American Jewish congress

The American Jewish Congress was founded originally in 1918 by a group of Jewish American leaders as an umbrella structure for Jewish organizations to represent the American Jewish interests at the Peace Conference following the end of World War I. It was seen as a national parliamentary assembly representing all American Jews. Representatives to the Congress were selected by all major national Jewish organizations and delegates representing local communities were elected by some 350,000 Jewish voters.

The main purpose at that time was to unite American Jewry in support of a program to be submitted at the Versailles Conference, which included winning international support for a Jewish national home in Palestine and guarantees for the rights of Jews in post-war European countries. 1 Among the organizers of the American Jewish Congress were Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Judge Julian W. Mack and Zionist leader Louis Lipsky. During the Congress sessions in Philadelphia, its 400 elected deputes included such prominent figures as Felix Frankfurter, Henry Morgenthau, Nathan Straus, Henrietta Szold, Horace Kallen, future founder of New York’s New School, and a young Zionist from Milwaukee Golda Myerson (future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir).

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