Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Council for Judaism is Anti-zionist, Not Anti-israel, President Says

March 17, 1958
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

The American Council for Judaism is anti-Zionist but not anti-Israel, Clarence L. Coleman Jr., president, indicated here last night in an address to the annual national conference of the organization. He said that the issue between the AJC and Zionism is not whether Israel exists, but “what kind of Israel” it will be.

“Because of our insistence upon confining the nationalism of Israel to its own boundaries, the propagandists for ‘Jewish’ nationalism have created an image of the Council depicted as anti-Israel and unsympathetic to the welfare of our co-religionists living in Israel, ” Mr. Coleman said. He called this a “distorted image” and stressed that the AJC is dedicated “to extend the fullest philanthropic aid to our co-religionists and to suffering humanity everywhere.”

Mr. Coleman attacked the “non-Zionist groups which regularly ally themselves with the Zionists.” He claimed that these organizations, as well as the major Zionist groups in the United States, “have committed themselves to the destruction of the American Zionist Council. The non-Zionist organizations were also attacked by Rabbi Elmer Berger, executive vice president of the ACJ, who blamed them for the success of the Zionist movement in the United States.

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement