Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page i Let Us Prove Strong Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page ii Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life Jonathan D. Sarna, Editor Sylvia Barack Fishman, Associate Editor For a complete list of books in the series, visit www.upne.com and www.upne.com/ series/BSAJ.html Marianne R. Sanua Seth Farber Let Us Prove Strong: The American Jew- An American Orthodox Dreamer: ish Committee, 1945–2006 Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Boston’s Maimonides School Hollace Ava Weiner and Kenneth D. Roseman, editors Ava F. Kahn and Marc Dollinger, editors Lone Stars of David: The Jews of Texas California Jews Jack Wertheimer, editor Amy L. Sales and Leonard Saxe Jewish Education in an Age of Choice “How Goodly Are Thy Tents”: Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experiences Edward S. Shapiro Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the Ori Z. Soltes 1991 Brooklyn Riot Fixing the World: Jewish American Painters in the Twentieth Century Kirsten Fermaglich American Dreams and Nazi Night- Gary P. Zola, editor mares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and The Dynamics of American Jewish Liberal America, 1957–1965 History: Jacob Rader Marcus’s Essays on American Jewry Andrea Greenbaum, editor Jews of South Florida David Zurawik Sylvia Barack Fishman The Jews of Prime Time Double or Nothing? Jewish Families and Ranen Omer-Sherman Mixed Marriage Diaspora and Zionism in American Jew- George M. Goodwin and Ellen Smith, ish Literature: Lazarus, Syrkin, Reznik- editors off, and Roth The Jews of Rhode Island Ilana Abramovitch and Seán Galvin, Shulamit Reinharz and Mark A. Raider, editors editors Jews of Brooklyn American Jewish Women and the Zionist Pamela S. Nadell and Jonathan D. Sarna, Enterprise editors Michael E. Staub, editor Women and American Judaism: Histori- The Jewish 1960s: An American Sourcebook cal Perspectives Judah M. Cohen Annelise Orleck, with photographs by Through the Sands of Time: A History of Elizabeth Cooke the Jewish Community of St. Thomas, U.S. The Soviet Jewish Americans Virgin Islands Steven T. Rosenthal Naomi W. Cohen Irreconcilable Differences: The Waning The Americanization of Zionism, of the American Jewish Love Affair with 1897–1948 Israel Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page iii Let Us Prove Strong The American Jewish Committee, 1945–2006 MARIANNE R. SANUA Brandeis University Press Waltham, Massachusetts published by university press of new england hanover and london Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page iv BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766 www.upne.com © 2007 by Brandeis University Press Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Members of educa- tional institutions and organizations wishing to photocopy any of the work for classroom use, or authors and publishers who would like to obtain permission for any of the material in the work, should contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sanua, Marianne Rachel. Let us prove strong : the American Jewish Committee, 1945–2006 / Marianne R. Sanua. p. cm.—(Brandeis series in American Jewish history, culture, and life) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn–13: 978–1–58465–631–9 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn–10: 1–58465–631–X (cloth : alk. paper) 1. American Jewish Committee. 2. Jews—United States—History—20th century. 3. Jews—United States—Politics and government. I. Title. E184.355.S25 2007 973'.04924—dc22 2006101274 Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page v The Seal of the American Jewish Committee rxÆ B“ hqÄ Z“jÆ t“ nIw“ q˜ æj}ÎwnMex-Æ Be of good courage, and let us prove strong for our people (I Chronicles 19:13) Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page vii Contents Foreword ix Preface xiii List of Abbreviations xvii i. 1906–1959 1 1. Origins: From the Kishinev Pogrom to the State of Israel (1903–1948) 3 2. “With Ever-Increasing Vigor”: The Science of Hatred, the Displaced Persons, and the Blaustein–Ben-Gurion Statement 28 3. “This Is Our Home” (1951–1957) 67 ii. The 1960s 99 4. The First Jewish Continuity Crisis and the Triumph of Vatican II (1960–1965) 101 5. Disaster and Deliverance: Jewish Identification and the Six-Day War (1967–1968) 135 6. The Civil Rights Movement and the Great Society (1960–1970) 156 iii. The 1970s 197 7. New Challenges: The Energy Crisis, Jimmy Carter, the Rise of the Evangelicals, and Cults (1970–1979) 199 8. Internal Divisions: Vietnam, Affirmative Action, Housing, Aid to Private Schools, and the Rights of Neo-Nazis (1970–1979) 228 9. Jewish Identity, the Women’s Movement, Intermarriage, and Soviet Jewry (1970–1980) 260 iv. 1980–2006 295 10. A Difficult Decade: Bitburg, Lebanon, Pollard, the Intifada, “Who Is a Jew?” Soviet Drop-Outs, and the Fall and Rise of AJC (1980–1990) 297 11. “The Global Jewish Committee”: AJC at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century 332 12. The Second Jewish Continuity Crisis, Pluralism, and Jewish Unity (1990–2006) 367 Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page viii viii contents Appendix. American Jewish Committee Presidents, 1906–2006 399 Notes 401 Selected Bibliography 459 Index 463 Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page ix Foreword The first seven days of May 2006, saw close to two thousand men and women assemble in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee. An opening symposium at the Library of Con- gress asked: “What Will Become of the Jewish People?”. In response, four of the world’s greatest Jewish intellectuals debated the centrality of Zion, the dis- tinctiveness of America, and the role of antisemitism and Jewish power in the world today. Subsequent sessions, each addressed by notable experts, focused upon Jewish spirituality, models of Jewish community, the crisis in the Middle East, the changing face of American Jewry, and the dangers facing Jews at home and abroad. At a climactic reception and dinner to honor the centennial, President George W. Bush, U.N. Security-General Kofi Annan, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel each underscored the critical role played by the American Jewish Committee in safeguarding Jewish security and human rights around the world. “For a hundred years,” President Bush declared, “American Presidents have benefited from the good advice of the American Jewish Committee. You have had a profound impact on American politi- cal life because you have worked tirelessly for noble goals.” The Washington gathering spotlighted the agenda and significance of the American Jewish Committee, as well as its emergence as the foremost Jewish and human rights organization of its kind. What had begun, in 1906, as a pa- ternalistic committee of sixty American Jews, horrified by the persecution of Jews in Russia and determined “to prevent infringement of the civil and reli- gious rights of Jews, and to alleviate the consequences of persecution,” had developed a hundred years later into an organization with 175,000 members and supporters around the world, thirty-three chapters in the United States, offices abroad in Jerusalem, Berlin, Geneva, and Brussels, and association agreements with nineteen different Diaspora Jewish communities. The growth and development of the American Jewish Committee—the is- sues it confronted, the changes it experienced, its successes, its failures—form the subject of this book. An earlier history of the American Jewish Commit- tee, written by historian Naomi W. Cohen, concluded that the Committee’s first six decades testified “to the clashes and adjustments, influences and pres- sures, mutual enrichment and absorption inherent in the confrontation between minority and majority.” It showed how “the organization never Sanua: Let Us Prove Strong page x x foreword ceased to remind the nation of its responsibilities to the cause of freedom,” and at the same time “labored unceasingly to extend freedom’s boundaries.” This volume, a sequel, focuses on the Committee’s more recent history; that is, its engagement with the central issues of postwar Jewish life. As the volume clearly demonstrates, the Committee played a role, frequently a decisive one, in almost every significant Jewish issue and development since World War II. During the immediate postwar decades, Dr. Sanua shows here, the Ameri- can Jewish Committee devoted a great deal of attention to the battle against domestic prejudice. “A fundamental tenet for the Committee,” its honorary president, Jacob Blaustein, wrote in 1958, “has been the conviction that equal- ity and security cannot be assured for Jews unless assured for all.” To that end, the Committee sponsored social science research, advocated for new laws and policies, and authored an amicus curiae brief in 1954 that was quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court in its famous decision in Brown vs. Board of Education mandating racial integration of the public schools. Over time, Israel became an ever more important focus of AJC activities. As part of its program of sup- port, it opened a full-time office in Israel in 1962 and an institute on American Jewish–Israeli relations in 1982. It likewise worked to enhance Israel’s diplo- matic position within the international community, taking particular pride in its campaign leading up to the 1991 repeal of the United Nations’ infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution. AJC also reached out to Europe, Asia, and Af- rica in its continuing quest to safeguard Jewish interests and strengthen de- mocracy. It helped to secure the historic Vatican II declaration on Catholic- Jewish relations in 1965, opened its Pacific Rim Institute in 1989, and inaugurated an Africa Institute in 2006.