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October 29, 1999/19 Cheshvan 5760, Vol. 52, No.9
ADL office expects big increase in staff numbers
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
The Anti-Defamation League office in Phoenix is preparing for a major increase in staff that will see it grow from two paid professionals to at least 40 within the next 12 years, according to local and national ADL officials.
"As soon as we can get a director on board, our plans are to grow this office to the size of Boston's," said local ADL Board of Directors Chairman Marc Lieberman after the ADL's annual Jerry J. Wisotsky Torch of Liberty Award dinner Thursday night, Oct. 21. "Boston has 40 paid professionals, and we envision that our office will have that many paid professionals and be doing 40 times the work we're doing now within 12 years."
The Phoenix ADL office currently has two salaried professional positions (the empty directorship and a development director responsible for fund-raising) and two support positions.
Peter Willner, ADL associate national director, added that the ADL is "poised to make a major impact" in Phoenix and added, "We have as a goal for this office to hire more staff, to get more involved in interfaith activities (and) intergroup-type activities, and to expand on our fact-finding operations that we've been so successful with here."
The first move will be to fill the regional directorship, an office that's been vacant since Joel Breshin, who held the position for 14 years, resigned effective July 1. Willner said he wasn't surprised that the search for a new regional director is taking so long.
"Whenever you're looking for the best and brightest, it takes awhile to make that happen," Willner said, adding that he's unsure how much longer the search will take but "I would have liked to have had it happen yesterday."
Among the first moves the ADL will make is to hire an education coordinator to implement ADL's "A World of Difference" program in schools statewide, Willner said. The position will be funded with $70,000 in donations from four corporations: Arizona Public Service, U.S. West, Dial Corp. and the Finova Group, Lieberman said, adding that the education position may be filled before a new director is hired.
The $275-a-person Torch of Liberty dinner drew about 870 guests, including Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull and Phoenix Mayor Skip Rimsza, to the Camelback Inn, where they listened to guest speaker Harry Belafonte and saw the Torch of Liberty Award presented to Wells Fargo Arizona Chief Executive Officer Jon Campbell.
The dinner raised at least $330,000, making it the most successful fund-raising event the local ADL has had, said development director Beth McCoy.
"(That success says) we're very active, that we're growing, that the community as a whole sees the need for the ADL to be a part of it," McCoy said. "Two years ago, we were about 400 (guests), and today we're close to 900."
Lieberman agreed that the dinner "went very well," but he said he was a little disappointed because he had hoped to have more than 1,000 guests attend.
Hull, who received a public service award at the dinner, said afterward that she believes the ADL plays "a very important role (in Arizona)."
"Obviously, they bring to the fore the discussion of diversity, and to me that's tremendously important," Hull said.
She added that she hopes Arizona does "a lot of things, particularly with our children, to make sure" that anti-Semitic violent incidents - such as the shooting at a Jewish community center day camp in the Los Angeles area, the gunning down of Orthodox Jews in the Chicago area and the fire-bombing of three Sacramento, Calif.-area synagogues earlier this year - are "not going to happen in Arizona."
Lieberman said he fears hate groups today are particularly looking to recruit children, especially over the Internet.
"(Hate groups) are encouraging young people to commit acts of violence," Lieberman said. "They're doing it in overt fashion. When you see some of the (Internet Web) sites, they literally say, 'Start killing people, start shooting; and, if you do, we'll all join in.' "
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