(UPDATED)Earlier this month eight American imams and Muslim leaders took a trip to the Dachau and Auschwitz concentration camps accompanied by the Obama Administration's envoy to combat anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal, and its official representative to the Muslim world, Rashad Hussein. At the end of the emotional trip, the imams released a joint statement (.pdf) condemning Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.
It all seemed like a perfectly good idea, which is why some were surprised that Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League -- which counts Holocaust education and battling anti-Semitisim as core missions -- actually lobbied against the participation of U.S. officials in the trip.
(The ADL also came under intense criticism recently when Foxman spoke out against the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero.)