Council for Judaism Launches Attack on American Jewish Committee

The American Jewish Committee came under a severe attack today from the American Council for Judaism for asserting that the propaganda activities of the ACJ “are dangerous to the status, and even the security of American Jews.”

The American Jewish Committee, in analyzing the public relations activities of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, declared publicly that ACJ methods “do not serve the best interests of American Jews.” It also charged that the ACJ “provides propaganda fodder to anti-Semites.”

“Studies conducted by the American Jewish Committee over the past decade, and confirmed more recently by independent analyses, indicate plainly that the Council’s public relations activities do not merely fail to cancel out the detrimental impressions created by Zionist positions and appeals; worse than doing no good, they actually do harm. They add to the damage both by what they say and how they say it.” the AJC analysis said.

“In general, it is beneficial to emphasize concurrence between Americans who are Jewish and all other Americans. But it is hurtful to single out undesirable actions of a segment of the Jewish population, as is done by the Council publicity, concentrating on their invidious aspects and ignoring the background or surrounding circumstances against which such actions should be appraised,” the AJC statement pointed out.

Replying to the charges voiced by the American Jewish Committee, Clarence L. Coleman, Jr., president of the American Council for Judaism, said in a press statement today: “If the AJC attack means anything at all, it means that what has long been a guerrilla war against the Council has now been legitimized.”

Mr. Coleman announces “emphatically” that the American Council for Judaism “will not be silenced” in its effort to reach all Americans with its views because “a few in the lunatic fringe of our country’s life use our material as they use the material of the American Jewish Committee itself.” He reiterates his organization’s usual views on “Jewish nationalism,” its attack on the Jewish Agency and on leaders of the United Jewish Appeal.

“Despite generalities with which the American Jewish Committee speaks and which sometimes sound like the principles of the Council, it is now clear that the Committee would like to impair the work of the Council; perhaps to destroy it if it were in the power of the Committee to do so,” Mr. Coleman concludes.