NEW YORK (EJP)---A US Jewish group has fired a regional director after he publicly supported Armenian claims of genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and demanded that the organization endorse the charges, the US media reported.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which is dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism in the world, fired Andrew Tarsy last Friday, the Boston Globe reported.

The firing has prompted a backlash among local Jewish leaders against the Anti Defamation League’s leadership and its national director.

Historians estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey, however, denies the deaths constituted genocide.

Glen Lewy, ADL’s national chairman, said the organization has acknowledged "the massacres of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and called on Turkey to do more to confront its past and reconcile with Armenia.’’

But he added that the organization also must “protect the interests of the Jewish community in Turkey and combat extremism."

The ADL also stressed its desire to protect the interests of Israel, which considers Turkey a strategic ally in a hostile region.

Tarsy told the press that the organization’s stance is "morally indefensible."

Glen Lewy, ADL’s national chairman: "The organization also must protect the interests of the Jewish community in Turkey and combat extremism."

He said he had been in conflict with the ADL leadership for several weeks, although he added: "I regret at this point any characterization of the genocide that I made publicly other than to call it a genocide."

Steve Grossman, a businessman and a former ADL regional board member, said he predicted the firing of Tarsy "will precipitate wholesale resignations from the regional board, a meaningful reduction in the ADL’s regional fund-raising and will further exacerbate the ADL’s relationship with the non-Jewish community coming out of this crisis around the Armenian genocide."