Shalom, this video is about Jewish organizations by their initials. Some people said it is hard to be a Jew and one of the main reasons might be because of all the initials that you have to know. MOT, JNF, JUF, UJC, RRC, RCA, RA, JTS and people throw these initials around like everybody in the world knows what they mean when virtually no one knows what they mean.
Alright, so let us do a few of the initials. First of all AJC, there are a couple of them, One is American Jewish Congress, one is American Jewish Committee. Most Jews honestly actually do not know the difference between them, they are membership organizations, they both have the agenda protecting Jewish interests, American Jewish Committee does a lot of interfaith and so does the American Jewish Congress. American Jewish Congress have legal staff. They used to defend first amendment rights. The Committee publishes commentary magazine. The Congress has a travel Association with it.
ADL, Anti-Defamation League also works on anti-Semitism. Alright are the what are some of the conservative Jewish organization? Well, USY is United Synagogue Youth, a youth movement. USCJ, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism is the lay person’s organization.
The RA is the Rabbinical Assembly, The CA is the Cantors Assembly, JTSA is the Jewish Theological Seminary of America not to be confused with the JTA, the Jewish Telegraph Agency which supplies information for Jewish newspapers and periodicals.
An MOT is a Member of the Tribe, someone else is Jewish. Then there is UAHC which no longer exist which was the Union of America Hebrew Congregations. They were former an umbrella group. That is now URJ, the Union of Reform Judaism.
The most important initials in Judaism are TNK, Tannach, the three letters of the Hebrew Bible.
Now, then you have Reconstructionists. The first of all on top, here we have the synagogue called JRC, Jewish Reconstructions Congregation. People just call it JRC.
The JRF is the Jewish Reconstructionists Federation which is the umbrella group. Our synagogue is EHNTJC Ezra-Habonim Niles Township Jewish Congregation. The JNF is the Jewish National Fund. They used to plant trees in Israel and they still do then they did water reclamation and now they do land development which is very important in the organization.
The CJF is the Council Jewish Federations and the UJC is the United Jewish Communities. That is the umbrella organization for all the federations in the country. The Chicago version is called JUF, the Jewish United Fund which collects Sadakah dollars and distributes them abroad and locally.
Then you have the Reconstruction for Rabbinic Association, the RRA, the OU which is the Orthodox Union. PK was a Preacher’s Kid and RK is a Rabbi’s Kid. Whenever you find a BJE it usually means the Board of Jewish Education. TT will mean the Talmud Torah.
These are just a few of the plethora of alphabet soup in Judaism to know that Jewish organizations. AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee which is the main lobby for Israel. Not to be confused with PAC—which is a Public Affairs Committee or Political Action Committee. The Political Action Committee is version is legally authorized to raise money in behalf of candidates. AIPAC is not a pact and that sense, it is lobbying for Israel.
Those are some of the initials. There are thousands more. Those are some of the main ones. They used to be UJ and the University of Judaism which now has changed its name. It used to be the Conservative School in Los Angeles. Now, it is more of an umbrella school.
JCC, you should know, the Jewish Community Center which all across the country. The JCRC, Jewish Community Relations Council which is usually the umbrella organization to deal with interfaith relations in a community, anyway those are just some of the many, many initials in Jewish life.
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