Abraham Foxman

Abraham Foxman
Foxman in January 2011
Born	Abraham Henry Foxman (1940-05-01) May 1, 1940 (age 76) Baranovichi, Soviet Union
Nationality	American
Other names	Henryk Stanislas Kurpi
Known for	Activism against antisemitism, former National Director of ADL
Spouse(s)	Golda Bauman

Abraham Henry Foxman (born May 1, 1940) is an American lawyer. He was National Director of the Anti-Defamation League from 1987 to 2015 and is currently the League's National Director Emeritus. In March 2016 he became head of the Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.

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 had Polish Jewish parents: Helen and Joseph Foxman.

Foxman's parents left him with his Polish Catholic nanny Bronislawa Kurpi in 1941 when they were ordered by Germans to enter a ghetto. Foxman was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church as Henryk Stanislaw Kurpi, and raised as a Catholic in Vilnius between 1941 and 1944 when (after several legal custody battles) he was returned to his parents.

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 law 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.