American Jewish Committee

American Jewish Committee
Motto Global Jewish Advocacy
Formation 1906
Type Human rights, civil rights, pro-Israel, human relations
Headquarters New York, NY
Executive Director
 David Harris
Key people
 Stanley Bergman (President), Avital Leibovich (Director of Middle East Headquarters)
Website www.ajc.org

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a Jewish ethnic advocacy group established in 1906.[1] It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations in the United States and, according to The New York Times, is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations".[2]

Besides working in favor of civil liberties for Jews, the organization has a history of fighting against forms of discrimination in the United States and working on behalf of social equality, such as filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the May 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education and participating in other events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.[3]

About

AJC is an international advocacy organization whose key areas of focus is to promote religious and civil rights for Jews internationally.[1][4]

The organization has 22 regional offices in the United States,[5] 9 overseas offices, and 32 international partnerships with Jewish communal institutions around the world.

AJC's programs and departments include the Africa Institute, the Asia Pacific Institute, the Belfer Center for American Pluralism, the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, Contemporary Jewish Life, Government and International Affairs, the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Affairs, Interreligious and Intergroup Relations, the Dorothy and Julius Koppelman Institute for American Jewish-Israeli Relations, the Latino and Latin American Institute, Project Interchange, the Lawrence and Lee Ramer institute for German-Jewish Relations, Russian Affairs, Thanks to Scandinavia, and the Transatlantic Institute.[6]

History

AJC was established in 1906 by a small group of influential American Jews concerned about pogroms against Jews in the Russian Empire. The official committee statement on the purpose was to "prevent infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution."[4]

The organization was led in its early years by lawyer Louis Marshall, banker Jacob H. Schiff, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, scholar Cyrus Adler, and other well-to-do and politically connected Jews. Most were from New York City while others lived in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Later leaders were Judge Joseph M. Proskauer,[7] industrialist Jacob Blaustein, and lawyer Irving M. Engel. In addition to the central office in New York City, local offices were established around the country.

AJC took the position that prejudice was indivisible, and that the rights of Jews in the United States could be best protected by arguing in favor of the equality of all Americans. AJC supported social science research into the causes of and cures for prejudice, and forged alliances with other ethnic, racial and religious groups. AJC research was cited in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed segregated schools.[8]

AJC leaders in the early days were mindful of their responsibility toward the large numbers of poor Yiddish-speaking East European Jews pouring into New York and other cities. Nevertheless, they feared that these not-yet-Americanized masses threatened to create the wrong image in the public mind, because they brought with them Old World customs and alien ideologies, and held public rallies and protest meetings instead of working patiently through the existing Jewish establishment. AJC did not want the American public to envision American Jewry as a foreign culture transplanted artificially to American shores. The committee saw itself as the natural "steward" of the community and took on the mission of educating the new arrivals in proper Americanism.

Louis B. Marshall (1856–1929) was a key founder and long-time president (1912–29).[9] He made the organization the leading voice in the 1920s against immigration restriction, but could not stop passage of legislation setting quotas on the inflow of immigrants. He did succeed in stopping Henry Ford from publishing anti-Semitic literature and distributing it through his car dealerships, forcing Ford to apologize publicly to Marshall. In 1914 AJC helped create the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, established to aid Jewish victims of World War I, and would later play an instrumental role in aiding Jewish victims of World War II and the Holocaust. After World War I, Marshall went to Europe and used his influence to have provisions guaranteeing the rights of minorities inserted into the peace treaties.

In the 1920s, AJC was concerned with dangers in Poland and Romania, where violent outbreaks of anti-Semitism and the restriction of civil rights made the position of Jews precarious. AJC advocated finding places of refuge for Jewish refugees from Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, but had little success. After World War II broke out in 1939, AJC stressed that this was a war for democracy and discouraged emphasis on Hitler's anti-Jewish policies lest a backlash identify it as a "Jewish war" and increase anti-Semitism in the U.S. When the war ended in 1945 it urged a human rights program upon the United Nations and proved vital in enlisting the support that made possible the human rights provisions in the UN Charter.

Through direct dialogue with the Catholic Church, AJC played a leading role in paving the way for a significant upturn in Jewish-Christian relations in the years leading up to the Roman Catholic Church's 1965 document Nostra aetate, and in the ensuing years.

Before the Six-Day War in 1967, AJC was officially "non-Zionist". It had long been ambivalent about Zionism as possibly opening up Jews to the charge of dual loyalty, but it supported the creation of Israel in 1947-48, after the United States backed the partition of Palestine. It was the first American Jewish organization to open a permanent office in Israel.[10]

In 1950 AJC President Jacob Blaustein reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stating that the political allegiance of American Jews was solely to their country of residence. By the Six-Day War of 1967 AJC had become a passionate defender of the Jewish state, shedding old inhibitions to espouse the centrality of Jewish peoplehood.

In the 1970s AJC spearheaded the fight to pass anti-boycott legislation to counter the Arab League boycott of Israel. In particular, Japan's defection[11] from the boycott was attributed to AJC persuasion. In 1975 AJC became the first Jewish organization to campaign against the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution, a campaign that finally succeeded in 1991. AJC played a leading role in breaking Israel's diplomatic isolation at the UN by helping it gain acceptance in WEOG (West Europe and Others), one of the UN's five regional groups.

From 1945 to 2007 the organization published Commentary magazine, focused on political and cultural commentary and analysis of politics and society in the U.S. and the Middle East. Originally liberal, the magazine moved right, and since the 1980s has been the voice of Neoconservatives. It is now independent of AJC. From 1906 through 2008, AJC published the American Jewish Yearbook, a highly detailed annual account of the Jewish life in the U.S., Israel and the world. Each year AJC releases a "Survey of American Jewish Opinion" that monitors the attitudes of American Jews on issues of concern.

AJC was active in the campaign to gain emigration rights for Jews living in the Soviet Union; in 1964 it was one of the founders of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, which in 1971 was superseded by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. In December 1987 AJC's Washington representative, David Harris, who later became the organization's executive director, organized the Freedom Sunday Rally on behalf of Soviet Jewry. Approximately 250,000 people attended the D.C. rally, which demanded that the Soviet government allow Jewish emigration from the USSR.

Work since 1990

Under Executive Director David Harris, who was named to the post in 1990, AJC became increasingly involved in the international arena. Regular meetings with foreign diplomats both in the United States and in their home countries were supplemented each September by what came to be called a “diplomatic marathon,” a series of meetings with high-level representatives of foreign countries who were in New York for the UN General Assembly session. The number of participating nations eventually grew to more than 70. The AJC annual meeting was moved from New York to Washington, D.C., so that more government officials and foreign diplomats might participate, and in 2010 the meeting was renamed the “global forum."[12] Speakers at the event have included U.S. legislators,[13] Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; Secretaries of State Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry;[14] Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu; and presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers of other countries.

Project Interchange,[15] a previously independent body that ran seminars in Israel for influential Americans, became part of AJC.

In 1998 AJC established a full-time presence in Germany—the first American Jewish organization to do so—opening an office in Berlin.[16]

In 2001 AJC assumed responsibility for the Geneva-based UN Watch.[17]

In 2004 AJC opened in Brussels the AJC Transatlantic Institute, which according to its mission statement works to promote "transatlantic cooperation for global security, Middle East Peace and human rights."[18] That same year, it opened a Russian Affairs Division[19] to identify and train new leaders in American Jewish public advocacy. Other offices were opened in Paris, Rome, Mumbai, and São Paulo.

In 2005, as part of its continuing efforts to respond to humanitarian crises, the organization contributed US$2.5 million to relief funds and reconstruction projects for the victims of the South Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in the US.[20]

AJC became increasingly involved in the advocacy of energy independence for the U.S. on the grounds that this would reduce dependence on foreign, especially Arab, oil; boost the American economy; and improve the environment. AJC urged Congress and several Administrations to take action toward this goal, and called upon the private sector to be more energy-conscious. It adopted "Green" policies for itself institutionally, and in 2011 earned LEED certification, denoting that its New York headquarters was energy efficient and environmentally sound.

As part of a new strategic plan adopted in 2009, AJC said it envisioned itself as the "Global Center for Jewish and Israel Advocacy" and the "Central 'Jewish Address' for Intergroup Relations and Human Rights." Its new tagline was "Global Jewish Advocacy."[21]

AJC diplomatic efforts since 2010 include opposition to Iran’s program to attain nuclear capability;[22] a campaign to get the European Union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization;[23] preserving the right of Jews to practice circumcision in Germany; and urging the government of Greece to take action against the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.[24]

In late 2013 David Harris was named the AJC Executive Director, Edward and Sandra Meyer Office of the Executive Director.

Along with other agencies such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Union for Reform Judaism, the AJC condemned a move in mid-2014 by the U.S. Presbyterian Church to divest from companies that do business with Israel settlements. An AJC statement asserted that the divestment is just one incident of the U.S. church group "demonizing Israel", referring to "one-sided reports and study guides, such as 'Zionism Unsettled'" as proof of anti-Zionist sentiments.[25]

AJC response during Holocaust

AJC "worked to contain nativist sentiment in America rather than work to open America’s doors to refugees" during the Holocaust. They were criticized for their lack of reaction and silence during the Holocaust; historian and AJC National Director of Jewish Communal Affairs Stephen Bayme said "AJC leaders never understood the uniqueness of Nazism and its "war against the Jews."[26]

Controversy

New anti-semitism

An essay, "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" by Alvin H. Rosenfeld,[27] published on the AJC website, criticized Jewish critics of Israel by name, particularly the editors and contributors to "Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" (Grove Press), a 2003 collection of essays edited by Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon. The essay accused these writers of participating in an "onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish State," which he considered a veiled form of supporting a rise in antisemitism.[28]

In an editorial, the liberal Jewish newspaper The Forward called the essay "a shocking tissue of slander" whose intent was to "turn Jews against liberalism and silence critics." Richard Cohen remarked that the essay "has given license to the most intolerant and narrow-minded of Israel's defenders so that, as the AJC concedes in my case, any veering from orthodoxy is met with censure ... the most powerful of all post-Holocaust condemnations—anti-Semite—is diluted beyond recognition."[29]

The essay was also criticized by Rabbi Michael Lerner[30] and in op-eds in The Guardian[31] and The Boston Globe.[32]

In a Jerusalem Post op-ed, AJC Executive Director David Harris explained why the organization published Rosenfeld's essay:

Rosenfeld has courageously taken on the threat that arises when a Jewish imprimatur is given to the campaign to challenge Israel's very legitimacy. He has the right to express his views no less than those whom he challenges. It is important to stress that he has not suggested that those about whom he writes are anti-Semitic, though that straw-man argument is being invoked by some as a diversionary tactic. As befits a highly regarded and prolific scholar, he has written a well-documented and thought-provoking essay that deserves to be considered on its merits.[33]

Unity pledge

In October 2011 AJC issued a joint statement with the Anti-Defamation League urging American Jews to support a Joint Unity Pledge stating: "America's friendship with Israel is an emotional, moral and strategic bond that has always transcended politics." It urged that "now is the time to reaffirm that Israel's well-being is best served, as it always has been, by American voices raised together in unshakeable support for our friend and ally."[34]

The statement aroused a storm of protest from Jewish opponents of President Obama's re-election, who perceived it as a call to avoid criticizing the president's policies toward Israel. In the pages of The Wall Street Journal, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith asked: "Since when have American supporters of Israel believed that a candidate's attitudes toward Israel should be kept out of electoral politics? Since never."[35] AJC Executive Director David Harris responded that the statement was intended to preserve the tradition of bipartisan support for Israel and prevent it from becoming "a dangerous political football." While Harris recognized the right of anyone in the Jewish community to take a partisan position, he stressed the need for "strong advocacy in both parties" at a time of looming international difficulties for the Jewish state.[36]

Work on related issues

American Jewish Committee has a history of fighting against general discrimination in the US and working on behalf of social equality. For example, the organization filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the May 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education; the group's Executive Director David Harris stated in 2014 that much "of the psychological research on the harmful impact of school segregation on minority children conducted by Professor Kenneth Clark was sponsored by AJC, and Chief Justice Warren cited that study in the decision" and at he looks "at that contribution to American society with great pride, indeed, as one of the most important things AJC has ever done."[3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "The American Jewish Committee". MyJewishLearning. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  2. ↑ GOLDMAN, ARI (February 13, 1990). "Jewish Group Faces Reorganization". New York Times. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  3. 1 2 "‘Brown vs. Board’ celebrated 60 years later". San Diego Jewish World. 16 May 2014. Retrieved 21 June 2014. External link in |publisher= (help)
  4. 1 2 "Jewish Committee Meets". The NYT. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  5. ↑ "United States". American Jewish Committee. Retrieved 28 October 2015.
  6. ↑ "INSTITUTES & AFFILIATES - Extending AJC's Reach and Expertise". Retrieved 7 January 2014.
  7. ↑ "Judge Joseph M. Proskauer Dies at 94". Jewish Telegraph Agency. September 13, 1971. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  8. ↑ "The official paper" (PDF). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  9. ↑ "LESS ANTI-SEMITISM FOUND IN AMERICA; President Marshall Tells American Jewish Committee ThatAgitation is Waning.15,393,815 JEWS IN WORLDCommunist Policy Has Improved Their Condition in Russia-- Election of Officers". The New York Times. 13 November 1922.
  10. ↑ "American Jews and Israel Have Never Been Closer". The Algemeiner. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  11. ↑ Helm, Leslie (5 December 1992). "Japan Asks Arab States to End Boycott of Israel : Trade: Move could boost Tokyo's role as peacemaker in Mideast.". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
  12. ↑ "U.S. Foreign Policy and the Middle East". C-Span. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  13. ↑ "American Jewish Committee (AJC) 2011 Global Forum" (PDF). April 27, 2011. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  14. ↑ "Secretary Clinton to Deliver Remarks to the American Jewish Committee". Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  15. ↑ "Hispanic leaders boost Latino-Jewish ties". Ynet. 2011-11-11. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  16. ↑ Oster, Marcy (December 9, 2009). "German army, American Jewish Committee expand ties". Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  17. ↑ "UN Watch, AJC Seal Partnership". 4 January 2001. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  18. ↑ "Mission Statement". AJC Transatlantic Institute. Retrieved 2013-10-22.
  19. ↑ Дом - AJC - Russian
  20. ↑ Humanitarian Campaigns
  21. ↑ "Global Jewish Advocacy - C-SPAN Video Library". C-spanvideo.org. 2010-04-30. Retrieved 2012-10-19.
  22. ↑ "Iran's nuclear plans must be deterred". heraldtribune. November 10, 2011. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  23. ↑ "Time for EU to call Hezbollah a terrorist group". Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  24. ↑ Ellis, Tom. "AJC executive director asks for tough measures against Golden Dawn, praises arrests". Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  25. ↑ Gruen, Sarah. "Jewish groups condemn US Presbyterian Church vote to divest from Israel" The Jerusalem Post. June 22, 2014.
  26. ↑ Bayme, Steven. "American Jewish Leadership Confronts the Holocaust" (PDF). American Jewish Archives. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  27. ↑ "Progressive Jewish thought" (PDF). Ajc.org. Retrieved 2012-10-19.
  28. ↑ Cohen, Patricia (31 January 2007). "Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor". The New York Times.
  29. ↑ Cohen, Richard (6 February 2007). "Cheapening a Fight Against Hatred". The Washington Post.
  30. ↑ Michael, Rabbi (2007-02-02). "There Is No New Anti-Semitism". BaltimoreChronicle.com. Retrieved 2012-10-19.
  31. ↑ Yglesias, Matthew (8 February 2007). "Are we all anti-semites now?". The Guardian (London).
  32. ↑ Kutler, Stanley I. (7 February 2007). "All critics of Israel aren't anti-Semites". The Boston Globe.
  33. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120528173423/http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1170359796236&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull. Archived from the original on May 28, 2012. Retrieved February 3, 2011. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  34. ↑ "Proposed Unity Pledge Spurs Debate –". Forward.com. Retrieved 2012-10-19.
  35. ↑ Feith, Douglas J. (November 2, 2011). "Israel Should Be a U.S. Campaign Issue". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  36. ↑ Robert Wiener (November 18, 2011). "In NJ talk, AJC director defends ‘unity’ pledge". NJ Jewish News. Retrieved 16 November 2013.

Further reading

External links

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