It's not as if Greenblatt was ever the best civil rights leader. But he certainly wasn't always like this. So what happened? What zombie bit him?
I have two stories to explain this, which are not competitive but rather I think are complementary. Moreover, these accounts are explanatory, not exculpatory. In fact, I would hope that someone with the self-awareness to recognize they're falling into these patterns -- however understandable they might seem -- would recognize that they probably aren't currently suited to lead the world's preeminent Jewish civil rights organization.
Story #1 is that Greenblatt is simply following in the footsteps of other tech magnates (remember, that's his pre-ADL background). A lot of these tech bros -- Jeff Bezos is a really obvious template what with his Washington Post trajectory, but it's a pattern one can see in folks like Mark Zuckerberg or even, in extremis, Elon Musk -- went through an arc where they adopted (at least to some extent) various liberal causes and shibboleths yet did not receive the adulation and hero-worship they thought was their due, and so bitterly rebelled.
The ADL (and Greenblatt) certainly went through this -- in many ways, a more intense version of it than did Bezos or any of his ilk. From 2016 when it took a leading role in resisting MAGA predations (particularly against the Muslim ban), the ADL really did try to adopt itself to the changing progressive patterns on civil rights issues. It took a ton of heat on this from the right, which accused it of being Marxist and America-hating and not even a Jewish organization at all. That experience did not see the ADL become beloved on the left; it continued to endure the usual flack it's always faced of the "Drop the ADL" variety. I'm not here debating whether the latter is or was justified, but I think it's pretty clear that the conjunction of the two engendered a lot of bitterness, and some of that motivated Greenblatt's rightward pivot that began in earnest during the Biden admin.
Story #2, though, relates more specifically to what I imagine it's like to be the head of the ADL and the trauma that must come with the job. We talk a lot about how individuals whose job it is to see awful things -- e.g., social media content moderators -- really can get messed up from the experience (this is one reason why people in the know recommend not mainlining graphic images of whatever violent atrocity is currently in the news; it's not "bearing witness", it's just soul-destroying). Well, I have to think that being the head of the ADL means that one is constantly being exposed to the worst moments in Jewish life, over and over again, without respite or break. Every traumatized Jewish student harassed on the way to class, every fearful Jewish parent wondering if their child's school is a safe place to attend, every terrified business owner with a brick through their window -- it is your job for all of that trauma to flow through you. And it really doesn't matter if not every one of the cases is "technically" antisemitic under whatever definition you prefer. The point is the head of the ADL is just a magnet for Jewish trauma, and I have to think that going through that will eventually mess you up.
So yes, my suspicion is that over the past few years, Jonathan Greenblatt has had to absorb way, way too much in the way of Jewish trauma, and going through that has put him in a very bad headspace. This, too, is a trajectory I've seen from many other people in the civil rights/non-profit space; they're asked to endure too much and eventually it frankly breaks their brains and leads them to one extreme or another.
But again, this isn't an exoneration project for Greenblatt. However "normal" his response is in terms of being a not-unpredictable reaction to the stimuli he's faced, it doesn't change the fact that he's not the right man to lead the ADL in this moment. But I do think these stories can help explain what went on, and hopefully provide some guidance on how to guard against it in the future (even if the guidance is simply "don't let one guy hold the reins of your Jewish organization for longer than most eastern European dictators").
