For a century, the American Jewish Committee has worked to counter religious-racial-ethnic bigotry, and to promote civil rights in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Now it has an even more ambitious goal, according to its president, E. Robert Goodkind. It wants to “change the culture” of the United States.
The means for doing this will be a proposed program of “universal voluntary national service,” Goodkind told an audience gathered at the Pfister Hotel Nov. 21 for the local AJCommittee chapter’s Centennial National Human Relations Leadership Award Dinner.
“Imagine,” he invited the audience, a time when the question one asks of an 18-year-old facing high school graduation would be, “Where are you going to serve?’” In that time, “Americans of all backgrounds” would join together in community service, in projects that “link rights to responsibility.”
As he explained to The Chronicle in an interview after the event, the AJC began holding meetings about the subject Monday, with the convening of a task force comprising 24 people — half of them non-AJC members — at the AJC’s New York City headquarters.
The idea, Goodkind said, is “to develop a proposal or protocol for changing the culture nationally such that a preponderance of young people ages 18 to 24 will give a year of service” to their community and country.
“We want to be a catalyst to have this subject be advocated by the country’s political leaders, corporations and academics,” he said.
He said that the first step will be to have “a document” detailing this idea to present to the AJCommittee’s national annual meeting this May; and that he believes the program should be funded through a combination of federal and corporate grants.
After that, the AJCommittee will seek to have “hundreds or thousands” of non-governmental organizations endorse the idea. Moreover, “we want it to be a major subject of the presidential campaign in 2008,” Goodkind said. In fact, “it would be wonderful” if the proposal became part of the platforms of national political parties, he said.
Iranian nukes
In his remarks to the audience — which AJC-Milwaukee chapter executive director Harriet Schachter McKinney said totaled 310 people — Goodkind also said that Iran’s potential nuclear arms capabilities is “on the forefront” of the organization’s international agenda today.
He said the Iranian regime has “endorsed terror” and called for Israel’s destruction, but “suffers no substantive consequences” for its statements nor for its actions in seeking to make nuclear weapons.
“Israel’s survival is at stake here,” he said, but in addition, “No one anywhere can feel safe.”
Goodkind said AJC representatives brought the matter up continuously at the “diplomatic marathon” that is the opening of the United Nations General Assembly session, which took place this past September.
However, when The Chronicle asked if the AJC advocated military action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Goodkind said the organization is “still hopeful that it can be done diplomatically.”
Rather, Goodkind said the AJC advocates “strict sanctions against Iran” and “strong action by the [U.N.] Security Council.” Moreover, if Iran becomes a nuclear power, “not only Europe and the United States would be targets, but also Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.”
“Those countries have come to realize that the greatest threat to them is Iran; and Egypt and Jordan realize they need Israel as an ally” in those circumstances, he said.
Goodkind, a New York City attorney, was elected AJC president in 2004. His term of office will end in May 2007.
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