American Council for Judaism

Once formidable anti-Zionist campaigning body seeking to preserve the nonpolitical nature of liberal religious tradition in North American Judaism.

The American Council for Judaism (ACJ) was founded in 1942 by a group of prominent non-Zionist Reform rabbis opposed to the affirmation of political Zionism by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). The ACJ initially sought to reaffirm the fundamentals of Classical North American Reform Judaism stated in the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, which eliminated references to Jerusalem and Zion in prayer services and affirmed the absolute loyalty of Jews to the nation in which they lived. In 1942, CCAR support for a refuge in Palestine for Jews fleeing European antisemitism left non-Zionists concerned that their universalistic, liberal values and North American identity were in question. The ACJ initially had considerable impact on liberal Christians but was undermined by increasing sympathy toward Zionism within the North American establishment. The AJC's increasingly non-religious and anti-Zionist manifesto always attracted far smaller numbers of rabbis and laymen than Zionist organizations did (notably Women's International Zionist Organization, Hadassah, and the American Israel Political Affairs Committee). The largest secular Jewish bodies - notably the American Jewish Committee and American Jewish Congress - have identified firmly with the defense of Israeli interests, and religious Zionism has dominated mainstream Reform organizations since the 1970s. Some of the ACJ's most prominent spokespersons have been Louis Wolsey, William Fineshriber, Morris Lazaron, and Elmer Berger. The ACJ is sympathetic to Israeli critics of Zionism, religious traditionalism, and state policy, but has had weaker ties with Arabs in the Middle East.

Bibliography

American Council for Judaism. Available from http://www.acjna.org/.

Kolsky, Thomas. Jews against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942 - 1948. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.

Tekiner, Roselle; Abed-Rabbo, Samir; and Mezvinsky, Norton, eds. Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections. Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books, 1989.

— GEORGE R. WILKES