Abraham Henry Foxman (born May 1, 1940) is an American lawyer and activist. He served as the national director of the Anti-Defamation League from 1987 to 2015, and is currently the League's national director emeritus. From 2016 to 2021 he served as vice chair of the board of trustees at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City in order to lead its efforts on antisemitism. Early life Foxman, an only son, was born in Baranovichi, just months after the Soviet Union took the town from Poland in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and incorporated it into the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The town is now in Belarus. Foxman's parents were Polish Jewish, Helen and Joseph Foxman. Foxman's parents left him with his Polish Catholic nanny, Bronisława Kurpi, when they were ordered by the Germans to enter a ghetto in 1941. Foxman was baptized into Christianity by the Catholic Church, given the Polish Christian name of Henryk Stanisław Kurpi, and raised as a Catholic in Vilnius between 1941 and 1944 when he was returned to his parents. Education and career Foxman immigrated to the United States in 1950 with his parents. He graduated from the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn, New York City. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the City College of New York and graduated with honors in history. Foxman also holds a J.D. degree from the New York University School of Law. He did graduate work in Jewish studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and in international economics at The New School. ADL legal representative Arnold Forster hired Foxman in 1965 as a legal assistant in the ADL's international affairs division. In 1987, Foxman was the consensus choice of the Board to become its new National Director, replacing long-time director Nathan Perlmutter. Recognition Foxman has been awarded several honors from nonprofit groups, religious figures, and statesmen. In 1998, Foxman received the Interfaith Committee of Remembrance Lifetime Achievement Award "as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry, and discrimination". Foxman won the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Leadership Award on April 18, 2002, from the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey. On October 16, 2006, Foxman was awarded as Knight of the Legion of Honor by Jacques Chirac, the President of France at the time. This award is France's highest civilian honor. On a May 22, 2008,