Jerome A Chanes. Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Editor: Richard T Schaefer. Volume 1, Sage Publications, 2008.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is the oldest Jewish defense organization in the United States, established in 1906 to protect the civil and religious rights of Jews around the world. Over the years, its concerns have included immigration policy, anti-Semitism, civil rights, international affairs, and Israel. The AJC’s orientation has long been that of a thoughtful and deliberative organization. Indeed, it traditionally viewed itself as being the “think tank” of the Jewish community. In addition to its regular sponsorship of a range of studies and conferences, an influential periodical, Commentary, is produced under the AJC’s auspices with a completely independent editorial policy. Since 1900, the AJC has published the annual American Jewish Year Book, which over the years has become the “document of record” for American Jewry. This entry reviews the organization’s history of advocacy.
The Structure
The AJC was formed as a direct outgrowth of concerns about conditions in Czarist Russia, especially the 1905 Kishinev pogrom, and as one response to the search for a basis on which a central representative organization of American Jews could be built. The AJC initially consisted of a small group drawn from the established German Jewish community, people who had migrated in large numbers to the United States beginning in the 1830s. They became well established and viewed their purpose as being able to respond to matters of concern on behalf of American Jews. The organization’s founders represented the prominent German stratum within the Jewish community; out of a sense of noblesse oblige, they combined philanthropic activities and hofjude (“court Jew”) diplomacy on behalf of their fellow Jews.
Oligarchic in design, the AJC started as a committee with a limited membership of 60 U.S. citizens (expanded to 350 by 1931). It had offices in New York and remained a small group for many years. The AJC was self-selected and shared the “elitism” of the German Jewish community, then the regnant Jewish population in the United States.
After World War II, the AJC expanded markedly in size and function. A chapter plan adopted in 1944 slowly changed the oligarchic cast and elitist control of the organization. The AJC also reconsidered its historical reluctance to use litigation as a strategy and began to press its case in the courts.
In 2005, the AJC had a membership of approximately 150,000 people organized in 33 chapters around the United States. Operating in 2005 on a budget of approximately $37 million—the AJC’s budget in 1979 was $8 million, on par with the Anti-Defamation League—the agency maintains offices in Brussels, Berlin, Geneva, and Jerusalem, and has a presence in Paris, Mumbai, and Warsaw, in addition to its New York headquarters.
Ideology and Agenda
Two ideas have characterized the work of the AJC throughout its history. First, there was the notion of “stewardship”—the idea that a diaspora-based group of Jewish “stewards” could enhance the collective welfare of the Jewish people. During recent decades, a new notion was added—that no “defense” agency is effective unless it also promotes the internal vitality of the Jewish people. In this second objective, the AJC carved a path that was different from that of its sister defense groups. The AJC’s agenda shifted over the years in response to changing developments.
The plight of Russian Jewry before World War I prompted the AJC’s strong defense of a liberal U.S. immigration policy. Following the war, the AJC welcomed the Balfour Declaration articulating British support for a Jewish “national home” in Palestine; however, consistent with its anti-Zionist (at best “non-Zionist”) stance, which prevailed until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the committee underscored the provision that the declaration would in no way prejudice the liberties of Jews in other lands.
During the 1920s, the AJC centered its attention on refuting the popular “Jew Communist” charge circulated in the infamous “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” and further propagated in Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent. The AJC’s approach involved discreet lobbying, a non-confrontational strategy reflecting the fear that the group would be perceived as a “Jewish lobby” with interests at odds with those of other Americans.
The rise of Nazism led to intensified activities. When efforts to find allies who could halt the Nazis with aroused public opinion failed, the AJC turned increasingly to plans of rescue and emigration for German Jews, an effort halted by the outbreak of war. Simultaneously, the committee fought the alarmingly sharp rise in organized anti-Semitism in the United States with an emphasis on education and “prejudice reduction” programs.
The AJC hoped that the future of Jewry would be secured by universal recognition of human rights to be protected by the United Nations, and it lobbied in 1945 at the San Francisco Conference, where the charter for the United Nations was prepared, for an international commitment to that principle. By 1946, the AJC realized that the problem of displaced persons could be solved only by the creation of a Jewish state. Modifying its traditional anti-Zionist stance, it cooperated with Zionist groups in advocating the cause of partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. After 1948, the committee worked consistently to ensure U.S. sympathy for and diplomatic aid to Israel, and by agreement with Israel statesmen it officially kept Israel’s interests distinct from those of diaspora Jewry.
A turning point came in 1943 with the appointment of John Slawson as AJC executive. Slawson believed that, consistent with the AJC tradition of viewing rights for Jews as part of the larger struggle for rights for all minorities, the committee needed to be transformed into a vibrant civil right agency. From 1947, AJC actively participated, through litigation, educational campaigns, and community projects, in the struggle of the Blacks for equal rights. Work to break down the barriers in education, housing, employment, and public accommodations led to pioneer efforts against anti-Jewish discrimination in clubs, fraternities, and the “executive suite.” The AJC’s focus on human relations resulted in new approaches to intergroup cooperation and intercultural education. In that area, it labored successfully for the revision of prejudiced teachings about Jews in Christian textbooks and for the historic declaration on the Jews—Nostra Aetate—approved by the Second Vatican Council in 1965.
The AJC has also explored new ways in which to understand intergroup dynamics and to strengthen Jewish identity in the United States. The annual Survey of American Jewish Public Opinion, conducted by the Market Facts agency, provides valuable data for social scientists and policymakers. Numerous studies on a range of issues have emerged from the AJC over the past 40 years.
Recent History
Three transitional periods mark the recent history of the AJC. In 1944, Slawson’s decision to shape an agency that had a strong network of regional chapters charted a new direction for the agency. This, together with Slawson’s commitment during the late 1940s to a research agenda that resulted in the watershed volume The Authoritarian Personality, created a newly contoured AJC.
Second, the events of 1967—especially the Six-Day War—suggested to the AJC (as they did to many other agencies) that the committee ought not be on the sidelines during a fateful period of Jewish history. This “mainstreaming” resulted in AJC moving into a contemporary era.
Finally, since the early 1980s, the AJC has undergone a necessary process of redefinition of mission and function within the community. During a period of institutional and financial instability, the AJC had four chief executives within a few short years. This process culminated in 1990, with the AJC turning aggressively toward activity in the international arena, in effect positioning itself as an international diplomatic corps for the Jewish people.
With the decline of anti-Semitism in the United States and full acceptance of Jews into U.S. society, the AJC’s agenda has expanded beyond matters of “defense” to include questions of Jewish “continuity.”