The records of the American Council for Judaism consist primarily of files from the office of the Executive Director, Elmer Berger. These were originally arranged in separate alphabetical sequences for each year. For the later years there were also a number of separate files from offices of other members of the national staff, including the assistant director, the publicity director, the eastern regional director, and the director of research. All files have now been integrated into a single alphabetical sequence. These files date primarily from 1943 to 1953; only the photographs date to 1967.
Since filing practices inevitably varied from year to year and from office to office, certain inconsistencies are present. In general, correspondence for the earliest years appears to have been filed mainly by names of individuals; later correspondence was more commonly filed under the city of residence of a correspondent, particularly as council chapters became established in various cities. Correspondence with a given individual may therefore be scattered among folders with a variety of headings. Regional correspondence is most likely to be found under the name of the regional director or under the city in which the regional office is located, although some is also filed under the name of the region.
Within the overall alphabetical sequence, various internal organizational materials, particularly of the national office, have been grouped together and filed with the “A's” under “American Council for Judaism - Administrative Files.” These administrative files include correspondence and other materials relating to annual conferences, the board of directors, various national committees, interstaff correspondence and memoranda, reference files, speeches and publications, and the like.
The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence between Elmer Berger and other Council members--officers, chapter leaders, regional directors, members of the board of directors and the executive committee, and others. Folder titles in the contents list below include the names of most regular correspondents.
Regular correspondents not affiliated with the Council, but very much interested in its work, include a number of Christian and Jewish educators, editors, journalists, and others concerned with problems of the Middle East and Zionism: Dr. Virginia Gildersleeve, Dr. William E. Hocking, Dr. Paul Hutchinson, Dr. Judah L. Magnes, Kermit Roosevelt, Vincent Sheean, Norman Thomas, Dorothy Thompson, Humphrey Walz, George Weller, William L. White, William Zukermen, and others (see contents list).
Individual expressions of opinion on the general subjects of intergroup and interfaith cooperation and tolerance and on the aims of the Council in particular are to be found in Boxes 1-5 among the “letters of greeting” to annual conferences of the Council solicited from public figures in a variety of fields, including such persons as John Hersey, Philip Hitti, Adlai R. Stevenson, Robert A. Taft, Norman Thomas, Harry S. Truman, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Scattered letters from other public figures whose names do not appear on the contents list may occasionally be found in folders with general alphabetical designations (several letters from Eleanor Roosevelt and Lewis Strauss, for instance, are filed respectively under “R General” and “S General”), or under such headings as “Senators” (Alben Barkley, Harry S. Truman, Arthur R. Vandenberg) or “Statesmen” (Henry Morgenthau, Wendell Willkie).
In most cases the city of residence is included in parentheses after individual names on the contents list, since additional correspondence for a given person may well be filed under the name of the city. An attempt is also made to indicate the position held by some of the more regular correspondents within the organization (e.g., vice president, regional director). It should be remembered that positions held by individuals often changed from year to year, and that residence may also have changed in some instances.
