The American Jewish Congress

Author : Gregg Ivers
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 9780813915548
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (155 download)

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Download or read book To Build a Wall written by Gregg Ivers and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Build a Wall represents the first extensive study of the effect of Jewish interest groups on church-state litigation. Ivers carefully traces the evolution of the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the ADL from benevolent social service agencies to powerful organized interest groups active on all fronts of American politics and public affairs. He draws extensively upon original sources and archival materials from each organization, personal interviews over a five-year period, as well as the personal files and papers of Leo Pfeffer, the lead counsel or amicus curiae in nearly every establishment clause case from the late 1940s through the early eighties. Ivers concludes that organized interests can and do have critical influence in the legal process, but that organizational needs and external demands result in a more ad hoc, less planned approach to law and litigation than much previous scholarship has suggested. Ivers also argues that the ethnic, economic, and religious differences that led to the formation of competing Jewish organizations eighty years ago continue to drive a dynamic pluralism within the Jewish community, manifest in part in divergent approaches to litigation and public affairs.