From philanthropy to activism

Explores the history of the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC, founded as the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs in 1939). The escalating Nazi anti-Jewish policy and the closing of all the harbors in the free world to Jewish refugees in the 1930s made the Zionist solution for the problems brought about by the Holocaust the only practicable one. These circumstances made the Zionist movement in the USA the leading Jewish movement in the country, responsible for all of Jewry. Formerly an apolitical philanthropic body, the American Zionist movement, spearheaded by the AZEC, evolved into a powerful and influential political pressure group which successfully fought for the advancement of the Jewish state in the American political arena. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)