The Israel lobby’s fundraising capabilities started off small, but eventually became significant. As Grant F. Smith documented, “Between 1921 and 1930, Zionist organizations active in the United States collected approximately $15 million in contributions from the public. Between 1931 and 1940, this amount only rose to $25 million, but in the period from 1941 to 1948, the amount suddenly ballooned to $287 million.”[1] This major increase in cash was the result of the work of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) founded in 1939. Thanks to the work of Zionist organizations, “Between 1951 and 1960, approximately $18 million of United Jewish Appeal money raised in the United States was transferred to the Jewish Agency in Israel and then on to Israeli political parties.”[2]
Isaiah Kenen was a Canadian-born Zionist who became an American citizen on June 8, 1934.[3] Kenen was committed to Theodor Herzl’s idea of a Jewish State. He even noted how “My father attended early meetings of the World Zionist Congress. He knew Herzl and other Zionist leaders.”[4] Kenen became president of the Cleveland Zionist District in 1940 at the urging of his friend Ezra Shapiro.[5] Kenen attempted to lobby for America to enter WWII by compiling a list of isolationists.[6] In 1943 he joined the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs (AECZA).[7] He used this position to attack isolationists as anti-Semitic. The AECZA struggled to present an image to Americans of Jews being unified in support of Zionism due to the existence of Jewish anti-Zionist groups.[8] It was only when accounts of Nazi war crimes were publicized that the AECZA would gain strength and begin to successfully silence opposition.