American Jewish Committee
Encyclopedia
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) was "founded in 1906 with the aim of rallying all sections of American Jewry to defend the rights of Jews
all over the world. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy
organizations in the United States
and has been described by the New York Times as "the dean of American Jewish organizations."
AJC is an international think tank and advocacy organization whose key areas of focus are: combating anti-Semitism
and all forms of bigotry; promoting pluralism and shared democratic values; supporting Israel's quest for peace and security; advocating for energy independence
; strengthening Jewish life.
The organization has regional offices in 26 American cities, 7 overseas offices, and 31 international partnerships with Jewish communal institutions around the world.
AJC's American offices include the Belfer Center for American Pluralism, the Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
, Contemporary Jewish Life, Domestic Policy and Legal Affairs, Interreligious Affairs, Latin America
n Affairs, Middle East and International Terrorism
, the Office of Government and International Affairs, Project Interchange
, and Russian Affairs. AJC publishes the American Jewish Year Book
.
As of 2009, the AJC is one of many partner organizations of the Austrian Service Abroad
(Österreichischer Auslandsdienst) and the corresponding Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
(Österreichischer Gedenkdienst).
, and throughout the world; to strengthen the basic principles of pluralism
around the world, as the best defense against anti-Semitism
and other forms of bigotry; to enhance the quality of American Jewish life by helping to ensure Jewish continuity and deepen the ties between American and Israeli Jews.”
s aimed at the Jewish population of Russia
. "According to the official statement of the committee...it is to prevent infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution." AJC has since headed advocacy campaigns on issues such as Holocaust denial
, church-state relations
, and American dependence on foreign oil.
The organization was dominated for years by banker Jacob H. Schiff, who relied on his wealth, his power, and his single-minded certainty to shape the organization. He was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Company and worked closely with corporate lawyer Louis Marshall and with Cyrus Adler, the intellectual who headed the Jewish Theological Seminary. Also involved was Adolph S. Ochs, owner of the New York Times. Business, personal, and family relationships tied these AJC founders to a network of key supporters, including the Warburgs (especially Felix Warburg), the Strauses and the Guggenheims, the Sulzbergers in Philadelphia, and to similar groups in Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco. The founders died out in the 1920s and were replaced by Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, Jacob Blaustein, and Irving M. Engel, who maintained ties with wealthy sponsors. Local chapters were established, which somewhat weakened the control of the central office in New York, but it had become bureaucratized with a permanent staff of well-paid experts. By the 1930s they were supporting social science research into the causes and cures of prejudice. They learned that prejudice was indivisible, and that in the United States it was less desirable to argue in favor of the rights of Jews than to defend the equality of all Americans, including Jews. Alliances were sought with other ethnic and religious groups.
The 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
. 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. The AJC did not want the American public to envision American Jewry as a foreign culture transplanted artificially to American shores. The profound fear, repeated over and over, was the risk of evoking an anti-Semitic reaction that would endanger the status of all American Jews. The AJC seeing itself as the natural "steward" of the community, 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). He made the organization the leading voice in the 1920s against immigration restriction, but he could not stop passage of major limitations on the inflow of immigrants. He did succeed in stopping Henry Ford
from publishing anti-Semitic literature and distributing it through his car dealerships; indeed, Ford apologized publicly to Marshall. At the same time, Marshall supported institutions working for the rapid assimilation of East European Jews, recognizing that mass immigration was creating many social problems in America's industrial and urban centers. After the World War, Marshall had some success in inserting into the peace treaties provisions guaranteeing the rights of minorities. In the 1920s the AJC was actively 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. In the 1930s it lobbied quietly for the entry of Jewish refugees from Hitler, but had little success. During the war it discouraged open talk of the Holocaust, lest a backlash lead to heightened anti-Semitism in the U.S. 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. Under Marshall's tenure, the organization helped create in 1914 the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
, established to aid Jewish victims of World War I
, and later to play an instrumental role in aiding Jewish victims of World War II
and the Holocaust.
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.
The AJC before the Six-Day War
in 1967 was officially "non-Zionist." It had long been ambivalent about Zionism
as antithetical to Americanism and only became reconciled to the creation of Israel
in 1947-48, when the U.S. backed the partition of Palestine. As 1967 began, it still was the major national Jewish body that was most self-consciously American, most reluctant to acknowledge links to other Jewish communities beyond those of religion and philanthropy, and least willing to subordinate institutional autonomy to the cause of Jewish communal solidarity. That it transformed itself almost overnight into a passionate defender of the Jewish state and, in so doing, shed old inhibitions to espouse Jewish peoplehood
was itself a measure of the impact this 1967 crisis had on American Jewry as a whole.
In the 1970s, AJC spearheaded the fight to pass anti-boycott legislation to counter the Arab League boycott of Israel
. In 1975, AJC became the first Jewish organization to campaign against the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution.
From 1945 to 2007, the organization has 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 has moved right, and since the 1980s has been the voice of Neoconservatives. It is now independent of the AJC. Since 1906 the AJC has published the invaluable American Jewish Yearbook, a highly detailed account of Jewish life in the U.S., Israel and the world.
In 1992, Japan
, citing AJC's diplomacy, reversed its policy of supporting the Arab League boycott of Israel
.
In 1997, the organization became the first American Jewish organization to establish a full-time presence in Germany. It established a Berlin Office / Lawrence and Lee Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations, opened in 1998, works to combat anti-Semitism and promote education in democratic values.
In 2000, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold
, cited the organization as playing a central role in Israel's gaining acceptance into the UN's Western Europe and Others Group.
In 2001, "the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress
reached an agreement, approved by the international board of UN Watch
, to transfer full control of the organization [e.g. UN Watch] to AJC." From UN Watch's founding in 1993 until January 2001, UN Watch was a joint responsibility of AJC and the WJC.
In 2003, AJC opened in Brussels the Transatlantic Institute
, aimed at fostering improved relations between Europe, Israel, and the U.S. That same year, it opened a Russian Affairs Division to identify and train new leaders in American Jewish public advocacy.
In 2005, as part of its continuing efforts to respond to humanitarian crises, the organization contributed $2.5 million to relief funds and reconstruction projects for the victims of the South Asian tsunami
and Hurricane Katrina
.
in 1976, which centered on passages found in Divine Principle
, the church's basic text, stating that it contained "pejorative language, stereotyped imagery, and accusations of collective sin and guilt." In a news conference consisting of the AJC, and representatives of Catholic and Protestant churches, panelists stated that the text 'contained over 125 anti-Semitic references.' The panelists noted church founder Sun Myung Moon
's public recent condemnation of "anti Semitism and anti-Christian attitudes", and called upon him to make a "comprehensive and systematic removal" of antisemitic and anti-Christian references in Divine Principle as a demonstration of good faith.
In 1977 the Unification Church issued a rebuttal to the report, stating that it was neither comprehensive nor reconciliatory, but was rather had a "hateful tone" and was filled with "sweeping denunciations." It denied that Divine Principle teaches antisemitism and gave detailed responses to 17 specific allegations contained in the AJC's report, arguing that the allegations were a distortion of teaching and obscuration of real passage content or were accurate summaries of Jewish scripture or New Testament passages.
by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, published on the organization's web site, the AJC 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 supporting a rise in anti-Semitism, and of participating in an "onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish State".
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 or, from someone like Reinharz, the most powerful of all post-Holocaust condemnations—anti-Semite—is diluted beyond recognition".
The essay was also criticized by rabbi Michael Lerner
and in op-eds in
The Guardian
and The Boston Globe
, where Stanley I. Kutler noted that the AJC itself had opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine until 1946.
AJC Executive Director David Harris explained why the organization published Rosenfeld's essay in a Jerusalem Post op-ed, saying:
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
all over the world. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy
Advocacy
Advocacy is a political process by an individual or a large group which normally aims to influence public-policy and resource allocation decisions within political, economic, and social systems and institutions; it may be motivated from moral, ethical or faith principles or simply to protect an...
organizations in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and has been described by the New York Times as "the dean of American Jewish organizations."
About
The American Jewish Committee, established in 1906 by a small group of American Jews concerned with pogroms aimed at Russian Jews, determined that the best way to protect Jewish populations in danger would be to work towards a world in which all peoples were accorded respect and dignity.AJC is an international think tank and advocacy organization whose key areas of focus are: combating anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and all forms of bigotry; promoting pluralism and shared democratic values; supporting Israel's quest for peace and security; advocating for energy independence
Energy independence
The following articles relate to the topic of energy independence:* Energy resilience* Energy security* North American energy independence* Swedish Commission on Oil Independence* United States energy independence...
; strengthening Jewish life.
The organization has regional offices in 26 American cities, 7 overseas offices, and 31 international partnerships with Jewish communal institutions around the world.
AJC's American offices include the Belfer Center for American Pluralism, the Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, Contemporary Jewish Life, Domestic Policy and Legal Affairs, Interreligious Affairs, Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n Affairs, Middle East and International Terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, the Office of Government and International Affairs, Project Interchange
Project interchange
Founded in 1982, Project Interchange, an institute of the American Jewish Committee, provides current and emerging United States and international leaders with an enhanced understanding of, and perspective on, Israel and the pursuit of Middle East peace through introductory educational seminars in...
, and Russian Affairs. AJC publishes the American Jewish Year Book
American Jewish Year Book
The American Jewish Year Book , which has been published annually since 1899, is regarded as the authoritative record of events and trends in Jewish life in the United States and around the world by many Jewish organizations....
.
As of 2009, the AJC is one of many partner organizations of the Austrian Service Abroad
Austrian Service Abroad
Austrian Service Abroad is a non-profit initiative and was founded in 1998 by Andreas Maislinger and Andreas Hörtnagl. Since 2001 Michael Prochazka is part of the managing committee.-General Information:...
(Österreichischer Auslandsdienst) and the corresponding Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service / alternative service founded in 1992. Since 1998 it is part of the Austrian Service Abroad...
(Österreichischer Gedenkdienst).
Mission
The organization's mission statement is “to safeguard the welfare and security of Jews in the United States, in IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, and throughout the world; to strengthen the basic principles of pluralism
Religious pluralism
Religious pluralism is a loosely defined expression concerning acceptance of various religions, and is used in a number of related ways:* As the name of the worldview according to which one's religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and thus that at least some truths and true values...
around the world, as the best defense against anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and other forms of bigotry; to enhance the quality of American Jewish life by helping to ensure Jewish continuity and deepen the ties between American and Israeli Jews.”
History
AJC was established in 1906 by a small group of American Jews concerned about pogromPogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s aimed at the Jewish population of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. "According to the official statement of the committee...it is to prevent infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution." AJC has since headed advocacy campaigns on issues such as Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
, church-state relations
Separation of church and state in the United States
The phrase "separation of church and state" , attributed to Thomas Jefferson and others, and since quoted by the Supreme Court of the United States, expresses an understanding of the intent and function of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States...
, and American dependence on foreign oil.
The organization was dominated for years by banker Jacob H. Schiff, who relied on his wealth, his power, and his single-minded certainty to shape the organization. He was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb and Company and worked closely with corporate lawyer Louis Marshall and with Cyrus Adler, the intellectual who headed the Jewish Theological Seminary. Also involved was Adolph S. Ochs, owner of the New York Times. Business, personal, and family relationships tied these AJC founders to a network of key supporters, including the Warburgs (especially Felix Warburg), the Strauses and the Guggenheims, the Sulzbergers in Philadelphia, and to similar groups in Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco. The founders died out in the 1920s and were replaced by Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, Jacob Blaustein, and Irving M. Engel, who maintained ties with wealthy sponsors. Local chapters were established, which somewhat weakened the control of the central office in New York, but it had become bureaucratized with a permanent staff of well-paid experts. By the 1930s they were supporting social science research into the causes and cures of prejudice. They learned that prejudice was indivisible, and that in the United States it was less desirable to argue in favor of the rights of Jews than to defend the equality of all Americans, including Jews. Alliances were sought with other ethnic and religious groups.
The 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
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. 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. The AJC did not want the American public to envision American Jewry as a foreign culture transplanted artificially to American shores. The profound fear, repeated over and over, was the risk of evoking an anti-Semitic reaction that would endanger the status of all American Jews. The AJC seeing itself as the natural "steward" of the community, took on the mission of educating the new arrivals in proper Americanism.
Louis B. Marshall
Louis B. Marshall
Louis Marshall was an American corporate, constitutional and civil rights lawyer as well as a mediator and Jewish community leader who worked to secure religious, political, and cultural freedom for all minority groups...
(1856–1929) was a key founder and long-time president (1912–29). He made the organization the leading voice in the 1920s against immigration restriction, but he could not stop passage of major limitations on the inflow of immigrants. He did succeed in stopping Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
from publishing anti-Semitic literature and distributing it through his car dealerships; indeed, Ford apologized publicly to Marshall. At the same time, Marshall supported institutions working for the rapid assimilation of East European Jews, recognizing that mass immigration was creating many social problems in America's industrial and urban centers. After the World War, Marshall had some success in inserting into the peace treaties provisions guaranteeing the rights of minorities. In the 1920s the AJC was actively concerned with dangers in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, where violent outbreaks of anti-Semitism and the restriction of civil rights made the position of Jews precarious. In the 1930s it lobbied quietly for the entry of Jewish refugees from Hitler, but had little success. During the war it discouraged open talk of the Holocaust, lest a backlash lead to heightened anti-Semitism in the U.S. 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. Under Marshall's tenure, the organization helped create in 1914 the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is a worldwide Jewish relief organization headquartered in New York. It was established in 1914 and is active in more than 70 countries....
, established to aid Jewish victims of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and later to play an instrumental role in aiding Jewish victims of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the Holocaust.
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
U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
The Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs is the principal ecumenical and interfaith organization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops....
's 1965 document Nostra Aetate
Nostra Aetate
Nostra Aetate is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.The first draft, entitled "Decretum de...
, and in the ensuing years.
The AJC before the Six-Day War
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War , also known as the June War, 1967 Arab-Israeli War, or Third Arab-Israeli War, was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt , Jordan, and Syria...
in 1967 was officially "non-Zionist." It had long been ambivalent about Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
as antithetical to Americanism and only became reconciled to the creation of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1947-48, when the U.S. backed the partition of Palestine. As 1967 began, it still was the major national Jewish body that was most self-consciously American, most reluctant to acknowledge links to other Jewish communities beyond those of religion and philanthropy, and least willing to subordinate institutional autonomy to the cause of Jewish communal solidarity. That it transformed itself almost overnight into a passionate defender of the Jewish state and, in so doing, shed old inhibitions to espouse Jewish peoplehood
Jewish peoplehood
Jewish peoplehood is the awareness of the underlying unity that makes an individual Jew a part of the Jewish people....
was itself a measure of the impact this 1967 crisis had on American Jewry as a whole.
In the 1970s, AJC spearheaded the fight to pass anti-boycott legislation to counter the Arab League boycott of Israel
Arab League boycott of Israel
The Arab League boycott of Israel is a systematic effort by Arab League member states to isolate Israel economically to prevent Arab states and discourage non-Arabs from providing support to Israel and adding to Israel's economic and military strength...
. In 1975, AJC became the first Jewish organization to campaign against the UN's "Zionism is Racism" resolution.
From 1945 to 2007, the organization has published Commentary magazine
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
, focused on political and cultural commentary and analysis of politics and society in the U.S. and the Middle East. Originally liberal, the magazine has moved right, and since the 1980s has been the voice of Neoconservatives. It is now independent of the AJC. Since 1906 the AJC has published the invaluable American Jewish Yearbook, a highly detailed account of Jewish life in the U.S., Israel and the world.
Recent efforts
In December 1987, AJC's Washington representative, David Harris, who would later become the organization's executive director, organized the Freedom Sunday Rally on behalf of Soviet Jewry. 250,000 people attended the D.C. rally, which demanded that the Soviet government allow Jewish emigration from the USSR.In 1992, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, citing AJC's diplomacy, reversed its policy of supporting the Arab League boycott of Israel
Arab League boycott of Israel
The Arab League boycott of Israel is a systematic effort by Arab League member states to isolate Israel economically to prevent Arab states and discourage non-Arabs from providing support to Israel and adding to Israel's economic and military strength...
.
In 1997, the organization became the first American Jewish organization to establish a full-time presence in Germany. It established a Berlin Office / Lawrence and Lee Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations, opened in 1998, works to combat anti-Semitism and promote education in democratic values.
In 2000, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold
Dore Gold
Dore Gold is an Israeli statesman who has served in various diplomatic positions under several Israeli governments. He is the current President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs...
, cited the organization as playing a central role in Israel's gaining acceptance into the UN's Western Europe and Others Group.
In 2001, "the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress
World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations...
reached an agreement, approved by the international board of UN Watch
UN Watch
UN Watch is a Geneva-based NGO whose stated mission is "to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter". It is an accredited NGO in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council and an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information...
, to transfer full control of the organization [e.g. UN Watch] to AJC." From UN Watch's founding in 1993 until January 2001, UN Watch was a joint responsibility of AJC and the WJC.
In 2003, AJC opened in Brussels the Transatlantic Institute
Transatlantic Institute
The Transatlantic Institute is a think tank affiliated with the American Jewish Committee. Founded in February 2004 in Brussels, Antwerp, the institute is non-partisan think tank dedicated to addressing the issue of how the United States and Europe can effectively collaborate. Its executive...
, aimed at fostering improved relations between Europe, Israel, and the U.S. That same year, it opened a Russian Affairs Division to identify and train new leaders in American Jewish public advocacy.
In 2005, as part of its continuing efforts to respond to humanitarian crises, the organization contributed $2.5 million to relief funds and reconstruction projects for the victims of the South Asian tsunami
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
and Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
.
Unification Church
The AJC released a report of Rabbi A. James Rudin on the Unification ChurchUnification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
in 1976, which centered on passages found in Divine Principle
Divine Principle
The Divine Principle or Exposition of the Divine Principle -in Korean, 원리강론/原理講論- is the main theological textbook of the Unification Church. It was co-written by church founder Sun Myung Moon and early disciple Hyo Won Eu and first published in 1966. A translation entitled Divine Principle was...
, the church's basic text, stating that it contained "pejorative language, stereotyped imagery, and accusations of collective sin and guilt." In a news conference consisting of the AJC, and representatives of Catholic and Protestant churches, panelists stated that the text 'contained over 125 anti-Semitic references.' The panelists noted church founder Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon
Sun Myung Moon is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects...
's public recent condemnation of "anti Semitism and anti-Christian attitudes", and called upon him to make a "comprehensive and systematic removal" of antisemitic and anti-Christian references in Divine Principle as a demonstration of good faith.
In 1977 the Unification Church issued a rebuttal to the report, stating that it was neither comprehensive nor reconciliatory, but was rather had a "hateful tone" and was filled with "sweeping denunciations." It denied that Divine Principle teaches antisemitism and gave detailed responses to 17 specific allegations contained in the AJC's report, arguing that the allegations were a distortion of teaching and obscuration of real passage content or were accurate summaries of Jewish scripture or New Testament passages.
New Anti-Semitism
In an essay, “Progressive” Jewish Thought and the New Anti-SemitismProgressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism
"Progressive" Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism is a 2006 essay released by the American Jewish Committee, authored by Alvin H. Rosenfeld , with an introduction by the AJC's executive director, David A. Harris...
by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, published on the organization's web site, the AJC 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 supporting a rise in anti-Semitism, and of participating in an "onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish State".
In an editorial, the liberal Jewish newspaper The Forward
The Forward
The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
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 or, from someone like Reinharz, the most powerful of all post-Holocaust condemnations—anti-Semite—is diluted beyond recognition".
The essay was also criticized by rabbi Michael Lerner
Michael Lerner (rabbi)
Michael Lerner is a political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue of San Francisco.-Family and Education:...
and in op-eds in
The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, where Stanley I. Kutler noted that the AJC itself had opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine until 1946.
AJC Executive Director David Harris explained why the organization published Rosenfeld's essay in a Jerusalem Post op-ed, saying:
- 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.
See also
- Louis B. MarshallLouis B. MarshallLouis Marshall was an American corporate, constitutional and civil rights lawyer as well as a mediator and Jewish community leader who worked to secure religious, political, and cultural freedom for all minority groups...
, one of the AJC's German-Jewish founders in 1906, President from 1912 until his death in 1929 - Norman PodhoretzNorman PodhoretzNorman B. Podhoretz is an American neoconservative pundit and writer for Commentary magazine.-Early life:The son of Julius and Helen Podhoretz, Jewish immigrants from the Central European region of Galicia, Podhoretz was born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn...
(Retired Editor-in-Chief (1960–1995) of Commentary) - Harold TannerHarold TannerHarold Tanner is an investment banker and philanthropist. Tanner graduated from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1952 and earned an MBA from Harvard University in 1956.-Charitable Activities:...
, Past President - David HarrisDavid HarrisDavid Harris may refer to:In politics and government:* David B. Harris, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service planner and terrorism consultant* David Harris , the Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee...
, Executive Director
Further reading
- Cohen, Naomi Wiener. "The Transatlantic Connection: The American Jewish Committee and the Joint Foreign Committee in Defense of German Jews, 1933-1937," American Jewish History V. 90, #4, December 2002, pp. 353–384 in Project MUSEProject MUSEProject MUSE is an online database of current and back issues of peer-reviewed humanities and social sciences journals. It was founded in 1993 by Todd Kelley and Susan Lewis and is a project of the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. It had support from the Mellon...
- Cohen, Naomi Wiener. Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1906-1966 (1972), a standard history
- Grossman, Lawrence. "Transformation Through Crisis: The American Jewish Committee and the Six-Day War," American Jewish History, Volume 86, Number 1, March 1998, pp. 27–54 in Project MUSEProject MUSEProject MUSE is an online database of current and back issues of peer-reviewed humanities and social sciences journals. It was founded in 1993 by Todd Kelley and Susan Lewis and is a project of the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. It had support from the Mellon...
- Handlin, Oscar. "The American Jewish Committee: A Half-Century View," Commentary (Jan. 1957) pp 1–10 online
- Sanua, Marianne R. Let Us Prove Strong: The American Jewish Committee, 1945-2006 (2007). 495 pp. the standard scholarly history
- Solomon, Abba A. The Speech, and Its Context: Jacob Blaustein's Speech "The Meaning of Palestine Partition to American Jews" Given to the Baltimore Chapter, American Jewish Committee, February 15, 1948 (2011) Includes full text of speech, and some history of AJC perspective on Palestine and Israel.
- Svonkin, Stuart. Jews against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties (1997), covers AJC and other groups including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress
External links
- Official website
- President attends Centennial dinner
- American Jewish Committee Archives
- American Jewish Committee publications (full text) on the Berman Jewish Policy Archive @ NYU Wagner
- AJC Atlanta, GA Chapter
- Hate Crime Laws vs. Fundamental Freedoms at Atlantic CommunityAtlantic CommunityThe Atlantic Community is a German-American project to apply Web 2.0 ideas to transatlantic foreign policy strategy. Launched in April 2007 as an undertaking of the Atlantic Initiative, the Atlantic Community aims at facilitating discussion between young thinkers and established members of the...
think tank