ADL Regional Leader Andrew Tarsy Resigns
By Publisher
The Armenian Weekly
BOSTON, Mass. (Combined Sources) - Andrew H. Tarsy, the regional director of the ADL's New England office, announced his resignation on Dec. 4, reported the Boston Globe in a Dec. 5 article.
Tarsy informed the national office of his departure on Nov. 30 and alerted co-workers and friends on Dec. 4. In a phone interview with the Boston Globe, he did not elaborate on the reason for his deparure, calling it "a professional judgement based on knowing when it's your time."
But supporters said it was clearly the result of his rift with the ADL's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, over the ADL's position on the Armenian genocide.
"At the end of the day, the vision of the New England leadership and Abe Foxman's leadership were simply not fully compatible," said Steve Grossman, a former member of the ADL New England Board. Tarsy "realized that he would have to make too many compromises that he was not prepared to make. I think he leaves with his integrity intact, with his head held high."
Tarsy's announcement comes a little more than three months after he won his job back, following a high-profile showdown with Foxman over recognition of the Armenian genocide. In August, Tarsy broke ranks with the national ADL demanding that it acknowledge that genocide had occurred. Foxman fired Tarsy and then rehired him two weeks later, after he acknowledged that the massacres from 1915 to 1920 in the Ottoman-Turk empire were "tantamount to genocide."
Officials at the ADL's national headquarters declined to comment on Tarsy's resignation, except for issuing a one-sentence statement saying they had accepted his resignation.
"I'm very sad and disappointed," said Nancy Kaufman, Executive Director of Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. "I'm sorry that the position we all took in Boston collaboratively wasn't the position that won the day."
Sevag Arzoumanian, spokesman for No Place for Denial (www.noplacefordenial.com), said the ambiguity surrounding Tarsy's departure concerned him. He said Tarsy had been a hero among Armenians for the way he stood up to ADL's national leaders on the genocide issue. But, Arzoumanian said, more recently Tarsy had begun to backtrack from his position.
Tarsy and ADL New England board chairman Jim Rudolph wrote an editorial that appeared in two local newspapers in September that criticized the Armenian community's efforts to get cities and towns to sever ties with the ADL's No Place for Hate anti-discrimination program, Arzoumanian explained.
