American Jewish Congress
Encyclopedia
The American Jewish Congress describes itself as an association of Jewish Americans organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts.

Like the American Jewish Congress, another institution prominent in American Jewish life is the American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee 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 often goes by the initials AJC. For ease of identification, the two organizations are often referred to as the AJCongress or the AJCommittee.

The Congress suspended its activities and laid off much of its staff on July 13, 2010. It had run out of operating funds due to losses in the Madoff scandal.

History

In 1918, leaders within the American Jewish community, consisting of Jewish, Zionist
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...

, and immigrant community organizations, convened the first American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) in Philadelphia's historic Independence Hall. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.-Early life:Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma Frankfurter...

, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...

, and others joined to lay the groundwork for a national democratic organization of Jewish leaders from all over the country, to rally for equal rights for all Americans regardless of race, religion or national ancestry.

In addition to its stated goals of equal rights for all, it was founded to broaden Jewish leadership and to present a unified American Jewish position at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919
Paris Peace Conference, 1919
The Paris Peace Conference was the meeting of the Allied victors following the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers following the armistices of 1918. It took place in Paris in 1919 and involved diplomats from more than 32 countries and nationalities...

. It became effective as a pressure group in 1928 under the leadership of Rabbi Wise, who remained the president and chief spokesperson of the AJCongress until his death in 1949.

Through its emphasis on human rights for all Americans; on protection by government of the weakest among us; and on a just society based on civil law and the Jewish concept of Tzedek
Tzedek
Tzedek may refer to:* The Hebrew word for righteousness and justice, and a West Semitic theonym, see Tzadik*Tzedek is the name of a UK based charity which aims to provide a Jewish response to the problem of global poverty....

—righteousness—the American Jewish Congress has made its mark to a remarkable degree on American society in general and Jewish well-being in particular.

The 1930s

Throughout the 1930s, Rabbi Wise, was vocal in his warnings about the dangers of Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

. When Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 was named chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, Wise organized a mass protest rally at Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

, in New York City. He did this despite strong opposition by the German government, the U.S. State Department, and conservative Jewish organizations such as AJCommittee
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee was "founded in 1906 with the aim of rallying all sections of American Jewry to defend the rights of Jews all over the world...

 and B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International |Covenant]]" is the oldest continually operating Jewish service organization in the world. It was initially founded as the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith in New York City, on , 1843, by Henry Jones and 11 others....

. The American Jewish Congress continued to organize protest rallies throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In August 1933 the American Jewish Congress led a general boycott of German goods.

In 1934, Daniel Marks was named head of the AJC. He traveled to Germany and brought 5,000 Jews to America.

In 1936 the American Jewish Congress was instrumental in establishing 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...

 (WJC). Maintaining his position as president of the AJCongress, Rabbi Wise was also elected president of the WJC. During World War II, the AJCongress acted as a liaison between the U.S. government and the WJC on issues relating to rescue attempts made on behalf of European Jews.

The 1940s

In August 1942, Rabbi Wise received a cable from Gerhard Riegner, the WJC representative in Switzerland. Riegner reported that the Nazis had planned, and were implementing a policy to exterminate all of European Jewry; the cable also referred specifically to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. After the State Department confirmed the accuracy of the information in the cable, now known as the "Riegner telegram," the AJCongress convened a Joint Emergency Committee. The committee sought to coordinate the major Jewish organizations in the United States to lobby the Roosevelt administration to take increased measures rescuing European Jews.

In December 1942 the American Jewish Congress established a Planning Committee, which sought support for a variety of rescue proposals. The committee was never more than marginally successful in mobilizing American public support for rescue efforts. The most impressive of these projects was another rally at Madison Square Garden. Held on March 1, 1943, the rally drew a crowd of 70,000. Similar rallies were subsequently held in a number of cities throughout the United States.

In August 1943 Rabbi Stephen Wise met Jan Karski
Jan Karski
Jan Karski was a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter and later scholar at Georgetown University. In 1942 and 1943 Karski reported to the Polish government in exile and the Western Allies on the situation in German-occupied Poland, especially the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and...

.

The American Jewish Congress was pro-Zionist in its platform. Its leadership overlapped with that of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). As a result, the two organizations agreed to concentrate on different tasks during the war. The American Jewish Congress dedicated itself to rescuing European Jews, while the ZOA worked to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. This arrangement continued after the war, although its significance decreased after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

AJCongress was a pioneer in the struggle for Soviet Jewry, long before it became a popular movement.

Domestically, AJCongress became active as well. It was the first Jewish organization to use law and legislation to protect the rights of American Jews, at a time when other Jewish organizations were using appeals to good will to achieve this objective.

The 1960s

Rabbi Joachim Prinz
Joachim Prinz
Joachim Prinz was a German rabbi who was outspoken against Nazism and became an American Jewish leader...

 (1902–88) was president from 1958 to 1966. He served as a founding chairman of the 1963 March on Washington and spoke at that event.

The 1980s and 1990s

Following its heyday during the 1960s, when many of its activities coincided with the larger American civil rights movement, a drop-off in its membership throughout the 1980s and 1990s ensued. It has since regrouped and is actively engaged in constitutional issues domestically and supporting Israel and challenging anti-Semitism abroad.

The First Amendment

The First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...

 separation of church and state is emphasized at AJCongress naturally and inevitably as part of its insistence that Jews in the United States are not guests but full-fledged citizens by right. Key to accomplishing its mission is the belief, “That only through the assertion of – and defense of – human rights in general, can Jewish rights themselves be guaranteed, that only through the pursuit of social justice for all can it achieve the narrower goal of justice for Jewish Americans.” With that, AJCongress has been involved in hundreds of Civil Rights and religious freedoms cases, before local, Federal and the United States Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Ed. gave AJCongress its public entrée into the field of Constitutional defense agencies.

The group advocates removing religious symbols from public life, and thus filed a brief against allowing public displays of the menorah during Hanukkah
Hanukkah
Hanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE...

 in County of Allegheny v. ACLU
County of Allegheny v. ACLU
In County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 , the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of two recurring holiday displays located on public property in downtown Pittsburgh. The first, a nativity scene , was placed on the grand staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse...

.

Charitable choice

AJCongress monitors issues like "charitable choice
Charitable choice
Charitable choice refers to direct United States government funding of religious organizations to provide social services.Created in 1996, charitable choice allows government officials to purchase services from religious providers using Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , Welfare-to-Work, and...

" proposals, in which federal funds would be given to faith-based institutions to provide social services historically the responsibility of government.

Women's issues

The American Jewish Congress was the first mainstream Jewish organization with a membership of both men and women to devote considerable time, effort and resources to women's issues. The establishment in 1984 o the Commission for Women's Equality (CWE) was a direct result of these activities.

In recent years, CWE has turned its attention to the ethical, legal and medical issues arising from research revealing that Ashkenazi Jewish women have higher than expected frequencies of gene mutations predisposing them to breast and ovarian cancer. The 1996 conference, Understanding the Genetics of Breast Cancer: Implications for Treatment, Policy and Advocacy, organized by national CWE, has been duplicated by AJCongress regions nationwide. In 2000, CWE presented Cancer Genetics in the Ashkenazi Community, to explore medical breakthroughs since the first conference as well as new developments in genetic testing. This follow-up conference was distinctly more upbeat than its predecessor, both in terms of medical preventive measures and in regard to legislation to ensure privacy and eliminate discrimination based on testing.

The CWE most recently held a major women's conference in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

, Israel in May 2006, bringing notable women of achievement like Anne F. Lewis
Ann Lewis
Ann Lewis is an American political advisor who was Senior Advisor for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. She has served as the Director of Communications for HillPAC and Friends of Hillary 2005-2007 and from 1997–2000 as Director of Communications and then Counselor to Bill Clinton.Lewis is...

, Lynn Sherr, anchor for ABC's 20/20, Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Canadian author, journalist and an advocate of "reform and progressive" interpretation of Islam. Manji is director of the Moral Courage Project at the Robert F...

, author of The Trouble with Islam, Bettina Plevan, Partner at Proskauer Rose LLP and former head of the New York Bar Association and others to a weeklong discussion on women's accomplishment and success . Carole E. Handler
Carole E. Handler
Carole Enid Handler is an American lawyer who specializes in intellectual property litigation in the areas of trademark, copyright and antitrust laws, particularly those related to entertainment and media industry...

 was the CWE's most recent Chair.

Interfaith

The AJC has participated in interfaith dialogue with the U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs
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....

.

Israel Singer

In the fall of 2007, the AJCongress announced that it had retained the services of Rabbi Israel Singer
Israel Singer
Israel Singer was secretary general of the World Jewish Congress from 2001 to 2007.- Life :Singer grew up in Brooklyn, the son of Austrian refugees...

, the former secretary general of 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...

 - who left the agency after claims of financial irregularities were levied following an investigation by the New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, former Democratic Party politician, and political commentator. He was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN until CNN cancelled his show in July of 2011...

 and followed up by accusations from WJC founder Edgar Bronfman
Edgar Bronfman
Edgar Bronfman may refer to:* Edgar Bronfman, Sr. , Canadian businessman and former long-time president of the World Jewish Congress* Edgar Bronfman, Jr. , CEO of the Warner Music Group...

 about alleged theft. Jack Rosen, AJCongress' chairman has been accused of keeping the appointment from the agency's board and breaching protocol in doing so. At a December 2007 meeting of the Board's Executive Committee, Rosen was put on the spot and challenged by fellow board members who opposed the association with Rabbi Singer. Rosen has since indicated that he let Singer go, but as of January 2008, Singer has claimed it to be untrue.

Ms. Magazine

On January 10, 2008, the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) released an official statement critical of Ms. magazine's refusal to accept a full page advertisement honoring three prominent Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i women: Dorit Beinisch
Dorit Beinisch
Dorit Beinisch is the president of the Supreme Court of Israel. She was appointed to the position on September 14, 2006, after the retirement of Aharon Barak. She is the first woman to serve as president of the Supreme Court.-Biography:...

 (president of the Supreme Court of Israel
Supreme Court of Israel
The Supreme Court is at the head of the court system and highest judicial instance in Israel. The Supreme Court sits in Jerusalem.The area of its jurisdiction is all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. A ruling of the Supreme Court is binding upon every court, other than the Supreme...

), Tzipi Livni
Tzipi Livni
Tzipporah Malkah "Tzipi" Livni is an Israeli lawyer and politician. She is the current Israeli Opposition Leader and leader of Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset. Raised an ardent nationalist, Livni has become one of her nation's leading voices for the two-state solution. In Israel she has...

 (Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel
Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel
The Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The position is one of the most important in the Israeli cabinet after Prime Minister and Defense Minister...

), and Dalia Itzik
Dalia Itzik
Dalia Itzik , born 20 October 1952, is an Israeli politician who currently serves as a member of the Knesset for Kadima. She has previously served in several ministerial positions, and on 4 May 2006 became the first female speaker of the Knesset, and has since served as President of Israel in an...

 (speaker of the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

). The AJC press release states: "...'What other conclusion can we reach,' asked Richard Gordon
Richard Gordon (AJC)
Richard S. Gordon is the current president of the American Jewish Congress . He has recently been critical of Ms. magazine for refusing to accept an advertisement about three prominent Israeli women....

, President of AJCongress, 'except that the publishers − and if the publishers are right, a significant number of Ms. Magazine readers − are so hostile to Israel that they do not even want to see an ad that says something positive about Israel?'...'Clearly Ms. has changed a great deal from the days when AJCongress members and leaders of the AJCongress' Commission for Women’s Equality − including Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...

, Bella Abzug
Bella Abzug
Bella Savitsky Abzug was an American lawyer, Congresswoman, social activist and a leader of the Women's Movement. In 1971, Abzug joined other leading feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan to found the National Women's Political Caucus...

 and Ms. co-founder Letty Pogrebin − were at the forefront of the Women's Movement that led to the creation of Ms. Magazine.'

Katherine Spillar, executive editor of Ms. magazine responded to the AJCongress on Ms. magazine's website, denying an anti-Israel bias, stating that: "Ms. magazine has been criticized for not running an ad submitted by the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) featuring the photographs of three prominent Israeli women leaders with the statement 'This is Israel.' She argued that the proposed advertisement was inconsistent with the magazine's policy to accept only 'mission-driven advertisements from primarily non-profit, non-partisan organizations', suggesting that the advertisement could have been perceived 'as favoring certain political parties within Israel over other parties, but also with its slogan “This is Israel,” the ad implied that women in Israel hold equal positions of power with men.'[11] Spillar stated that the magazine had 'covered the Israeli feminist movement and women leaders in Israel ... eleven times' in its last four years of issues.[12]

In its press release, AJCongress claims that Ms. therefore must be 'hostile to Israel'. This is untrue and unfair... Indeed Israeli writers have reported in the pages of Ms. on the continuing efforts of the Israeli feminist movement to combat discrimination and achieve a larger voice for women in the country’s political arena.' " She also levelled her own criticism: "...In a feature length story in the Spring 2006 issue of Ms., Israeli feminist scholar/activist Alice Shalvi
Alice Shalvi
Professor Alice Hildegard Shalvi is a leading figure in progressive Jewish education for girls.- Biography :Shalvi was born in Essen, Germany, to a Zionist Orthodox Jewish family, the youngest of three children...

 catalogued the ongoing struggles to rectify such inequalities, including increasing women’s representation in elected office and at the table negotiating for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...

. Women only comprise 14% of the Israeli Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

, placing Israel 74th in the world for women’s representation in government..."

The New York, Jewish Week
The Jewish Week
The Jewish Week is an independent weekly newspaper serving the Jewish community of the metropolitan New York City area. The Jewish Week covers news relating to the Jewish community in NYC and has world-wide distribution.-Editorial staff:...

reported that a number of leading Jewish feminists
Jewish feminism
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to improve the religious, legal, and social status of women within Judaism and to open up new opportunities for religious experience and leadership for Jewish women...

 were mostly disappointed with Ms.'s decision to reject the ad: "Ms. Magazine’s rejection of an ad celebrating three Israeli women leaders has prompted Jewish feminists here to charge that the magazine has adopted an anti-Israel posture. 'This is a feminism that has been utterly Palestinianized,' said Phyllis Chesler
Phyllis Chesler
Phyllis Chesler is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island...

, one of five Jewish feminists who lashed out at the magazine this week. Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance was founded in 1997 with the aim of "expand[ing] the spiritual, ritual, intellectual, and political opportunities for women with the framework of halakha," or Jewish law...

 founder Blu Greenberg
Blu Greenberg
Blu Greenberg is an American writer specializing in Modern Judaism and women's issues. She is the author of On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition and Black Bread: Poems, After the Holocaust ....

 told a press conference at the offices of the American Jewish Congress, whose ad Ms. Magazine rejected, that the leaders of the magazine 'have aligned themselves with those on the political far left whose agenda is to totally de-legitimate Israel on the stage of world opinion.'... Novelist Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick is an American short story writer, novelist, and essayist. She is the niece of the Hebraist Abraham Regelson.-Background:Cynthia Shoshana Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children...

 sent a letter to the AJCongress criticizing Ms. Magazine and saying it is 'now conspicuously exposed as having joined the anti-democratic anti-Israel totalitarian radical Left. A journal that once stood for free and open opportunity for all now shows itself to be among the haters: closed, narrow, insular, and above all cowardly.' And Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish studies
Jewish studies
Jewish studies is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history , religious studies, archeology, sociology, languages , political science, area studies, women's studies, and ethnic studies...

 at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 in Hanover, N.H., issued a statement saying she was 'profoundly disheartened by this foolish decision' of the magazine."..."

Location of materials for research on the American Jewish Congress

The Western Jewish History Center, of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

 has a large collection of historical records and documents from the Northern California Division of the American Jewish Congress. Additionally, The American Jewish Historical Society has a large collection related to the American Jewish Congress. The American Jewish Historical Society has recently completed a National Endowment for the Humanities funded project to process a new accretion of organizational records and create a finding aid for the additional records, photographs, and audio-visual material related to the American Jewish Congress and its Executive Directors, Commissions, and Public Relations department.

See also

  • American Jewish Congress v. Bost
    American Jewish Congress v. Bost
    American Jewish Congress v. Bost is an establishment clause lawsuit concerning the separation of church and state in Brenham, Texas. The case is the first constitutional challenge to a charitable choice contract...

  • Ms. magazine rejects AJC ad honoring three Israeli women

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK