The Jewish lobby are individuals and groups predominantly in the Jewish diaspora that advocate for the interests of Jews and Jewish values. The lobby references the involvement and influence of Jews in politics and the political process, and is said to include organized groups such as the American Jewish Committee, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, B'nai B'rith, and the Anti-Defamation League.
Although both terms are controversial, term Jewish lobby is often conflated with the term Israel lobby, which some commentators argue against. While there is some overlap in alleged membership between the Jewish lobby and the Israel lobby, the two terms should not be interchangeable, as the Jewish lobby is defined by its ethnic makeup, while the Israel lobby is defined by its political agenda.
The term is common in antisemitic contexts, where it is used pejoratively to allege, falsely and without evidence, disproportionate Jewish influence in politics and government, a variation of the old antisemitic canard of "international Jewish conspiracy".
History On November 11, 1906, 81 Jewish Americans of Central European background met in the Hotel Savoy in New York City to establish the American Jewish Committee (AJC)."Hebrews Form Committee: Its Object to Give Aid Whenever The Necessity Arises". The Baltimore Sun. November 12, 1906. p. 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. AJC also fought limitations to immigration to the United States and combating manifestations of antisemitism. The official statement announcing its formation called to "prevent infringement of the civil and religious rights of Jews and to alleviate the consequences of persecution."
Tivnan writes that a "full-fledged 'Jewish lobby'" was developed in 1943, in which the moderates represented by Stephen Samuel Wise and the American Jewish Committee were defeated by supporters of Abba Hillel Silver and "the maximalist goal of a 'Jewish Commonwealth'" at the American Jewish and Biltmore Conferences. Silver became the new leader of American Zionism, with his call for "loud diplomacy", and he then "cranked up the Zionist Organization of America's one-man lobbying operation in Washington—renaming it the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC)—and began to mobilize American Jewry into a mass movement."Tivnan, Edward . The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pp. 23–24.
Description In the 1992 Dictionary of Politics, political scientist Walter John Raymond describes the term "Jewish Lobby" as approximately 34 Jewish political organizations in the United States which make joint and separate efforts to lobby for their interests in the United States, as well as for the interests of the State of Israel." Raymond listed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee, and B'nai B'rith among the component members of the Jewish lobby.Raymond, Walter John. The Dictionary of Politics: Selected American and Foreign Political and Legal Terms, Brunswick_Publishing_Corporation, 1992, p. 254.
Journalist J.J. Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Forward, described the organized Jewish lobby in the early 21st century as not only the approximately dozen organizations such as AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee, and Hadassah, but also high levels of participation of Jews in electoral politics.J.J. Goldberg.
In his book Jewish Power, Goldberg writes that in the United States the "Jewish lobby" for decades played a leadership role in formulating American policy on issues such as civil rights, separation of church and state, and immigration, guided by a liberalism that was a complex mixture of Jewish tradition, the experience of persecution, and self-interest. It was thrust into prominence following the Nixon Administration's sharp shift of American policy towards significant military and foreign aid support for Israel following the 1973 Yom Kippur War.Goldberg, Jonathan Jeremy. Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment. Basic Books, 1996, Chapter 2, especially 24.
University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University professor Stephen Walt wrote in 2006 that "even the Israeli media refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby'", and stated the following year that "AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents and the Israeli media themselves refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby'."Mearsheimer, John and Walt, Stephen. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Farrah, Strauss and Giroux, 2007, p. 188.
, writing in Le Monde diplomatique, states that in the United States the term is "self-described" and it "is only one of many influence groups that have official standing with institutions and authorities."Vidal, Dominique. "France: racism is indivisible", Le Monde diplomatique, May 2004.
Former New York Times journalist Youssef Ibrahim writes: "That there is a Jewish lobby in America concerned with the well-being of Israel is a silly question. It is insane to ask whether the 6 million American Jews should be concerned about the 6 million Israeli Jews, particularly in view of the massacre of another 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. It's elementary, my dear Watson: Any people who do not care for their own are not worthy of concern. And what the Israel lobby does is what all ethnic lobbies — Greek, Armenian, Latvian, Irish, Cuban, and others — do in this democracy."Ibrahim, Youssef. "Israel Lobby's Pull Pales Next to Evil Saudi Input", The New York Sun, 25 September 2007.
Comparison with "Israel lobby" Commentators argue that "Jewish lobby" should not be used interchangeably with the term "pro-Israel lobby". Academic Dov Waxman notes that due to the large number of evangelical Christian Zionists involved in pro-Israel activities, the term "pro-Israel lobby" should be used when referring to organizations that try to influence American policy toward Israel in a certain direction. In addition, Waxman notes that the pro-Israel lobby is defined by its political agenda, rather than its ethnic or religious makeup, as the pro-Israel lobby does not necessarily reflect the views of American Jews. Historian Douglas Little notes that although American Jews play key roles in the pro-Israel lobby, it is not a "Jewish lobby" due to the involvement of diverse populations and groups.
Mitchell Bard, director of the non-profit Jewish Virtual Library, writes that: "Reference is often made to the 'Jewish lobby' in an effort to describe Jewish influence, but this term is both vague and inadequate. While it is true that American Jews are sometimes represented by lobbyists, such direct efforts to influence policy-makers are but a small part of the lobby's ability to shape policy."Mitchell Bard, The Israeli and Arab Lobbies, Jewish Virtual Library. Accessed 22 February 2008. Bard argues the term Israel lobby is more accurate, because it comprises both formal and informal elements (which includes public opinion), and "...because a large proportion of the lobby is made up of non-Jews."Bard, Mitchell. The Water's Edge and Beyond: Defining the Limits to Domestic Influence on United States Middle East Policy, Transaction Publishers, 1991, p. 6. In his 1987 work, The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy, Edward Tivnan states that the term "needed some fine-tuning; what was most at issue... was the influence of the 'pro-Israel lobby.'"Tivnan, Edward. The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy. Simon & Schuster, 1987, p. 10.
University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University professor Stephen Walt, authors of the controversial 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy rejected using the label "Jewish lobby" interchangeably for the Israel lobby as inaccurate and misleading, both because the Israel lobby included non-Jews like Christian Zionists and because they said many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by the Israel lobby's "most powerful elements".Mearsheimer, John; Walt, Stephen. "The Israel lobby", letters to the editor, New York Times Sunday Review of Books, 14 October 2007. They stated they "never use the term 'Jewish lobby' because the lobby is defined by its political agenda, not by religion or ethnicity."Mearsheimer, John; Walt, Stephen. "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", Washington Post, Book World Live, 9 October 2007. Accessed 10 March 2011. Walt added in Foreign Policy that using the "Jewish lobby" to talk about pro-Israel groups "is both inaccurate and inevitably conjures up dangerous stereotypes".
Antisemitic associations The term may be used pejoratively to allege disproportionate Jewish influence in politics and government and such usage is an element of antisemitism. Scholar Robert S. Wistrich noted in 2004 that calls for the destruction of Israel increasingly relied on antisemitic stereotyping of classic canards, including the "manipulative Jewish lobby". Wistrich saw references to the phrase, when used to describe an "all-powerful 'Jewish Lobby' that prevents justice in the Middle East", as relying on a classic antisemitic stereotype.Klug, Brian & Wistrich, Robert S. "Correspondence between Prof. Robert Wistrich and Brian Klug: When Is Opposition to Israel and Its Policies Anti-Semitic?" , International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Retrieved 11 January 2008: "Does he or she rely on classic anti-Semitic stereotypes in so doing: for example, by dredging up the alleged Jewish/Zionist 'conspiracy' to dominate the world, or by evoking Jewish/Israeli 'warmongers' who supposedly run American foreign policy; or through referring to an all-powerful "Jewish Lobby" that prevents justice in the Middle East."
Bruno Bettelheim detested the term, arguing "The self-importance of Jews combined with the paranoia of the anti-Semite had created the image of this lobby."Sutton, Nina (David Sharp trans.) Bettelheim: A Life and a Legacy, Basic Books, 1996, p. 486. Michael Lasky describes the term as an "unfortunate phrase", and "imagines" that Alexander Walker's use of it while writing about the Nazi films of Leni Riefenstahl was not intended pejoratively.Lasky, Melvin J. Media Warfare: The Americanization of Language, Transaction Publishers, 2005, p. 147.
The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission of Australia states that "the stereotype of the 'Jewish lobby' is that the Jewish engagement in politics and policy debate is above and beyond the ordinary participation of a group in public policy-making. It paints Jewish involvement as surreptitious, and as subverting the democratic process. It alleges that a 'Jewish lobby', through bribery, bullying and manipulation, pressures politicians to act against their will and duties."The 'Jewish Lobby' , B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission (Australia). Accessed 10 March 2011. The commission also stated that "just as other communities and interest groups have lobbies, there is a 'Jewish lobby' – an unwieldy group of individuals and organisations devoted to supporting the needs and interests of the Jewish community.The Media, Stereotypes and the Jewish Lobby, B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission, Inc. (Australia). Accessed 28 March 2011.