Insurer's support of ADL challenged

Andrew Tarsy (center) was a top ADL official when he spoke at a Watertown hearing last August. (John Bohn/Globe Staff/File 2007)

It's been a little more than a year since Watertown became the white-hot center of controversy over formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and tempers continue to rage as town officials pressure the state's largest insurance carrier to join the fight.

In August 2007, Watertown severed ties with the AntiDefamation League's No Place for Hate program, sponsored by the venerable national organization to fight intolerance on the local level. The action followed protests from members of the Armenian-American community who objected to what they termed the failure of the ADL's national leadership to officially recognize the slaughter of nearly 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish empire between 1915 and 1923 as a geno cide. Other cities and towns have followed Watertown's lead, and so far, 13 communities statewide have dropped the program.

Now, members of the Town Council are lobbying Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state's largest insurance carrier, to drop its financial support for the No Place for Hate program. In a letter to Blue Cross president Cleve Killingsworth, dated Aug. 14, the council offered an invitation for him to appear before its members "to discuss your interest, relationship and future plans" with the ADL and the No Place for Hate program, adding its intention to "strongly encourage" the firm to sever that relationship.

Jay McQuaide, a Blue Cross-Blue Shield spokesman, noting that Watertown is a customer, said a company official would be happy to talk to the council about its financial support for the program. He declined, however, to discuss the company's position on halting its funding. John J. Curley, a senior vice president and public affairs officer at Blue Cross, has agreed to meet with the council on Sept. 23, McQuaide said.

Councilor Stephen Corbett had drafted a resolution to formally request that Blue Cross immediately withdraw funding for the No Place for Hate program. But at the urging of the council's president, Clyde L. Younger, councilors opted to postpone a vote on the resolution until officials from Blue Cross-Blue Shield were given an opportunity to explain the company's stance.

Younger, who expressed some surprise that the issue has percolated again in recent weeks, said it was "great news" to hear the company will talk to the council. "You want to be fair with people," he said.

"I would've liked to see us take action on it," said Corbett. "We just don't feel Blue Cross funds should be going toward a program that won't recognize the Armenian Genocide."

McQuaide declined to comment on an Aug. 22 statement issued by the ADL's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, ostensibly to clarify the league's position on the Armenian Genocide. Posted on the ADL's New England office website just two days after the announcement that Derrek L. Shulman of Needham had been appointed the new regional director for its New England chapter, Foxman's latest statement asserted that the league has referred to the massacre as a genocide.

"There is simply no basis for the false accusation that we engage in any form of genocide denial, and we believe this characterization of ADL crosses the boundary of acceptable criticism and falls into the category of demonization," the posting read.

Last August, Foxman issued a statement on the mass killings in Armenia that said "the consequences of those actions were indeed tantamount to genocide," and acknowledged to the Globe that he privately believed those events constituted a genocide.

Foxman's statement came just days after he fired the ADL's then-New England regional director, Andrew Tarsy, who had defied the national organization to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. Two weeks later, Tarsy was rehired, only to resign in December. On Aug. 19, the ADL announced that Shulman, political director in the Boston office of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, had been hired as his replacement.

Ara Nazarian, with the No Place for Denial campaign, a blog-based activist group, said Foxman's latest remarks are both inaccurate and curiously timed, perhaps offered to help offset the current Blue Cross controversy.

"They're trying to whitewash this," Nazarian said, while denying that any Armenian group is trying to demonize the ADL. "Nobody's trying to do that. We don't have any problem with the ADL, only on this issue."

Shulman has declined to comment on the controversy until he assumes his new position in October. Jonathan Kappel, the ADL New England chapter's interim regional director, did not return calls requesting comment.

Citing the Massachusetts Municipal Association's decision to withdraw its umbrella support for the No Place for Hate program in April, activist David Boyajian of Newton said, "Blue Cross Blue Shield should really follow suit."

Corbett cautioned that even if the company decides to continue to support No Place for Hate, neither he nor the council are ready to advocate dropping Blue Cross-Blue Shield as one of the insurers available to town employees.

"Too many people have it, and it wouldn't be realistic or appropriate," said Corbett.

Both Corbett and Younger said they are Blue Cross customers.