The American Jewish Committee was strongly attacked yesterday at the four-day annual conference of the American Council for Judaism now taking place here. Leaders of the Committee were charged with acting “as Zionists while they call themselves non-Zionists.”
The attack was made by Clarence L. Coleman Jr. , president of the American Council for Judaism, addressing the 400 members of his organization at the conference. Mr. Coleman emphasized that basic objection to Zioniso is the reason for the Council’s program. He asserted that “the work of various Zionist groups in the United States goes forward inexorably, relentlessly” and that “it is financed by money collected under slogans of relief and refugeeism, given in large part by ‘non-Zionists’ who do not know what Zionism is.”
Mr. Coleman referred to a recent finding by the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee that most Jews are regarded as pro-Israel. “Had the same organization been as much concerned with the impact of this astounding proposition, ” he said, “as it is in torpedoing the Council’s efforts to correct the impression, it might have told its audience of American Jews of the study made last year by the Anti-Defamation League which reported that more than two-thirds of the ‘major Protestant and Catholic church publications indicate varying degrees of attitudes toward Israel ranging from opposition to hostility.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
