Nathan "Nate" Perlmutter (March 2, 1923 – July 12, 1987)[1] was the American executive director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1979 to 1987.
Perlmutter joined the ADL in 1949, serving as regional director in Detroit, Miami, and New York until 1964.
Under the leadership of Perlmutter and his 1978-1983 co-director of interreligious affairs Yechiel Eckstein, the ADL shifted its approach.
In the words of Eckstin, the organization began establishing "lines of communication" to Christians and people on the political right, leading to "implications for Jewish-Evangelical relations and for the question of support for Israel".
[7][8] In 1980, Perlmutter called on the Republican Party for a "prompt and unequivocal repudiation" of the Ku Klux Klan's endorsement of then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan.
He expressed distress at "the unfortunate stalling, buck passing and refusal to comment" on the part of white house aides questioned about the matter.
Perlmutter criticized Schindler for "looking at the fundamentalists as a monolithic group" and argued that one should look to the Soviet Union, rather than to Christian fundamentalism, as the main spreader of antisemitism.
[2] During World War II, Perlmutter served in China with the United States Marine Corps.
[3] His brother Philip was a prominent scholar and activist in the field of inter-ethnic relations and Jewish civil rights.