–15th in a series–
Exit 5: Mission Center Road, San Diego ~ Former Anti-Defamation League offices
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — Although Jewish agencies and organizations including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recently have clustered their offices near those of the Jewish Federation of San Diego in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood, they used to be scattered through different parts of San Diego. The San Diego regional offices of the ADL for many years occupied a suite at 7851 Mission Center Court, and for 25 years in those offices, under the leadership of Morris Casuto, important Jewish communal work was done.
Through the years, whenever anti-Semitism was manifested with grafitti daubed onto synagogue walls, or when hateful leaflets were scattered, or the airwaves polluted with incendiary comments from neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists, Casuto was there to speak up for the Jewish community and to denounce the haters.
As a result, Casuto often was threatened, his home telephone number and address were published by extremist websites, and he had to install monitors, locks, and other defensive devices at his home and his offices. Although he was a target for the haters, he never shied from representing the Jewish community to the media, nor in denouncing injustice.
Did he get scared? “Of course I get scared,” he once told San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage. “‘Any individual who does not get scared sometimes is a fool. Does it stop me from doing what I think I have to do? Generally not.”
In an interview for this series, Casuto said he placed considerable emphasis during his tenure on cultivating good relationships with local law enforcement agencies. “In the case of hate crimes,” he said, “police need to understand why a person is assaulted. In most cases, the criminal and the victim don’t know each other. The community the victim belongs to is being sent a message: ‘You are unimportant, you are unprotected, you don’t belong here, we want you out.’ So the degree that law enforcement organizations can join together to to provide a kind of comfort, that is important.
“We realized that police are trained to look at the seriousness of a crime by injury, theft or damage, but very often with hate crimes, the injury is internal.” Hate crimes are not only someone being beaten up, or property being vandalized, but “often there will be a threatening phone call in the night. Police have to know that there is a way to deal with this type of incident that the victim will be given some type of comfort, that they are not alone.”
If the ADL had been only a reactive force in the San Diego community, it would not have garnered the respect and admiration that accrued to it during Casuto’s tenure in San Diego prior to his retirement in 2010.
Casuto and the ADL brought the message of respect for diversity to public schools throughout San Diego County. They sponsored well-received work shops for students, faculty and administrators in a program known as the “World of Difference,” which emphasized the positive aspects of pluralism and diversity in American society. As ADL director, Casuto emphasized building positive relations between the Jewish community and other minority groups, coming to their support when they were attacked, just as their leaders spoke up for the Jewish community in similar circumstances.
One of the secrets behind Casuto’s success was his self-deprecatory humor. While he would emphasize the importance of fighting intolerance–a serious and potentially sensitive topic–he enjoyed making jokes about his short stature, 5’5 1/2.
After retiring, Casuto agreed to serve on important boards of directors around San Diego, including those of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego.
{Road information: Mission Center Road has freeway entrances and exits on both sides of Interstate 8. To reach the building where the Anti-Defamation League kept its offices, proceed north on Mission Center Road to Mission Center Court, and turn left.}
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. You may comment to him at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com or post your comment on this website provided that the rules below are observed.
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