As CEO, Greenblatt pushed a number of innovations at the company, including the launch of the GOOD Sheet, a broadsheet product distributed exclusively at Starbucks, and a name-your-own-pricing scheme that the company ran as an experiment. It is not clear whether this strategy was successful.[16] Greenblatt said in 2008 that the broadsheets were intended to be ideologically neutral.

Impact Economy Initiative

Greenblatt founded the Impact Economy Initiative at the Aspen Institute to help policy makers create an enabling environment for the emerging market of social enterprise and impact investing. The Initiative worked with thought leaders across impact sectors, including co-convening the Impact Economy Summit at the White House in October 2011.[17]

Other ventures

Greenblatt served as an operating partner at Satori Capital, a private equity firm focused on conscious capitalism, and was an active angel investor.[18] He also served as a member of the faculty at the UCLA Anderson School of Management,[19] where he developed and taught its coursework on social entrepreneurship.

Obama administration

In the fall of 2011, Greenblatt was appointed to serve as Special Assistant to the President for President Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation (SICP) in the United States Domestic Policy Council.[20] As Director, he led the Office's efforts to utilize human capital and financial capital to bring attention to community solutions. The Office focused on issues such as national service, civic engagement, impact investing, and social enterprise.[21]

In his role as Director of SICP, Greenblatt took an active role in supporting AmeriCorps,[22] supporting social entrepreneurs,[23] and working with the G8 taskforce to support social impact investment.[24] Greenblatt was involved in a number of administration priorities, including preventing gun violence[25] and #GivingTuesday.[26] Greenblatt left the administration in 2014 and was succeeded by David Wilkinson.[27]

"Real Facebook Oversight Board"

On September 30, 2020, Greenblatt was named as one of the 25 members of the "Real Facebook Oversight Board", a group of academics, researchers and civil rights leaders created to counter the existing Facebook Oversight Board, an independent monitoring group over Facebook which they view as insufficient.[28]

Anti-Defamation League

See main article: Anti-Defamation League.

Greenblatt was named CEO of the Anti-Defamation League in 2014. Under his leadership, the organization placed less emphasis on civil liberties and more on advocacy for Israel and the interests of donors. Greenblatt's tenure has seen increased partnerships with law enforcement agencies and support for anti-BDS legislation such as the Israel Anti-Boycott Act. His support for the Department of Education's assistant secretary for civil rights Kenneth L. Marcus and president Trump's Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism drew criticism from employees of ADL's Civil Rights Division.[29]

In a 2022 speech to ADL leaders, Greenblatt said that "anti-Zionism is antisemitism".[30] The Times of Israel noted that the "speech marked a rare moment of the organization unequivocally" making that assertion.[31] The remarks upset activists and Jewish groups critical of Israel, and also set off controversy within the ADL.[32] Internal ADL messages seen by The Guardian included a senior manager at ADL’s Center on Extremism writing in protest that: "There is no comparison between white supremacists and insurrectionists and those who espouse anti-Israel rhetoric, and to suggest otherwise is both intellectually dishonest and damaging to our reputation as experts in extremism."[32] The newspaper reported that the speech, which "put opposition to Israel on a par with white supremacy as a source of antisemitism", had sparked controversy. The ADL told The Intercept that it did not consider the protests antisemitic, but Greenblatt labelled the protesting groups as hate groups.[33] [34] Greenblatt accused groups including Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine of being "Iranian proxies".[35] These statements by Greenblatt were cited by editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to support marking the ADL as "generally unreliable" on the topic of the Israel-Palestine conflict.[36]

Personal life

Greenblatt is the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. He is married to Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, an Iranian Jewish political refugee to the United States who is the founder and director of The Alliance for Rights of All Minorities (ARAM), a non-profit.[37] They have three children.[38] [39] [40]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Nathan Guttman . Anti-Defamation League Picks Fresh Face Jonathan Greenblatt as New Chief . The Forward. November 6, 2014 . December 11, 2016.
  2. ADL Names Jonathan Greenblatt as Abe Foxman's Successor. Tablet Magazine . Stephanie . Butnick . November 6, 2014 . December 11, 2016.
  3. A Talk With Jonathan Greenblatt. March 16, 2018. Rahel Musleah . Jonathan . Greenblatt . Hadassah Magazine. August 31, 2018. en-US.
  4. News: BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Jonathan Greenblatt, national director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. Politico. Daniel. Lippman. August 31, 2018. en.
  5. Web site: Notable Entrepreneurs in Tufts History. VentureFizz. Eric . Peckham . November 18, 2012 .
  6. The Reinvention of Philanthropy: An Interview With The Aspen Institute's Jonathan Greenblatt. April 27, 2011. Care2. December 11, 2016. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20110716062927/http://www.care2.com/causes/the-reinvention-of-philanthropy-an-interview-with-the-aspen-institutes-jonathan-greenblatt.html. July 16, 2011.
  7. Web site: Ethics in a bottle. CNN. Jessica. Harris. October 31, 2007.
  8. News: Rob Walker . Big Gulp . . February 26, 2006 . December 11, 2016.
  9. News: How Ethos Water Made Starbucks Thirsty for a Deal. Coster. Helen. December 20, 2010. Forbes. January 6, 2018.
  10. Profile: Jonathan Greenblatt . Tufts News . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140123223021/http://www.tufts.edu/home/feature/?p=greenblatt . January 23, 2014. Padden Murphy. Jonathan. Greenblatt .
  11. Web site: Profile: Jonathan Greenblatt . . December 11, 2016 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150905093949/http://www.worldchanging.com/bios/jonathan.html . September 5, 2015 .
  12. Web site: Craig Newmark Teams With White House All for Good. Observer. June 23, 2009. Gillian. Reagan.
  13. Web site: Jonathan Greenblatt | Business Forward . Businessfwd.org . December 11, 2016.
  14. News: Stephanie Clifford . Ice-Breaker at Starbucks: The Good Sheet . . September 7, 2008 . December 11, 2016.
  15. Web site: Jonathan Greenblatt: The Business of Doing Good. On Being. December 11, 2016. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20160406180123/http://www.onbeing.org/program/business-doing-good/187. April 6, 2016. July 31, 2008.
  16. Web site: Fell . Jason . September 10, 2008 . Folio. foliomag.com. Good to Let Subscribers Name Their Own Price . September 21, 2017 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20131215194401/http://test.foliomag.com/2008/good-let-subscribers-name-their-own-price . December 15, 2013.
  17. Web site: People : Jonathan Greenblatt . PopTech.org . December 11, 2016. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20160826080445/https://poptech.org/people/jonathan_greenblatt. August 26, 2016.
  18. Web site: Anti-Defamation League names White House official as new leader . Religion News Service . November 6, 2014 . December 11, 2016. Lauren. Markoe.
  19. Web site: CEOs in the Classroom. Ryan. Lytle. U.S. News & World Report. May 24, 2011.
  20. Web site: White House Names New Head of Social-Innovation Unit. The Chronicle of Philanthropy. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304091742/https://echoinggreen.org/blog/notes-from-white-house-forum-on-philanthropy. March 4, 2016. dead. Cheryl. L. Dorsey. September 21, 2021.
  21. News: Christensen . Clayton . The White House Office on Social Innovation: A New Paradigm for Solving Social Problems . . May 25, 2011 . December 11, 2016.
  22. Web site: AmeriCorps Alums Day at the White House. AmeriCorps Alums: Boston Chapter. August 22, 2012.
  23. Web site: Why Social Entrepreneurs Could Use a Little More Faith. GOOD Magazine.
  24. Web site: Social Impact Investment Taskforce takes shape at SOCAP. Thomson Reuters Foundation. trust.org . https://web.archive.org/web/20131012062903/http://www.trust.org/item/20130905015516-zl2kh/ . October 12, 2013 . dead.
  25. Web site: White House recruits foundations on gun effort. Politico. Reid. J. Epstein. January 8, 2013.
  26. Web site: Giving Tuesday on the Rise. Anne Kadet. November 30, 2013. WSJ.
  27. Web site: March 3, 2015. Introducing Our New Social Innovation Director. March 3, 2015. whitehouse.gov. en. Cecilia. Muñoz.
  28. News: Butcher . Mike . 'The Real Facebook Oversight Board' launches to counter Facebook's 'Oversight Board' . TechCrunch . September 30, 2020.
  29. News: Kane . Alex . Hutt . Jacob . How the ADL’s Israel Advocacy Undermines Its Civil Rights Work . Jewish Currents . February 8, 2021 . en.
  30. Chotiner . Isaac . Is Anti-Zionism Anti-Semitism? . The New Yorker . 9 January 2023 . 11 May 2022.
  31. Web site: Kampeas . Ron . 2 May 2022 . ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt equates anti-Zionist rhetoric with antisemitism . 9 January 2023 . The Times of Israel.
  32. Web site: 5 January 2024 . Anti-Defamation League staff decry 'dishonest' campaign against Israel critics . 5 January 2024 . The Guardian . Critics of the group argue that these and other actions risk undermining the civil rights organization’s counter-extremism work and say the group has foregone much of its historical mission to fight antisemitism in favor of doing advocacy for Israel..
  33. News: Anti-Defamation League Maps Jewish Peace Rallies with Antisemitic Attacks . The Intercept.
  34. News: Lee . Micah . Anti-Defamation League Maps Jewish Peace Rallies With Antisemitic Attacks . The Intercept . November 11, 2023.
  35. News: Baragona . Justin . 2024-04-25 . CAIR Calls On MSNBC to Ban ADL Boss Over ‘Iranian Proxies’ Remark . 2024-04-26 . The Daily Beast . en.
  36. Web site: Elia-Shalev. Asaf. 19 June 2024. Wikipedia moves to bar ADL, claiming reliability concerns on Israel and antisemitim[sic]]. The Times of Israel. 19 June 2024.
  37. Web site: User Profile - AGLN - Aspen Global Leadership Network. AGLN - Aspen Global Leadership Network. en-US. October 28, 2018.
  38. Web site: Forward 50 2016 - Jonathan Greenblatt - ADL's New Head Wades Into a Political Mess. The Forward. November 14, 2016 . The Forward Association, Inc.. May 25, 2017.
  39. Web site: White House aide Jonathan Greenblatt to succeed Abe Foxman as ADL chief. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. November 6, 2014 .
  40. Web site: Nathan . Guttman . Noah . Smith . Anti-Defamation League Signals New Path as Jonathan Greenblatt Takes Helm . The Forward . November 13, 2014. December 11, 2016.