The Zionist Movement in the United States (4/10)
The American Jewish Committee
It is one of the oldest Jewish
organizations in the United States. It was founded in 1906 with the aim of
defending the civil and religious rights of the Jewish community in the U.S.,
working to improve their conditions, and advocating for their social, economic,
and educational equality while maintaining their Jewish identity.
The Committee also sought to combat
all forms of anti-Jewish sentiment or religious discrimination. In addition, it
focused on defending the civil and religious rights of Jewish communities
outside the United States and contributed to the relief of Jewish victims of
disasters, ethnic and sectarian unrest, and wars around the world.
The American Jewish Committee was founded by a group of assimilated Jewish-American
bourgeois elites of German origin, such as Louis Marshall, Jacob Schiff, Oscar
Straus, Mayer Sulzberger, and Julius Rosenwald.
In its early years, the Committee
focused on assisting the hundreds of thousands of poor Eastern European Jews
who had immigrated to the United States helping them integrate quickly into American
society through education and by instilling in them an American identity.
The Committee also took part in relief
efforts for Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and the Balkan states, and in
1914, it helped establish the American Jewish Relief Committee, which created a
fund to aid Jewish war victims.
The Committee was also a key member of
the Joint Distribution Committee and led the movement that resulted in the
cancellation of the U.S.–Russian trade agreement in 1911, in protest against
Russia’s discrimination against American Jews seeking entry into the country.
In 1916, the organization joined the
American Jewish Congress after setting the condition that the Congress be
formed only temporarily and for a specific purpose to
represent the Jews of the United States at the Versailles Peace Conference. It
was agreed that the Congress would be dissolved afterward, as the Committee
feared it might become a permanent organization and a rival which,
in fact, eventually happened.
At the Peace Conference, the
Committee’s representatives played an active role in ensuring the rights of
Jewish communities and other minorities in the peace treaties.
During the 1920s, the Committee also
contributed to the successful campaign against Henry Ford’s newspaper, The
Dearborn Independent, after it published The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion and promoted the idea of a “Jewish–Communist conspiracy” against the
United States. The campaign ultimately succeeded in obtaining a public apology
from Henry Ford in 1927.
It should be noted that the activities
of the American Jewish Committee in the aforementioned areas were not driven
solely by humanitarian motives, but also by the growing concern among American
Jews of the bourgeois class about the impact of Yiddish-speaking Jewish
immigration on their social standing and class status.
American cities were becoming
overcrowded with new immigrants, and crime rates were rising. Moreover, the
newcomers brought with them socialist and radical ideas that alarmed the
American bourgeoisie (as reflected in Henry Ford’s accusations). Added to this was
the cultural and religious gap between the Yiddish heritage of the new
immigrants and that of the assimilated German-origin Jewish bourgeoisie in
America.
Hence, their efforts were focused both
on integrating the immigrants rapidly into American society and on improving
the conditions of Jewish communities in their original homelands.
These considerations shaped the
American Jewish Committee’s stance toward Zionism and the Jewish settlement
project in Palestine. Until 1946, the Committee was known as the leading
non-Zionist Jewish organization in the United States. It maintained that Jewish
identity was religious or, at most, cultural and
rejected the notions of “Jewish nationality,” “the Jewish people,” or the idea
of establishing a Jewish state.
The Committee believed that such
concepts raised the issue of dual loyalty for American Jews and cast doubt on
their American allegiance. Nevertheless, it supported Jewish settlement in
Palestine as a solution to the “Jewish question” and as a way to redirect part
of the Yiddish Jewish immigration away from the United States.
From this standpoint, the American
Jewish Committee approved the Balfour Declaration, emphasizing its clause that
the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine should
not threaten the civil and religious rights of Jews living in other countries.
Moreover, the Committee’s leaders particularly Louis Marshall played
a significant role in the establishment of the enlarged Jewish Agency.
The Committee also took part in
sending aid to the Zionist settlers in Palestine through the American Jewish
Relief Committee, a key member of the Joint Distribution Committee and of the
United Jewish Appeal, all of which operated in coordination with the World
Zionist Organization.
It opposed the British White Paper of
1939. At the same time, the American Jewish Committee took a firm stance
against the concept of “Diaspora nationalism” embodied in the programs of both
the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress organizations whose establishment it had
opposed.
The Committee also rejected the 1942
Biltmore Program and, in 1943, withdrew from the American Jewish Congress that
convened to discuss the crisis in Europe after voting against the establishment
of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. It expressed hope that the future of
Jewish communities could instead be secured through global recognition of human
rights and their protection under the auspices of the United Nations.
The Committee found its influence within
the Jewish community diminishing during the 1940s, both because of its
positions and because of its quiet, non-confrontational approach to the fate of
Jewish communities in Germany and Europe under Nazi rule.
Unlike the American Jewish Congress,
the Committee refused to launch a large-scale anti-Nazi campaign within the
United States and, following the rise of Nazism in Germany, opposed organizing a
trade boycott against Germany, arguing that such action might endanger the
position of German Jews.
With the end of World War II, the
American Jewish Committee shifted its position from mere cooperation with
Zionism to full and open support for it.
On one hand, it came to believe that
the “Jewish question” could only be solved through the establishment of a
Zionist state. On the other hand, the creation of a Zionist entity serving as a
base for Western capitalist and imperial interests in that vital region of the
Arab East gained the backing of the United States the new
center of global imperial power after the war.
Thus, the Committee’s support for the
Zionist project and for Israel stemmed primarily from its American alignment
and perspective, falling within what can be described as “settlement-oriented
Zionism.”
Therefore, although the Committee
supported the 1947 Partition Plan, encouraged Jewish immigration to Palestine,
backed Zionist propaganda efforts, and, since 1948, worked to secure American
financial and diplomatic support for Israel, it nevertheless rejected David
Ben-Gurion’s call for American Jewish youth to immigrate to Israel.
The Committee emphasized the
distinction between the interests of Israel and those of Jewish communities
worldwide, insisting on the need to establish a clear framework for the
relationship between the two.
From this perspective, the joint
statement of 1950 was issued by David Ben-Gurion and the American industrialist
Jacob Blaustein,
who served as Chairman of the American Jewish Committee from 1949 to 1954. The
statement affirmed that Israel represents only its own citizens and speaks
solely on their behalf.
In 1952, the Committee, along with the
Anti-Defamation League, withdrew from the United Jewish Appeal Fund due to its
opposition to allocating a large portion of aid to Israel. After the 1967 war,
pro-Israel activity within the American Jewish Committee increased sharply — a
shift that affected most American Jewish organizations.
Although the Committee is not an
officially registered lobbying group, it exerts influence in favor of Israel
through quiet advocacy and effective connections with prominent individuals and
key groups within American society.
The Committee relies on the weight and
influence of its members to ensure the effectiveness of its methods. Although
it is relatively small — with around 50,000 members — it remains an “elite”
organization and is closely connected to centers of power due to the networks
and social standing of its leadership.
As a result, it focuses its activities
on the executive branch of the U.S. government, particularly the White House
and the State Department, while leaving Congress largely to the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). This represents an unofficial division of
labor between the two organizations.
This is also one of the reasons the
Committee did not join the conference of heads of major American Jewish
organizations, remaining in an observer role to preserve the freedom of action
afforded by its ties to the executive branch.
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Source: The
Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism, and Zionism
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