From the Frontlines: How Artificial Intelligence Can Both Spread and Fight Hate
"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate through conversations with ADL staff who are living that battle every day.
Today's frontline is unlike any we've faced before - it's digital, it's rapidly evolving, and it's reshaping how hate spreads and how we fight it. Nowhere is this more clear than with artificial intelligence. The irony, though is that the same technology that holds incredible promise for fighting hate is also being weaponized to spread it at unprecedented speed and scale. Today's conversation explores both sides of this digital battleground with three experts who are literally on the frontlines of this technological fight.
1. Daniel Kelley, Director of Strategy and Operations at ADL's Center for Technology and Society. Daniel leads ADL’s efforts to understand how emerging technologies impact hate and extremism, and he's been instrumental in developing ADL's approach to AI governance.
2. Sara Aniano, a Disinformation Analyst at ADL's Center on Extremism. Sara tracks how AI is being used to create and spread false narratives that fuel antisemitism and other forms of hate, and her work helps us stay ahead of rapidly evolving disinformation tactics.
3. Tomer Poran, Vice President of Solution Strategy at ActiveFence, a company that uses AI to detect and counter online harms. Tomer brings a private sector perspective on how technology companies are grappling with these challenges and developing solutions.
Together, they help us understand not just the threats we face, but the tools we have to fight back.
This conversation was originally recorded in June 2025 as a moderated panel at ADL New York/New Jersey’s Annual Meeting. In the audience were the region’s top leaders and donors.
To read more about ADL's concerns about artificial intelligence, click here to view a recently released report on the subject from ADL's Center for Technology and Society: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/anti-jewish-and-anti-israel-bias-found-leading-ai-models-new-adl-report.
Correction: Please note that a statistic was used at minute 29:40 where Sara Aniano was talking about usage of ADL’s AI software. She said that it has analyzed "300 million text based messages," but she should have said "30 million text based messages."
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From the Frontlines: Independent K-12 Schools Failing to Respond to Antisemitism
"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.
An unfortunate frontline since 10/7 has been the explosive rise in antisemitic incidents in K-12 schools in the United States. This is an important space for ADL as its staff works with thousands of schools across the nation touching millions of students each year. They respond to incidents of bias and hate in those schools, but they also provide programming to counter antisemitism, bias and discrimination, including teaching more than 125,000 educators to teach to about the Holocaust. That is why this rise in antisemitism in K-12 schools truly hits home. In response, ADL has become much more involved in advocacy in that space post 10/7 - so much so that a few months ago, ADL established the Ronald Birnbaum Center to Combat Antisemitism in Education. As one of its first initiatives, the Center decided to focus specifically on independent schools and and the situation there when it comes to antisemitism. The Center has just issued the report of its findings on independent schools across the nation, which is the subject of this show.
Shira Goodman joined this edition of "From the Frontlines" to tell us all of the details. She leads the Ronald Birnbaum Center and is ADL’s Vice President for Advocacy Shira Goodman.
To read the full report, visit: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/independent-k-12-schools-failing-respond-antisemitism.
This podcast was recorded in June 2025.
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From the Frontlines: An Insider's Perspective on the Attack on the Boulder Jewish Community
"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.
Right now, that frontline is a dangerous one for Jewish communities. Two weeks ago, in Boulder, Colorado, fifteen people were injured, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, and the attacker had 16 more Molotov cocktails ready to throw. The perpetrator spent a year planning to target peaceful Jewish community members showing solidarity with Israeli hostages.
This is the second violent attack on the U.S. Jewish community in just two weeks, and it follows closely on the heels of the torching of Governor Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania during Passover because of his support for Israel. Since January 2020, ADL's Center on Extremism has documented 16 terrorist plots or attacks targeting Jews, with nine of those incidents occurring within just the past 12 months. We are living through what we can only describe as an unprecedentedly high threat environment.
Susan Rona joined the podcast to discuss this attack and offer an insider look at what happened that day and what has been the aftermath. She is the Regional Director of ADL’s Mountain States Region based in Colorado and has been on the ground responding to this attack and supporting the affected community. Susan has been working around the clock with law enforcement, community leaders, and the victims in the aftermath of what the FBI is calling a targeted act of terrorism
This podcast was recorded on June 13, 2025.
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From the Frontlines: Is Antisemitism Worse on the Right or the Left?
"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.
Some people see the frontline for antisemitism as the antisemitism on the left. This is especially true post 10/7. Others feel that the threat from the right is what the Jewish people need to worry about. Indeed, the Jewish Voter Resource Center released the results of a survey just a few days ago which found that nearly half of Jewish voters said right-wing individuals and groups were a bigger threat in terms of antisemitism, while 34% viewed left-wing groups as a bigger problem. Clearly a big divide. A few weeks ago, ADL New York/New Jersey held a webinar which focused on just this issue by hosting a webinar entitled, “Is Antisemitism Worse on the Right or the Left?” The host for this podcast, Scott Richman, interviewed Oren Segal about his thoughts on this issue. Oren is the Senior Vice President for Counter Extremism and Intelligence. It was a rich and engaging conversation, and it is now being released as a podcast.
This conversation was originally recorded as a webinar in late February 2025.
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From the Frontlines: ADL Responds to Record Number of Antisemitic Incidents in 2024
"From the Frontlines" is an ADL podcast which brings listeners to the frontline in the battle against antisemitism and hate.
The frontline since 10/7 has been the explosive rise in antisemitic incidents across the nation and around the globe. On April 22nd, ADL released its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents for 2024. This data shined a bright light on this rise which is on a scale and at a pace never seen before - at least not in the decades since ADL has been tracking this data. This podcast delves into those numbers and also offers a behind the scenes look at the audit and how it is compiled.
ADL’s Center on Extremism produces the audit, and the Center's Antisemitism Incident Specialist Rachel Sass joined the show to discuss the audit.
To read the full report, visit: https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2024.
This conversation was recorded for podcast in April 2025.
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