Jewish Alliance for Justice & Peace

Background

Amid the Second Intifada, a campaign of violence waged against Israel by Palestinian militant groups, activists Aliza Becker, David Albert, Cherie Brown, Marcia Freedman, Neal Gosman, Ira Grupper, Yossi Khen, Rebecca Lillian, Steve Masters, Penny Rosenwasser, David Seidenberg, Nicole Dannenberg Sorger, and Donna Spiegelman, met at the Jews United for a Just Peace conference and thereafter organized a listserv to stay in touch after its conclusion. Later, during that year, members of the listserv decided to organize themselves as an advocacy group supporting a two-state peace between Israel and the Palestinians, choosing names for their new organization in Hebrew (Brit Tzedek v’Shalom) and English (The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace) and planning a conference for April 2002. ¹

Later, in March 2004, the alliance was registered as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Skokie, Illinois. ²

According to the organization’s legacy website, the alliance was “founded on the assumption” that the United States government could “play a leadership role in brokering an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.” Accordingly, the alliance aimed to “organize the majority in the Jewish community who supported two-states into an advocacy and political block.” ¹

In the years that followed the alliance’s founding, its chapters joined Jewish Community Relations Council, sponsored events, contributed by way of its staff members’ op-eds and letters to the editor in local Jewish media outlets, organized local rabbinic cabinets of politically aligned rabbis, and organized trips to and briefings for the United States Congress. ¹

In 2005, the alliance opened an office in Washington, D.C., aimed at working on legislative initiatives aligned with the organization’s aim and building a coalition of support with Christian and Arab organizations. To that end, in 2007 the alliance cultivated support for the Ackerman-Boustany letter to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressing interest in the Annapolis Peace Conference, which was signed by 135 members of the House of Representatives. In that vein, the alliance also supported and promoted the Annapolis Peace Conference itself, along with other aligned organizations. ¹

Relationship to Israeli Politics

According to the Brit Tzedek v’Shalom: The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace’s legacy website, the alliance was “strictly an American organization” without any “official relationship with any Israeli peace group or political party.” However, the Alliance also notes that it did often organize speaking tours for Israeli and Palestinian activists, politicians and pundits. For instance, the Alliance organized tours featuring former Knesset Deputy Speaker Naomi Chazan of the left-wing Meretz party and former Israeli Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna. ¹

J Street

In 2010, after roughly seven years as an independent organization, the board of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom: The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace voted in favor of joining the left-of-center advocacy group J Street, effectively to become its field arm, and submitted its last publicly available filing with the IRS in 2011. ^{2 3}