American Jewish Committee

=== The 1960s and 1970s ===
Through direct dialogue with the [[Catholic Church]], AJC played a leading role in paving the way for a significant upturn in [[Jewish-Christian relations]] in the years leading up to the Roman Catholic Church's 1965 document ''[[Nostra aetate]]'', and in the ensuing years. The American Jewish Committee, along with the Synagogue Council of America, and the American Ethical Union each submitted briefs in [[Engel v. Vitale]] urging the US Supreme Court to rule that the public school prayer was unconstitutional.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/370/421/|title=Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962)|website=Justia Law}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=October 1961 |title=BRIEF OF AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE AND ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B'NAI B'RITH AS AMICI CURIAE |url=https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/civil-rights/adl-in-the-courts/amicus-briefs/brief-pdfs/ab-1961-engel-v-vitale.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220205174754/https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/civil-rights/adl-in-the-courts/amicus-briefs/brief-pdfs/ab-1961-engel-v-vitale.pdf |archive-date=5 February 2022 |access-date=6 June 2023 |website=adl.org}}</ref>

Before the [[Six-Day War]] in 1967, AJC was officially "non-Zionist". 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]]. It was the first American Jewish organization to open a permanent office in Israel.<ref>{{cite news|title=American Jews and Israel Have Never Been Closer|url=http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/25/american-jews-and-israel-have-never-been-closer/|access-date=16 November 2013|newspaper=The Algemeiner}}</ref>

In the 1970s AJC spearheaded the fight to pass anti-boycott legislation to counter the Arab League boycott of Israel. In particular, Japan's defection<ref>{{cite news |last=Helm |first=Leslie |title=Japan Asks Arab States to End Boycott of Israel : Trade: Move could boost Tokyo's role as peacemaker in Mideast.|url=http://articles.latimes.com/1992-12-05/news/mn-1377_1_arab-states |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |access-date=20 January 2012|date=5 December 1992}}</ref> from the boycott was attributed to AJC persuasion. In 1975 AJC became the first Jewish organization to campaign against the UN's "Zionism is Racism" [[Resolution 3379]], when briefly integrated to [[Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations|President's Conference]] in order to join the touristic boycott against Mexico, after the [[World Conference on Women, 1975]], the event in which Arab countries, the [[Soviet Bloc|Soviet bloc]], and [[Non-Aligned Movement]] countries impulsed the initial discussion that resulted in [[United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379|Resolution 3379]]. Along with other American Jewish organizations, AJC announced the suspension of all their trips to Mexico as an expression of "the wish of some Jews and Jewish organizations to boycott Mexico".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Katz Gugenheim|first=Ariela|url=http://libcat.calacademy.org/title/boicot-el-pleito-de-echeverria-con-israel/oclc/1122578103%26referer%3Dbrief_results|title=Boicot. El pleito de Echeverría con Israel|publisher=Universidad Iberoamericana/Cal y Arena|year=2019|isbn=978-607-8564-17-0|location=Mexico|language=Spanish|access-date=2021-10-29|archive-date=2022-04-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220410191926/http://libcat.calacademy.org/title/boicot-el-pleito-de-echeverria-con-israel/oclc/1122578103%26referer%3Dbrief_results|url-status=dead}}</ref> They did this is spite of their anti-boycott tradition. Finally, the campaign against Resolution 3379 succeeded in 1991, as it was revoked through [[United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379|Resolution 4686]]. 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.

AJC was active in the campaign to gain emigration rights for Jews living in the Soviet Union; in 1964 it was one of the founders of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, which in 1971 was superseded by the [[National Conference on Soviet Jewry]].

AJC created [[Present Tense (magazine)|Present Tense]], a magazine of Jewish Affairs edited by [[Murray Polner]], in 1973.<ref>{{cite news|title=Murray Polner, founding and only editor of Present Tense magazine, dies at 91|url=https://www.jta.org/quick-reads|access-date=11 June 2019|publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|date=2 June 2019|archive-date=29 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200629043603/https://www.jta.org/quick-reads|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title='Present Tense' to cease publishing|url=https://www.jta.org/1990/02/08/archive/ajcommittee-board-approves-plan-to-restructure-agency-radically|access-date=11 June 2019|publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|date=8 February 1990|first=Allison|last=Kaplan}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Cohen|first1=Roger|author-link1=Roger Cohen|title=Liberal Jewish Bimonthly Magazine to Close|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/08/us/liberal-jewish-bimonthly-magazine-to-close.html|access-date=11 June 2019|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=February 8, 1990}}</ref>