To Build a Wall: American Jews and the Separation of Church and StateTo 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. |
Contents
The Political Organization of American | 34 |
Torcaso Engel Schempp | 100 |
The Parochial | 146 |
Litigation in | 189 |
Conclusion | 220 |
| 255 | |
Common terms and phrases
ACLU ADL's agencies agenda AJCom AJCommittee AJCon AJCongress Amendment American Jewish Committee American Jewish Congress American Jewish organizations American Jews amici amicus brief amicus curiae Anti-Defamation League anti-Semitism argued argument Author interview B'nai B'rith behalf Bible reading Board of Education Catholic challenge church-state issues church-state litigation civil liberties civil rights CLSA Committee constitutional litigation Court's decision dismissed-time Doremus efforts Engel and Schempp ESEA establishment clause Everson Flast forces gious gress Ibid interest group interfaith involved Jewish community judicial Justice Black law and litigation lawsuit leadership legislative Lemon Leo Pfeffer papers litigation process major Jewish organizations Marshall Maslow McCollum Memorandum ment mittee NAACP NCRAC opinion organizational organized interests parochial schools participation plaintiffs political prayer Protestant public schools reform religion religious schools sectarian secular separation of church separationist Shad Polier social statute strategy Supreme Court Tilton tion tional Torcaso unconstitutional York Zorach