Blacks and Jews
About this time each year, Black people and Jews sit down to wonder what happened to their coalition, their fruitful partnership in the era of Civil Rights. It’s the effect of the marches, the speechmaking, and remembrance. Unless you’re an unredeemed White supremacist, Martin Luther King remains irresistibly forceful, calling us to conscience and our better selves. It’s been fifty-eight years since his martyrdom in Memphis, but no one has yet risen to his stature, the combination of faith and politics and the timbre of his voice. Each year I listen to “I Have a Dream,” and it pierces the shell of my uncircumcised heart.
For a while, the partnership seemed to function magnificently. Together with liberal Protestant clergy people, rabbis joined hands with King and his supporters to walk the hostile streets of the South. Jews sat at the lunch counters to absorb blows and insults, and travelled with the Freedom Riders at the cost of their lives. Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were executed for their activism, side by side with their Black colleague, James Chaney. Their martyrdom was a signature moment for my community, which saw their bravery as a fulfillment of Jewish aspiration.
Eventually, much of this advocacy abated, leaving a deflated relationship in its place. Jews settled into relative privilege and shifted in the direction of their own version of community building. The turn of the century was a moment of anxiety when the continuity of Jewish life seemed fragile and imperiled. Jews were also stung by a style of Black activism which saw American Jews and Israelis as interchangeable, both tainted by the charge of colonialism. This was part of a new phenomenon, the idea that Israeli statehood was contaminated by racism and had to be opposed by American Black people.
The result is that contact between Jews and Blacks has thinned into a spiritless ritual of panels and thought pieces where we wonder about the other’s disappearance. The demise of legacy interfaith organizations has added to this already fraught reality. We do not see each other at community conference tables, let alone the marches and demonstrations of the Sixties.
But that doesn’t mean that we have accomplished our business. American Jews and their Israeli counterparts continue to interrogate the fundamentals of Zionism and properly resent summary judgments by others. We wish that Black people could hear that message and acknowledge that Jews are not their enemies. If the possibility of reparations has ready White advocates, Black people can certainly count on Jews who have been working on this issue since WWII.
And Jews themselves need to be less tetchy and reactive. Being Black in America is a full-time job, with responsibilities and challenges that would stretch any community. The idea that Black people are unresponsive to Jewish hurt or ungrateful for our help half a century ago ignores the fact that Black people have their hands full. Ascendant racism would be a “distraction” for anyone.
And apart from anything else, Jews owe Black people a debt of gratitude that goes beyond anything we may have helped accomplish in Selma. The Civil Rights Era was a self-created movement in which Black people achieved auto-emancipation. They provided a model of pride and affirmation that gave Jews an alternative to assimilationist zeal. Thanks to the example of Afros and dashikis, we no longer had to fix our noses or obliterate our differentness in speech and behavior. It was a straight shot from the moment of Black Liberation to the self-assertiveness of Jews in the last century. The Six Day War was certainly a part of this, but the rise of Black consciousness was an essential element.
I'd welcome a chance to talk about all of this, especially in the era of White supremacism. Count on me and my fellow Jews. We’re ready to be allies, advocates, and friends.