[7] The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is an international advocacy organization whose key area of focus is to promote religious and civil rights for Jews and others.

[1] The immediate impetus for the group's formation was to speak on behalf of American Jewry to the U.S. government about pressuring Tsarist Russia to stop pogroms against Jews in the Russian Empire.

[8][14][15] In its early years, the AJC worked quietly and behind the scenes, utilizing the contacts of its well-connected and self-constituted Jewish elite, who were mostly Reform Jews.

[14] Early leaders included lawyer Louis Marshall, banker Jacob H. Schiff, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, scholar Cyrus Adler, and other well-to-do and politically connected Jews.

"[26] This cautious approach changed after the war, when the AJC began openly lobbying for a new immigration law allowing entrance to the United States for displaced persons from Europe.

[24] In 1950, AJC President Jacob Blaustein reached an agreement with Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion stating that the political allegiance of American Jews was solely to their country of residence.

AJC chairman Irving M. Engel said that "loyalty to the fundamental basis of Judaism requires all Jews to stand with the vanguard in the struggle against totalitarianism.

The AJC's director of public policy Jeffrey Sinesky said that "It's the quota concept that's anathema" after the organization submitted a brief in defense of the University of Michigan's affirmative action program.

[34][35] According to the New York Times, the AJC had taken a leading role in the struggle for equal rights for African Americans in the United States by the early 1990s.

It had long been ambivalent about Zionism as possibly opening up Jews to the charge of dual loyalty, but it supported the creation of Israel in 1947–48, after the United States backed the partition of Palestine.

AJC played a leading role in breaking Israel's diplomatic isolation at the UN by helping it gain acceptance in WEOG (West Europe and Others), one of the UN's five regional groups.

The ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center had taken a more strident position on the antisemitism issue, while the American Jewish Congress had attracted liberals with its willingness to criticize the policies of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir.

[46] In 2005, as part of its continuing efforts to respond to humanitarian crises, the organization contributed US$2.5 million to relief funds and reconstruction projects for the victims of the South Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in the US.

[24] Nearly 2,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., to celebrate its 100th Annual Meeting that May, and President George W. Bush, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and German chancellor Angela Merkel attended a reception in its honor.

[48] AJC became increasingly involved in the advocacy of energy independence for the U.S. on the grounds that this would reduce dependence on foreign, especially Arab, oil; boost the American economy; and improve the environment.

It adopted "Green" policies for itself institutionally, and in 2011 earned LEED certification, denoting that its New York headquarters was energy efficient and environmentally sound.

[citation needed] As part of a new strategic plan adopted in 2009, the AJC said it envisioned itself as the "Global Center for Jewish and Israel Advocacy" and the "Central 'Jewish Address' for Intergroup Relations and Human Rights."

"[49] AJC diplomatic efforts since 2010 include opposition to Iran's program to attain nuclear capability;[50] a campaign to get the European Union to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization;[51] preserving the right of Jews to practice circumcision in Germany; and urging the government of Greece to take action against the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party.

"[54] David Harris responded that the statement was intended to preserve the tradition of bipartisan support for Israel and prevent it from becoming "a dangerous political football."

[55] Along with other agencies such as the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Union for Reform Judaism, the AJC condemned a move in mid-2014 by the U.S. Presbyterian Church to divest from companies that do business with Israel settlements.

An AJC statement asserted that the divestment is just one incident of the U.S. church group "demonizing Israel", referring to "one-sided reports and study guides, such as 'Zionism Unsettled'" as proof of anti-Zionist sentiments.

[56] In 2016, the AJC and Islamic Society of North America formed the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council to address rising bigotry against Jews and Muslims in the United States.

"[58] The AJC statement came after the Bayit Yehudi party merged with Otzma Yehudit and the new joint slate appeared likely to win enough votes to earn seats in the next Knesset as well as ministerial roles for some of its members.

The essay accused these writers of participating in an "onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish State," which he considered a veiled form of supporting a rise in antisemitism.

[78] In an editorial, the Jewish newspaper The Forward called Rosenfeld's essay "a shocking tissue of slander" whose intent was to "turn Jews against liberalism and silence critics."

Richard Cohen remarked that the essay "has given license to the most intolerant and narrow-minded of Israel's defenders so that, as the AJC concedes in my case, any veering from orthodoxy is met with censure ... the most powerful of all post-Holocaust condemnations—anti-Semite—is diluted beyond recognition.