 | |
| Formation | November 11, 1906; 119 years ago (1906-11-11)[1] |
|---|---|
| Type | Human rights, civil rights, pro-Israel, human relations |
| 13-5563393[2] | |
| Legal status | 501(c)(3)nonprofit organization[2] |
| Headquarters | New York City[2] |
| Ted Deutch[3] | |
| Michael L. Tichnor | |
Key people | Avital Leibovich,Felice Gaer,Davis Harris |
| Subsidiaries | Project Interchange Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council AJC Transatlantic Institute AJC ACCESS |
| Revenue | $75,285,196[2] (2020) |
| Expenses | $49,712,638[2] (2020) |
| Endowment | $154,575,511[2] (2020) |
| Employees | 263[2] (2020) |
| Volunteers | 912[2] (2020) |
| Website | www |
American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights[4] group and Jewishadvocacy group established on November 11, 1906.[1][5] It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according toThe New York Times, is "widely regarded as thedean of American Jewish organizations".
Besides working in favor ofcivil liberties forJews,[6] the organization has a history of fighting against forms ofdiscrimination in the United States and working on behalf ofsocial equality, such as filing anamicus brief in the May 1954 case ofBrown v. Board of Education and participating in other events in thecivil rights movement.[7]
American Jewish Committee (AJC) is an international advocacy organization whose key area of focus is to promote religious andcivil rights forJews and others.[5][8]
AJC has 25 regional offices in theUnited States, 13 overseas offices, and 35 international partnerships with Jewish communal institutions around the world.[9]
On November 11, 1906, 81Jewish Americans of Central European background met in the Hotel Savoy in New York City to establish American Jewish Committee.[1] The immediate impetus for the group's formation was to speak on behalf ofAmerican Jewry to the U.S. government about pressuringTsarist Russia to stoppogroms against Jews in the Russian Empire. More broadly, AJC sought to protect the rights of Jews all over the world and to combat anti-Jewish discrimination and antisemitism.[8][14][15]
In its early years, the AJC worked quietly and behind the scenes, utilizing the contacts of its well-connected and self-constituted Jewish elite, who were mostlyReform Jews. The organization's early intent was simply to eliminate the barriers to full Jewish participation in American life and secure, as far as possible, Jewish equality in other countries.[14] Early leaders included lawyerLouis Marshall, bankerJacob H. Schiff, JudgeMayer Sulzberger, scholarCyrus Adler, and other well-to-do and politically connected Jews.
Marshall was AJC's president from 1912 until his death in 1929.[16] While president, Marshall is credited with making the AJC a leading voice in the 1920s against immigration restrictions. Additionally, he succeeded in forcingHenry Ford to cease publication and distribution of his antisemitic newspaperThe Dearborn Independent. Ford was also made to apologize publicly and pay a cash settlement.[17][18][19]
In 1914, the AJC helped create theAmerican Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, established to aid Jewish victims ofWorld War I. After the war, Marshall went to Europe and used his influence to have provisions guaranteeing the rights of minorities inserted into the peace treaties.[20]
In the 1920s, AJC fought virulentantisemitism and pogroms in Roumania,[15] Russian Jewish refugees in Turkey, andJews in Yemen. It also filed complaints with theCouncil of the League of Nations after Norway passed a law banningschechita, Jewish ritual slaughter.[21] After the1929 Palestine riots, AJC asked the U.S. government to ensure the British government protected the Jews inMandatory Palestine.[22]
In the late 1920s, AJC advocated for reform of theImmigration Act of 1924, including repeal of theNational Origins Formula that effectively made immigration fromEastern Europe, where the vast majority of theJewish diaspora lived at the time, impossible.[21]
After Marshall's death,Cyrus Adler was unanimously elected AJC's president at the organization's annual meeting in November 1929.[21]
The AJC advocated finding places of refuge for Jewish refugees fromAdolf Hitler in the 1930s, but had minimal success. After World War II broke out in 1939, the AJC stressed that the war was for democracy and discouraged emphasis on Hitler's anti-Jewish policies lest a backlash identify it as a "Jewish war" and increase antisemitism in the United States. When the war ended in 1945, it urged a human rights program upon theUnited Nations and proved vital in enlisting the support that made possible the human rights provisions in the UN Charter.[23]
During the interwar period, AJC was the most powerful Jewish organization in the United States. The group was decidedly non-Zionist not in principle against the State of Israel, but in opposition to Jewish nationalism being theraison d'etre of American Jews.[24] The group faced a crisis in the 1940s due to its president Joseph Proskauer's opposition to Zionism, and AJC left the umbrella groupAmerican Jewish Conference due to its position.[25]
The AJC "worked to contain nativist sentiment in America rather than work to open America's doors to refugees" duringthe Holocaust. For fear of provoking an increase in antisemitic sentiment, the AJC opposed public activism.[26] They have been widely criticized for their inaction during the Holocaust; historian and AJC National Director of Jewish Communal Affairs Steven Bayme said AJC leaders "never understood the uniqueness of Nazism and its 'war against the Jews'."[27] This cautious approach changed after the war, when the AJC began openly lobbying for a new immigration law allowing entrance to the United States for displaced persons from Europe. This law also led to Nazi collaborators entering the United States, though it remains unclear whether a more restrictive policy would have avoided this outcome.[26]
After World War II, AJC changed its stance on theState of Israel.[25] In 1950, AJC President Jacob Blaustein reached an agreement with Israeli prime ministerDavid Ben-Gurion stating that the political allegiance of American Jews was solely to their country of residence. By the Six-Day War of 1967, the AJC had become a passionate defender of the Jewish state, shedding old inhibitions to espouse the centrality ofJewish peoplehood.[citation needed]
The organization worked successfully to include a human rights provision in theUN Charter.[25]
TheRosenberg Case severely alarmed the AJC and other Jewish organizations, and the AJC supported the Rosenbergs' execution.[28] Writing fromSing Sing, Julius Rosenberg charged that "self-appointed leaders of Jewish organizations" were behaving like an "AmericanJudenrat", accusing the AJC's Solomon Andhil Fineberg of spreading a false rumor that the Rosenbergs believed they were being prosecuted because they were Jewish.[29][30]
During theSecond Red Scare, the AJC sent a representative to testify before theHouse Un-American Activities Committee, emphasizing that "Judaism and Communism are utterly incompatible." The AJC shared files with HUAC and also employed a staff member to investigate alleged Communist infiltration among the Jewish community.[31] At the organization's conference in October 1950, the executive committee adopted a resolution stating that the protection and advancement of civil liberties and civil rights could not be accomplished with combatting communism in the United States. AJC chairman Irving M. Engel said that "loyalty to the fundamental basis of Judaism requires all Jews to stand with the vanguard in the struggle against totalitarianism. Our attitude as Americans...should be positive and vigorous against communism. Let all of us lead the attack against this common foe of America."[32]
As part of broaderJewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, AJC took the position that the rights of Jews in the United States could be best protected by pursuing equality of all Americans.[citation needed] AJC commissioned the social science research of black psychologistKenneth Clark, which demonstrated how segregation affected black children. AJC cited Clark's research in itsamicus curiae brief in support ofOliver Brown during the 1954U.S. Supreme Court caseBrown v. Board of Education. The court cited Clark's research in its decision establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional.[33][34]
AJC, along with the ADL and American Jewish Congress, believed thatracial quotas were unconstitutional, and Jewish groups opposed their use in determining admission in higher education in the United States. For this reason, AJC celebrated the landmark 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision inRegents of the University of California v. Bakke that struck down racial quotas in university admissions. Despite the Bakke decision, AJC supportedaffirmative action programs for disadvantaged groups. By 2003, the organization's opposition to affirmative action had tempered. The AJC's director of public policy Jeffrey Sinesky said that "It's the quota concept that's anathema" after the organization submitted a brief in defense of theUniversity of Michigan's affirmative action program.[35][36]
According to theNew York Times, the AJC had taken a leading role in the struggle for equal rights for African Americans in the United States by the early 1990s.[4]
Through direct dialogue with theCatholic Church, the AJC played a leading role in improvingJewish-Christian relations, leading theVatican to issue theNostra aetate in 1965, absolvingJews of collective responsibility for the death ofJesus.[25] American Jewish Committee, along with the Synagogue Council of America, and the American Ethical Union each submitted briefs inEngel v. Vitale urging the US Supreme Court to rule that the public school prayer was unconstitutional.[37][38]
Before theSix-Day War in 1967, the AJC was officially "non-Zionist". It had long been ambivalent aboutZionism as possibly opening up Jews to the charge of dual loyalty, but it supported thecreation of Israel in 1947–48, after the United States backed thepartition of Palestine. It was the first American Jewish organization to open a permanent office in Israel.[39]
In the 1970s, the AJC spearheaded the fight to pass anti-boycott legislation to counter the Arab League boycott of Israel. In particular, Japan's defection[40] from the boycott was attributed to AJC persuasion. In 1975, the AJC became the first Jewish organization to campaign against the UN's "Zionism is Racism"Resolution 3379, when briefly integrated toPresident's Conference in order to join the touristic boycott against Mexico, after theWorld Conference on Women, 1975, the event in which Arab countries, theSoviet bloc, andNon-Aligned Movement countries impulsed the initial discussion that resulted inResolution 3379. Along with other American Jewish organizations, the AJC announced the suspension of all their trips to Mexico as an expression of "the wish of some Jews and Jewish organizations to boycott Mexico".[41] They did this is spite of their anti-boycott tradition. Finally, the campaign against Resolution 3379 succeeded in 1991, as it was revoked throughResolution 4686. 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.
The 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 theNational Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Founded in 1982, Project Interchange runs seminars in Israel for influential Americans.[42]
In December 1987, the AJC's Washington representative,David Harris, organized theFreedom 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 theUSSR.[43] In 1990, David Harris become executive director. Under his leadership, the AJC became increasingly involved in international affairs. 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 theUN General Assembly session. The AJC annual meeting was also moved from New York to Washington, D.C., so that more government officials and foreign diplomats might participate.[citation needed]
In 1990, the AJC conducted a major restructuring, laying off 40 of its 275 staff and cutting $1 million from its $16 million annual budget, in order to focus its work on intergroup relations. The organization ended its activities in Western Europe and South America and merged into international relations offices in New York and Washington. According to RabbiArthur Hertzberg, the AJC had been challenged by more aggressive groups. TheADL andSimon Wiesenthal Center had taken a more strident position on the antisemitism issue, while theAmerican Jewish Congress had attracted liberals with its willingness to criticize the policies of Israeli prime ministerYitzhak Shamir.[4]
In 1998, the AJC established a full-time presence in Germany—the first American Jewish organization to do so—opening an office in Berlin.[44]
In 1999, the AJC ran an ad campaign in support of theNATO'sintervention in Kosovo.[45]
In 2000, the AJC helped establish theAtlanta Jewish Film Festival inAtlanta, Georgia, the largest Jewish film festival in the world.[46]
In 2001, the AJC became official partners with the Geneva-basedUN Watch.[47]
In 2005, as part of its continuing efforts to respond to humanitarian crises, the organization contributedUS$2.5 million to relief funds and reconstruction projects for the victims of theSouth Asian tsunami andHurricane Katrina in the US.[48]
By its 100th anniversary in 2006, AJC had 33 chapters in the United States and a presence in 20 countries. Organization leaders marked the occasion with a multi-country tour across Europe and the Middle East.[25] Nearly 2,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., to celebrate its 100th Annual Meeting that May, andPresident George W. Bush, U.N. Secretary GeneralKofi Annan, and German chancellorAngela Merkel attended a reception in its honor. These individuals gave credit to American Jewish Committee for protecting Jewish Security and human rights around the world.[49]
AJC became increasingly involved in the advocacy ofenergy 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 presidential 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 earnedLEED certification, denoting that its New York headquarters was energy efficient and environmentally sound.[citation needed]
As part of a new strategic plan adopted in 2009, the 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."[50]
AJC diplomatic efforts since 2010 include opposition to Iran's program to attain nuclear capability;[51] a campaign to get the European Union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization;[52] preserving the right of Jews to practice circumcision in Germany; and urging the government of Greece to take action against the neo-NaziGolden Dawn party.[53]
In October 2011, the AJC issued a joint statement with theAnti-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."[54]
The statement aroused a storm of protest from Jewish opponents ofPresident Obama's re-election, who perceived it as a call to avoid criticizing the president's policies toward Israel. In the pages of theWall Street Journal, former Under Secretary of DefenseDouglas 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."[55] 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.[56]
Along with other agencies such as theSimon Wiesenthal Center and theUnion for Reform Judaism, the AJC condemned a move in mid-2014 by theU.S. Presbyterian Church to divest from companies that do business withIsrael 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 ofanti-Zionist sentiments.[57] In 2016, the AJC andIslamic Society of North America formed theMuslim-Jewish Advisory Council to address rising bigotry against Jews and Muslims in the United States.[58]
On 22 February 2019, the AJC condemned theOtzma Yehudit party, calling its views "reprehensible." The AJC statement said Otzma Yehudit's views "do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the State of Israel."[59] The AJC statement came after theBayit Yehudi party merged with Otzma Yehudit and the new joint slate appeared likely to win enough votes to earn seats in the next Knesset as well as ministerial roles for some of its members.[59] No members of Otzma Yehudit were elected.
In early 2022, the AJC released its fourth annual "State of Antisemitism in America" report and later that year the organization announced its "Call to Action on Antisemitism" playbook.[60][61] After a string of high-profile antisemitic incidents, including comments made byKanye West,[62][63] the organization participated in a White House round-table on antisemitism with Second GentlemanDoug Emhoff.[64][65]
After more than years as CEO, David Harris retired in 2022 and was replaced by South Florida congressmanTed Deutch.[66][67][68]
On February 10, 2023, CEO Ted Deutch joined Emhoff, UN Undersecretary GeneralMelissa Fleming, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and AmbassadorDeborah Lipstadt on a panel about antisemitism.[69]
In December 2024, the organization published a statement claiming that genocide was not occurring in Gaza and thatAmnesty International's report[70] was an antisemitic attempt at isolating and delegitimizing the state of Israel.[71][72]
In January 2020, AJC and the Mecca-basedMuslim World League led a "groundbreaking" joint delegation of Muslims and Jews to commemorate the 75th anniversary of theliberation of Auschwitz concentration camp.[73] The trip was the most senior Islamic delegation to ever visit Auschwitz.[74] As a part of the visit, AJC CEO David Harris and MWL Secretary-GeneralMuhammad bin Abdul Karim Issa published a joint op-ed in theChicago Tribune on how the delegation united Muslims and Jews.[75]
ACCESS, AJC's young professional wing, and theMimouna Association, an organization of young Muslim leaders in Morocco, have partnered since 2014 on joint missions to Israel and Morocco, conferences and programming onJewish heritage in Morocco, and content highlighting commonalities between Jews and Arabs.[76] Sarah Milgrim, killed in the2025 Capital Jewish Museum shooting, participated in an AJC-Mimouna delegation to Morocco.[77]
Under CEO David Harris, AJC pioneered quiet diplomacy in the Arab world before theAbraham Accords.[78]
In June 2021, AJC opened an office in Abu Dhabi, its first office in an Arab country and its 13th office outside the United States to build on theAbraham Accords. The office's inaugural leader was Marc Sievers, former U.S. ambassador to Oman.[79][80]
AJC partnered with TV Abraham, launched by researcher Ahmed Charai, in April 2025 to produce content about diplomacy and shared values.[81]
AJC is the oldest Jewish defense and community relations organization in the United States,[14] and is widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations.[4][82] According to historianJonathan Sarna, AJC is known for its deep research of issues and working behind the scenes with high-level international contacts.[25]
In 1930, the AJC founded a library at its Manhattan headquarters as a resource for its staff to research and write reports. According to historianJonathan Sarna, the AJC's library was for the Jewish community what theLibrary of Congress was for theU.S. Congress At its peak, the library held 13,000 titles such as internal memos and reports on Jewish organizations, publications on race, religion, civil rights, and the Holocaust. In September 2012, the AJC shut down the library, with holdings going toYeshiva University,Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, theJewish Theological Seminary,Berman Jewish Policy Archive, and theSeminario Rabínico Latinoamericano.[83]
The AJC published the liberal magazinePresent Tense from 1973 until 1990, when AJC ceased publication as part of an organizational reorganization.Murray Polner was the magazine's first and only editor.Present Tense often published articles critical of Israel and the American Jewish establishment.[82][84] The organization also published the conservative magazineCommentary from 1945 until 2007.[4][85][86]
A 2007 essay, "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" by professorAlvin H. Rosenfeld,[87] published on the AJC website, criticized Jewish critics of Israel by name, particularly the editors and contributors toWrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Grove Press), a 2003 collection of essays edited byTony Kushner andAlisa 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.[88]
In an editorial, the Jewish newspaperThe Forward called Rosenfeld's 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."[89]
The essay was also criticized by RabbiMichael Lerner[90] and in op-eds in theGuardian[91] and theBoston Globe.[92]
In aJerusalem Post op-ed, AJC Executive DirectorDavid Harris explained why the organization published Rosenfeld's essay in 2007:
Ford agreed to release a formal apology, ... cash settlement
