American Jewish Committee
| American Jewish Committee (AJC) |
|
|---|---|
| purpose | Promotion of the Jewish people, the State of Israel, human rights and democratic values. |
| Chair: | Stanley M. Bergman (President) David Harris (Managing Director) |
| Establishment date: | 1906 |
| Seat : |
New York City United States
|
| Website: | www.ajc.org |
The American Jewish Committee ( English "American Jewish Committee") is a US non-governmental organization .
The organization sees its task in this
“To be protectors of the welfare and safety of Jews in the US, Israel and around the world; to strengthen the principles of pluralism as the best defense against anti-Semitism and other narrow-mindedness worldwide, and to improve the quality of Jewish life in America by ensuring Jewish survival and deepening bonds between American and Israeli Jews. "
It was founded in New York in 1906 with the participation of the reform rabbi Judah Leon Magnes (1877-1948), who was its leader until shortly before his death.
As of 2014, the AJC in the USA has its national office in New York City and 33 local offices in the USA. In Europe, the AJC maintains the Lawrence & Lee Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations in Berlin , the AJC Transatlantic Institute in Brussels and further offices in Paris and Rome . The AJC has been represented in Geneva with the watchdog office UN Watch since 1993 .
The importance of the organization is underscored by the centenary celebration on May 4, 2006, when George W. Bush , Kofi Annan and, for the first time, a German head of government, Chancellor Angela Merkel , gave speeches. To mark the anniversary, the association raised $ 105 million from 1,600 donors over five years for its goals. Honorary President is Alfred H. Moses .
Since 2009 a memorial service can be done at the AJC in the ACCESS program in New York City through the Association of Austrian Foreign Service .
The organization is not to be confused with the American Jewish Congress or the American Jewish Council .
criticism
Response to the Holocaust
The historian and AJC National Director of Jewish Communal Affairs Steven Bayme criticized the AJC's handling of the Holocaust and those responsible at the time: "AJC leaders never understood the uniqueness of Nazism and its war against the Jews."
At the time, the AJC did not do enough to open the country to refugees from Europe and showed too little reaction to the Holocaust.
activities
In addition to UN Watch (1993), the AJC has been running the Dorothy and Julius Koppelman Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations since 1981 to intensify relations between Jewish communities in the USA and Israel . The Interchange project funds educational trips to Israel by political, ethical and religious leaders of the world. AJC conducted surveys on knowledge of the Holocaust and understanding of Judaism in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and among Russian Jews who immigrated to the United States.
Since 2005 the AJC has been running a campaign to reform the United Nations with the aim of stopping the unequal treatment of Israel in relation to human rights issues in the Palestinian Territories , which it claims . In doing so, it calls for the mode of the urgency meetings of the UN General Assembly , at which Israel is frequently condemned, to be changed and for various UN departments to have their financial resources withdrawn (Department for Palestinian Rights, Committee for Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices) in the occupied territories. ). The reconstruction of the UNCHR was also a major goal of the AJC.
In 2008 the American Jewish Committee founded the European Forum on Antisemitism at an international conference .
AJC Berlin
Since 1998 the AJC Berlin e. V. and the Lawrence & Lee Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations ("Lawrence and Lee Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations"; AJC Berlin Ramer Institute for short ), a permanent representation of the Jewish-American organization in Germany.
The AJC Berlin Ramer Institute serves the transatlantic dialogue. It organizes conferences, seminars, expert meetings and round table discussions and carries out public relations work. It is a cooperation partner of the anti-Semitism research and information center founded in 2015 . The AJC Berlin Ramer Institute provides its political and diplomatic contacts with information on key developments in transatlantic relations and the Middle East.
literature
- David Engel : American Jewish Committee. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 1: A-Cl. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2011, ISBN 978-3-476-02501-2 , pp. 67-72.
- Handlin, Oscar. "The American Jewish Committee: A Half-Century View," Commentary (Jan. 1957) pp 1-10.
- Loeffler, James, “The Particularist Pursuit of American Universalism: The American Jewish Committee's 1944 Declaration on Human Rights,” Journal of Contemporary History (April 2015) 50: 274-95.
- Sanua, Marianne R. Let Us Prove Strong: The American Jewish Committee, 1945-2006 (2007). 495 pp. the standard scholarly history.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ American Jewish Leadership confronts the Holocaust. Retrieved March 19, 2018 .
- ↑ About the AJC . AJC Berlin e. V., accessed on August 21, 2017.
Coordinates: 40 ° 45 ′ 35.5 " N , 73 ° 58 ′ 5.6" W.