American Council For Judaism

The American Council for Judaism (ACJ) is an organization of American Jews committed to the proposition that Jews are not a nationality but merely a religious group, adhering to the original stated principles of Reform Judaism, as articulated in the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform.

The ACJ was founded in June 1942 by a group of Reform rabbis who opposed the direction of their movement, including, but not limited to, the issue of Zionism as redefined by the Biltmore Program in May 1942. After the Reform movement declared itself officially neutral on Zionism in 1937, the split was prompted by the passage of a resolution endorsing the raising of a "Jewish army" in Palestine to fight alongside the Allies of World War II. The leading rabbis included Louis Wolsey, Morris Lazaron, Abraham Cronbach, David Philipson, and Henry Cohen but their most vocal representative soon became Elmer Berger, who became the Council's Executive Director.

The presidency of the ACJ was accepted by the well-known philanthropist Lessing J. Rosenwald, who took the lead in urging the creation of a unitary democratic state in the British Mandate of Palestine in American policy-making circles. Though up against overwhelming support for the creation of a Jewish state in Congress, the Council had many friends who supported its position in the State Department such as Sumner Welles and Dean Acheson. In the final year before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the Council became very close to Judah Magnes, the leading Israeli advocate for a binational state, who had returned to America for fear of his life in Palestine.

Though Louis Wolsey resigned from the Council after the founding of the State of Israel, the ACJ persevered, believing that its primary foe was the influence of Zionism upon American Judaism. In addition to supporting a network of religious schools committed to Classical Reform Judaism, the Council agitated against the merging of Zionist fund-raising organizations with local Jewish community boards, and enjoyed friendly relations with the Eisenhower State Department under John Foster Dulles. The ACJ also vocally supported the efforts of William Fulbright to have the lobbyists for Israel in the United States legally registered as foreign agents.

Support for the American Council for Judaism came primarily from Jews of German descent who were historically attached to Classical Reform Judaism, but also from many Jewish socialists who opposed Zionism, and many more of whom who were uncomfortable with the Jewish religion coalesced around William Zukerman and his Jewish Newsletter. Jewish intellectuals who at one time or another passed through the Council included David Riesman, Hans Kohn, Erich Fromm, Hannah Arendt, Will Herberg, Morrie Ryskind, Frank Chodorov, and Murray Rothbard. Among the notable gentile friends of the Council were Dorothy Thompson, Norman Thomas, Freda Utley, Arnold J. Toynbee, and Dwight MacDonald. The ACJ was particularly influential in San Francisco.

The ACJ sharply declined in activity following the Six Day War in 1967, when the American Jewish community was swept up by overwhelming support for Israel. Moderates within the Council forced Elmer Berger to resign the following year for declaring that Israel had been the primary aggressor in the war. While the Council had 14,000 members in 1948 and up to 20,000 in the 1950s, there are today an estimated 2,000 subscribers to the Council's quarterly newsletter.

Today, the council has moderated its stance and accepts Israel and Zionism, but views them as irrelevant to the lives of American Jews. According to its statement of principles, "the State of Israel has significance for the Jewish experience. As a refuge for many Jews who have suffered persecution and oppression in other places, Israel certainly has meaning for us. However, that relationship is a spiritual, historical, and humanitarian one - it is not a political tie. As American Jews, we share the hope for the security and well being of the State of Israel, living in peace and justice with its neighbors".

The organization publishes a magazine called Issues.