American Jewish Congress Holds First Conference
The American Jewish Congress was established as an advocacy group for the interests and rights of Jewish people in the U.S. and abroad. Planning had begun in June 1917, and 400 delegates attended the first conference in Philadelphia. The conference on this day was held at the historic Independence Hall.
Attendees included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, and Rabbi Stephen Wise, a prominent advocate of civil rights and civil liberties who served as president of the AJC for many years.
The AJC had a long history of advocacy on civil liberties issues, including racial justice, freedom of speech, and separation of church and state.In the 1950s and 1960s it regularly worked with the NAACP, the ACLU and People United for Separation of Church and State and filed amicus briefs on major civil liberties cases.
In July 2010 the ACJ suspended operations, having lost much of its funds in the 2008 Madoff investment scandal. By 2013 the ACJ had reorganized and substantially reoriented its program, and is active today.
Go to the American Jewish Congress website: http://www.ajcongress.org/site/PageServer