After the systematic extermination of six million Jews during World War II, people around the world promised never to forget the horrors that ensued during the Holocaust. However, decades later, anti-Semitism is alive and well in the workplace, at schools and in the home. 

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a national organization, works to counteract hate, bigotry and intolerance. Its mission is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” The ADL uses three channels in order to do so: education, advocacy and law enforcement.

“In the education category is everything we do in anti-bias and Israel education, anything about civil rights or constitutional rights issues, and any social justice issue that we are asked to engage with,” said Karen Aroesty, Regional Director of the ADL. “On the advocacy side (are) issues in Jefferson City around legislative efforts and the work we do with hate crime issues. It’s in community, with individuals and with law enforcement.”

In today’s political climate, the ADL’s role has taken an unexpected turn. Since the protest in Charlottesville, Va., anti-Semitic incidents have taken a sharp increase, and occurrences of school bullying based on religion have more than doubled, according to the ADL.

“We have been rather frank about challenging the president on any number of issues that sit very well within ADL’s civil rights agenda,” Aroesty said “There’s a whole list of items including the incidents in Charlottesville and his lack of capacity to call out white supremacy, to name hate what it is. We will challenge him in those things. It’s not politics, it’s the principles.”

The ADL was first on the scene after the vandalism of the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City last February. Although Aroesty cannot call the desecration a hate crime due to lack of evidence and a clear motive, she led the ADL in assisting the victims, beginning with the cemetery and its staff and eventually expanding to University City’s large Jewish community. 

“The ADL was able to assist the Jewish Cemeteries Association of North America who had their annual meeting a couple of months after in May to start looking at security for Jewish cemeteries in a different light,” Aroesty said. “It was a learning opportunity for a lot of people in the community, whether they were Jewish or otherwise.”

Tabari Coleman has been with the ADL since 2002 when he began as a facilitator. He is now the Education Director for the St. Louis branch of the ADL, which includes Souther Illinois and Eastern Kentucky in addition to Missouri. He brings a different perspective, as he is not Jewish. 

“It wasn’t until I started working with the ADL [and] I started to facilitate our Holocaust education curriculum that I understood the depth to which we can actually have these conversations in ways that gave me a different connection to the Jewish community that I didn’t have before,” Coleman said. “There are numbers around six million Jews dying. Well was it six million and one? Six million and 20? Did that one or that 20 matter? 

“As a black man that’s not Jewish, I think it’s easy for me to think about my own struggles. It was an opportunity to think more critically about how we could all be talking through ways that we could build our community together.”

Each of the ADL’s smaller programs funnels into an overarching mission: community betterment. Coleman sheds light on an essential truth: it is the youngest generations who have the potential to make today’s society a safe and accepting one. 

 “I think right now if we are not being intentional about having conversations about what is going on in our communities, we’re then a part of the problem,” Coleman said. “Teens have the ability to be able to speak up about things that other people are uncomfortable doing or talking about. You use your voice.”

Zerina Cizmic, a senior at Affton High School, first learned about the ADL and its mission from her science teacher near the end of her sophomore year. After connecting with former delegates, Zerina applied for and was accepted to the National Youth Leadership Mission trip (NYLM) in Washington D.C., a program sponsored by the ADL. NYLM delegates are juniors from around the country who are selected based on their ability to promote the ADL’s message of tolerance and Holocaust remembrance. 

 “The NYLM trip was honestly one of the most memorable and influential trips I have ever taken,” Zerina said. “I learned about the Jewish religion, the Holocaust, and how students like me can combat discrimination in our own communities and environments.”

Since the NYLM trip, Zerina has worked diligently to ensure that her personal bias or the bias of others does not perpetuate intolerance. By starting the Students Fighting Hate club at Affton High School, Zerina hopes to teach others the lessons she learned during the NYLM trip. 

 “It is so easy to say, ‘I’m going to stop hate in the world,’ but it’s a lot harder to actually do,” Zerina said. “Since I am a part of different minority groups, I experience a lot of negativity towards being different. The goal will always be to eliminate as much of that as I can by bringing awareness to these type of issues in society.”