Nathan Story Blog

Brookline ADL Emails

Download Request
Download Response

Background

I made this request to the Town of Brookline. I sought emails between the town and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from Jan 1, 2024 to present.

I think it's important to understand the connections between the ADL and local government. Especially given that the organization has gone full mask-off in its anti-Black and anti-Arab racism.

Notes & Analysis

Something unexpected to me: this FOIA turned up emails from the Brookline Police Department. Usually police departments use an email server separate from the municipality, and I need to send a separate request for their emails. In the case of Brookline, the police use brooklinema.gov addresses just like other town employees.

Antisemitic Incidents

On page 1 we can see the report the department submitted to the ADL regarding antisemitic incidents in 2023. It's pretty informal.

On page 62 is the spreadsheet submitted for 2024. The process became much more rigorous. Unfortunately, this spreadsheet is split over multiple pages, and is difficult to read. I could ask for a copy of the file in its original machine-readable format (i.e. the xlsx file), but I can't be bothered to in this case.

You can see what the ADL does with this data on the ADL Heat Map. The spreadsheet submitted by Brookline PD for 2024 had 49 incidents. The ADL lists 23 incidents for 2024. It might be interesting to look at what incidents they excluded and why.

The Sticker Incident

There is quite a bit regarding "antisemitic stickers" starting on page 34. I'm pretty sure this is the 311 report they are referencing: SR-105648.

These stickers were a whole thing. Multiple articles were written.

This email on page 43 indicates detectives looked at surveillance footage in an attempt to unmask the perpetrator:

email from Paul Campbell

Grants

On page 12 is an email from the MA Office of Grants and Research regarding their Massachusetts Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

I might look into this program to see what nonprofits the state deemed to be "at high risk of a terror or extremist attack."

Conclusion

Like I said earlier: the ADL is an ugly and racist organization. Our local governments should have nothing to do with it.

It might be interesting to work from the ADL Heatmap to understand with which police departments the ADL has a relationship. We can then send FOIAs to those departments to see exactly how cozy that relationship is.