American Zionist Federation - excerpt from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, 1986

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This page is an extract, reproduced with permission, from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1986. [1]

Year established: 1970 President: Benjamin Cohen Executive Director: Karen J. Rubinstein Address: 515 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022 Publications: Spectrum, Issue Analysis

General Background

The AZF went through a number of permutations prior to 1970, when it became the loosely organized umbrella body for American Zionism. The first impetus for collective Zionist planning in the United States followed the promulgation of the British White Paper of 1939, which called for restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. Recognizing the need to pressure the U.S. government to take a stand against that development, Chaim Weizmann, then head of the WZO, visited the United States and urged existing Zionist organizations to unite for one plan of action. The result of his call was the formation of the Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs in 1939. Weizmann's "quiet diplomacy" was not satisfactory to everyone, however, and in protest against it, the militant Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver soon called for "loud diplomacy" from the Jewish masses in the United States. With the failure of the Emergency Committee to generate an agreement on a unified course of action, the ground was prepared for Silver's call to be translated, in 1943, into a new national apparatus, known as the American Zionist Emergency Committee (AZEC). AZEC included the four largest Zionist organizations in the United States at that time: the Zionist Organization of America, Hadassah, Mizrachi, and the Poale Zion. A year later, the AZEC had managed to set up no less than two hundred local emergency committees, and the number soon doubled. The AZEC played an important role in instructing local operatives on ‘how to make their voices heard more effectively,’ and continued to function until after the creation of Israel.

The twenty-seventh World Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem in 1968, resolved to strengthen the Zionist movement worldwide through the establishment of ‘Zionist territorial organizations,’ or federations, in countries throughout the world. In the Ratification Assembly held in Philadelphia, the AZF was created

By unanimous decision of all the Zionist organizations in the United States. Recognizing the need to broaden the base of American Zionism, they established the AZF as a central body "to bring the Zionist message to the grass-roots of American Jewry ... and to interpret developments in the Middle East for the American public”. [2]

Structure and Role

The AZF is registered in the state of New York as a membership organization which is tax-exempt under the Internal Revenue Code. Its constituent members are the sixteen Zionist organizations in the United States and their youth auxiliaries,* but American Jews who identify themselves as Zionist may join the umbrella organization directly. (This is the first umbrella organization to permit such individual memberships.) AZF membership is also open to other national Jewish organizations and institutions that are not necessarily Zionist; these come under two additional membership categories: (1) ‘affiliated organizations,’ which accept the Jerusalem Program, but whose members are not necessarily declared Zionists, and (2) ‘related agencies,’ which are ‘Zionist-sponsored national institutions which have always had an ongoing relationship to the Zionist movement.’[3] AZF's three affiliated organizations are the American Sephardi Federation, the Association of Parents of American Israelis, and the Women's League for Israel; its related agencies are the American Zionist Youth Foundation and the Jewish National Fund. In 1983, the AZF put its aggregate membership at more than one million.

Initially, AZF's regional structure relied on twenty-three local federations to coordinate local Zionist activities, but this system did not prove to be efficient, and it was decided to establish a full-fledged regional structure because of ‘limited funds and manpower.’ By 1980, regional offices were located in three ‘home cities,’ Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, serving the East, Midwest and West, respectively. These regional offices, administered by a president and an executive director, supervise Zionist activities in another twenty-two ‘satellite cities.’

Eastern Region-Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Hartford, Providence, and Rochester; MidWestern Region-Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Houston, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and St. Paul; Western Region-Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Tucson. The national office covers thirteen other locations with local Zionist federations: Atlanta, Baltimore, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Denver, Detroit, Miami, Long Island, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Queens and Washington, D.C.

Each regional office also has a governing board that includes officers and committee heads elected from the ‘home city’ as well as local Zionists and members of Zionist organizations from the ‘satellite cities.’ The AZF is governed by a national board of directors of approximately 350 members which meets twice a year. A smaller executive committee, consisting of about 100 members, meets once a month.

The sixteen constituent members of AZF are the following (where applicable, ideological or political party affiliations are included in parentheses):

[4]

According to the American Jewish Yearbook

The AZF consolidates the efforts of the existing constituency in such areas as public and communal affairs, education, youth and Aliyah, and invites the affiliation and participation of like-minded individuals and organizations in the community-at-large.

It also

Seeks to conduct a Zionist program designed to create a greater appreciation of Jewish culture within the American Jewish community in furtherance of the continuity of Jewish life and the spiritual centrality of Israel as the Jewish homeland." Interpreting its responsibility as implementing the provisions of the ‘Jerusalem Program,’ the AZI strives to reach two audiences: the American Jewish community and the broader American community. Within the American Jewish community, its goal is to strengthen its commitment to Zionist objectives, pivoted on the principles of the centrality of Israel, Jewish peoplehood, and aliyah.

In the broader American community, the AZF sees its main goal as

Interpreting Israel-its problems and accomplishments, its social ideas, its affinity to American democratic values and the identity of American and Israeli interests. [5]

However, AZF suffers from the same general decline in importance and effectiveness that has afflicted most official American Zionist groups, as noted by Avraham Schenker, a member of the Executive of the WZO

The territorial Zionist Federations ... have not developed into a vibrant, active and influential factor within the Jewish community. Their activity, at best, was restricted to coordination and representation...Locally, UJA and Keren Hayesod view the Zionist Federations as an impediment, a competitor, and even as superfluous in presenting the case of Israel before the public. [6]

Israel Support Work

The AZF responds actively to criticisms of Israel. In September 1982, following the invasion of Lebanon and the Beirut massacre, AZF's outgoing president Rabbi Joseph Sternstein, expressed the prevailing opinion of American Zionist leadership regarding the Beirut massacre

We are confident the Israelis are not culpable. They don't do it in war, lining up people and shooting .... It is not the Jewish way. [7]

A year later, in Spectrum, AZF's official publication, newly elected President Raymond Patt argued that the Jewish state was being measured by an unfair double standard. ‘Only if we Zionists maintain our vigilance,’ Patt wrote, ‘is there any hope that the big lie and the double standard will ever begin to fade, and some degree of objectivity will be restored where Israel is concerned.’34 [8]

The AZF maintains a general information campaign, directed primarily at its own members. In late 1975, for example, following the United Nations resolution on Zionism and racism, the AZF prepared and circulated to its members A Manual for a Zionist Information and Education Program in the United States. The manual, dated November 1975 and stamped ‘for internal use only,’ contains a program outline on how to defend Zionism, which includes: reaching the general community with guidance on speaker orientation and briefing; utilization of radio and TV, newspapers, and the ‘involvement of Christian personalities’; and informing and involving the Jewish community through cassettes from Israel, training conferences, and material from the synagogues, such as bulletins and sermons. The general spirit of the manual is conveyed in this excerpt from the introduction

The basic approach of the program is that the ‘enemies of Zion,’ ( Anwar al-Sadat, President of Egypt, 1970-1981; Idi Amin, President of Uganda, 1971-1979; Muammar al-Qaddafi, Chief of State of Libya, 1969-present; Yasir Arafat, PLO Chairman, 1969-present ) and the Russians, etc., have shifted their attack from Israel as a state, people and concept, to Zionism as international Jewish conspiracy. This is the first stage of a concentrated, coordinated attack on the Jewish people as a whole, whether they live in Jerusalem, or Gary, Indiana. We must interpret to committed Jews, whether they are card-carrying Zionists or not, that if we do not counteract this anti-Zionist onslaught immediately and interpret to the general community what Zionism is really all about, we soon will have to deal with stage two: the direct challenge of anti-Semitic propaganda in our local communities throughout the United States. [9]

To connect the American Jewish community with Israel, the AZF, in cooperation with the American Zionist Youth Foundation, maintains a ‘scholars-in-residence’ program. Through this program, Israeli scholars, journalists, educators, and government officials are brought to the United States for two-week visits to Jewish communities. During their stays, they participate in meetings, lectures, and discussion groups that are used to transmit information about Israel.

The AZF's travel arm, the Israel Seminar Foundation, also sponsors individual delegations to Israel for professionals, academics, clergy, and business and community groups. In cooperation with the North American Aliyah Movement and the Israel Aliyah Center, for example, the AZF works to encourage Jewish immigration to Israel by seeking out conferences, fairs, and exhibits that introduce the public to opportunities in Israel.

Through its regional Zionist federations, the AZF conducts annual public events. For instance, the highly visible celebrations of Israel's Independence Day through parades, dancing, concerts, booths, and so forth aim to get Israel and its actions in the public eye. The focus of the ‘Jerusalem Day’ is to call for international recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. In 1980, there were eighty-six observations of ‘Jerusalem Day’ in Jewish communities throughout the United States. The ‘Zionist caravan’: a traveling resource center cosponsored by the WZO Department of Information and staffed by American Jews who have lived in Israel, visits about twenty cities in the United States each year. For the academic audience, the AZF established the Zionist Academic Council, with the specific goal of mobilizing ‘faculty members at universities throughout the country on behalf of Israel and the Zionist Ideal.’36 In 1982, the Zionist Academic Council published and widely disseminated a Guide for the University Teaching of Zionism and Israel. The thirty-six page Guide covers the history of Zionism and Israel, accompanied by basic questions and a selection of resources oriented to the Zionist perspective.

Notes

  1. ↑ This page is reproduced by permission of the Institute of Palestine Studies, granted on 25 February 2014. The Institute retains copyright of all material.
  2. ↑ AZF. The American Zionist Federation, June 1983.
  3. ↑ AZF, Report to the American Zionist Federation Sixth Biennial Convention, 9-11
  4. ↑ AZF, Report to the American Zionist Federation Sixth Biennial Convention, 9-11
  5. ↑ AZF, The American Zionist Federation.
  6. ↑ Avraham Schenker, Zionism in Distress, Forum 46/47 (Fall/Winter 1982): 7-23.
  7. ↑ New York Times, 21 September 1982.
  8. ↑ Spectrum, Summer 1983.
  9. ↑ AZF, A Manual for a Zionist Information and Education Program in the United States. November 1975: Introduction.
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