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“AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?”: A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF TWENTIETH
CENTURY BLACK-JEWISH RELATIONS

By

Amaris J. White

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
History
2008

ABSTRACT

“AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?”: A HISTORIOGRAPHY OF TWENTIETH

CENTURY BLACK-JEWISH RELATIONS
By
Amaris J. White

Between 1920 and 2007, approximately one hundred articles and essays,
twenty monographs, and six anthologies have been published on the intriguing
relationship between Black and Jewish Americans. This body of scholarship is
dense, wide-reaching, analytically sound, and is often times a reflection of changes
in American history and society. This essay critically surveys the significant
scholarship published on the relationships between African Americans and Jewish
Americans during the twentieth century. This comprehensive historiography serves
as a tool for exploring how various historical interactions between Blacks and Jews
were influenced by the rules, conventions, and protocols of a broader American
culture. By critically studying the intersection between race, class, economics,
politics, education, and identity formation, I am better able to assess historical
interactions between African Americans and Jewish Americans. Looking at the
associations between these two historically marginalized groups we can better
understand the implications of categories such as ethnicity on intercultural coalition
building and how we can overcome barriers that have strained and divided Black-

Jewish relations.

CXDPYHKHSIIT
ITY
.AIAAUIHSJ.VVEHIT3

2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1

EARLY WRITINGS ON BLACK AND JEWISH

ASSOCIATIONS ................................................................................ 6
SCHOLARSHIP FROM 1956-1981 ....................................................... l0
SCHOLARSHIP OF THE 19803 AND THE MILLENIUM ......................... 26
ACTIVISM OF SOUTHERN BLACKS AND JEWS .................................. 33
EDITED WORKS ............................................................................. 38
CONCLUSION ................................................................................ 43
ENDNOTES .................................................................................... 46
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................ 51

iv

INTRODUCTION

Black and Jewish relations in the United States have been the subject of
considerable dialogue over the past three decades. Peter R. Rose’s assessment “that
Black-Jewish relations have always had a paradoxical quality. Blacks and Jews have been
strangers to one another, more than popular liberal sentiment would suggest; neighbors,
who, at least in the North have lived and worked in close proximity if not equality, allies
in the struggle for civil rights; and opponents, especially on issues as diverse as
affirmative action and American policy in the Middle East ”1 is echoed by scholars such
as Jack Salzman, Cornell West, Philip Foner, Cheryl Greenberg, Huey Perry, and Ruth B.
White. These scholars all ascribe to a model of convergence and conflict; wherein, the
“great alliance” forged during the civil rights movement is perceived as almost
nonexistent in contemporary society. “The focus of the discussion usually is whether this
relationship, once characterized by support and cooperation forged as allies in the civil
rights struggle in the South, actually has taken a turn for the worse in recent years.”2 To
better understand the strides made by American citizens, both Black and White, during
the twentieth century struggle for African American civil liberties attention must be given
to the efforts of inter-racial/ethnic coalitions to achieve such liberties. In examining the
interaction between American Blacks and Jews a deeper appreciation is garnered for how
matters of race, space, identity, and culture intertwine to generate or impede interethnic

coalitions.

The purpose of this essay is to critically survey the significant scholarship on
twentieth century American Black-Jewish relations in order to better understand how

scholars have conceptualized and written about its various dimensions throughout the

years. By exploring the various degrees by which historical interactions between Blacks
and Jews were subject to the rules, conventions, and protocols of larger White European
society scholars have dissected and reconstructed the triumphs and pitfalls of American
Black-Jewish interactions. “In other words how authentic and positive were these
relationships (primary, secondary, official, symbolic), or how were such contacts
influenced negatively by racial, religious, economic, social and political considerations.”3
When investing these scholarly works it is to recognize that neither group is monolithic in
its opinions or actions, and place both ethnicities in their proper historical, regional, and
cultural contexts. Furthermore afier examining the historiography, I hope to have
grasped which factors (i.e. religious, racial, economic, politics, class, education, or
identity) prove to be more critical in formulating the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors

of each community toward each other, and how such factors impact inter-ethnic

communication.

While literature on Black Jewish relations can be found as early as the 19203, the
upsurge of scholarship produced fi'om the late 1960s through the 19703 showcases the
increasing interest of scholars in critiquing the impact of twentieth century events on
Black-Jewish associations. Scholars quickly recognized the need to investigate the
coalition between African Americans and Jewish Americans an alliance that is typically
viewed as reaching its pinnacle during the modern civil rights movement of the 19503
and 19603 and slowly disintegrating by the end of the Black Power era. By the late
19703, historians and social scientists critiqued the coalition between two historically
marginalized, yet very different peoples to better understand the complexities of the civil

rights movement and growth of liberalism among American youth.

Increased tensions between the two groups, ideological changes, and different
political and social concerns resulted in a lack of scholarship during the 19803 and early
19903. Since the mid 19903, however, a revisionist history of Black-Jewish relations has
emerged. The focus has moved from the master narrative of the great alliance to focusing
on its participants, male and female, Jewish and Black, northern and southern. No longer
was the ultimate goal of scholars to ascertain the problems, but to provide detailed
historic accounts of Black-Jewish interactions by placing them within the context of their

ethnic communities and the larger American society.

Although I rely primarily on a chronological approach I do employ a thematic
process to analyze the literature on Black-Jewish relations in the South. Taking this
approach allows me to identify the overarching themes, questions, and portrayals of
Black-Jewish relations which appear throughout the historiography. While the bulk of the
literature was published afier the 19603, there are several pioneering works fiom the first
half of the twentieth century that must be addressed in order to properly contextualize the
evolution of this scholarship. Earlier works focus on African American anti-Semitism and
Jewish racism; while much of the contemporary scholarship has evolved to spotlight
interactions between African Americans and Jewish Americans who were residents of or

traveled to the South.

Although contact between Blacks and Jews in the United States began as early as
the colonial era, it was not until the twentieth century that it increased in consistency and
scale. Scholars such as Louis Harap explored how Jewish acceptance of the racial status
quo could often be beneficial and practical for southern Jews, but it often came at the

expense of upholding traditional Jewish beliefs in charity and human rights. “The

acceptance of the racial status quo by Jews in the South was not only practical in term of
the risks associated with openly opposing slavery and the economic benefits associated
with participating in the slave business; it was also self-serving in the sense that the

presence of slaves prevented Jews from being at the bottom of the social system.”4

Eugene Bender’s 1969 article “Reflections of Negro-Jewish Relations” examines
Black-Jewish relations primarily during the antebellum period; “however, the concluding
remarks are meant to spell out, in contemporary terms, selected implications of these
historical patterns.”5 Bender’s essay is focused primarily on Jews’ response to the
abolitionist movement. He argues that Jewish concern or indifference to the plight of
slaves can be seen as taking two paths: Jews in the North who where cognizant but
indifferent to the existence of southern slavery and southern Jews who for the most part
ignored slaves and the evils of the peculiar institution.6 Southern Jews were placed in a
precarious position. Realizing their susceptibility to persecution for their religion, many
southern Jews opted to either disregard or engage in the peculiar institution practiced by
the wider population. “Hence many students of American Jewish communal life have
long felt that Jews took on the coloration of the people amongst whom they lived.
Essentially this adds up to saying that Jewish attitudes and behavior toward Negroes

departed little from the prevailing norms of such communities.”7

Bender’s article was published as when Jewish involvement in the African
American civil rights struggles was waning, and African American acceptance of a Black
Power ideology that promoted self-sufficiency and community control was increasing.
Like many other African American intellectuals and leaders of the time, Bender

questioned Jewish motives for aiding Blacks and sought to critique the issue based on

Black-Jewish interactions during the antebellum era. Bender suggests that slaves
identified Jews less for their religious affiliation and more as White slave masters and
traders that were equally as White as Gentiles. “It is reasonable to assume that most
Negro slaves perceived Jews as no more allies than the typical white Christian
oppressors.”8 What Bender fails to ask is whether their resentment of Jews was
exacerbated by the anti-Semitism which can often be found in the larger Christian

community.

Scholars have portrayed Northern Jews more often as abolitionists than their
southern counterparts. Nineteenth century Jewish involvement in organizations such as
the New York Manumissions Society and the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the
Abolition of Slavery serves as early indicators of Jewish liberalism and their dedication
to remedy the evils of oppression. “The New York Society saw as its duty to help
Negroes who ‘destitute of fiiends and of knowledge; struggling with poverty; and
accustomed to submission; they are at great disadvantages asserting their rights.”’9
Nevertheless during the 19603, conversations of Jewish involvement in the slave business
often outweighed dialogue regarding their contributions as abolitionists. Such polarities
as these serve as catalysts for scholars who question the sincerity of the Jewish
community in aiding Blacks during the struggle for civil rights.lo While Bender’s work is
vital for identifying a tradition within the Jewish community of fighting for Afiican
Americans’ civil rights, it does not detail the direct interaction between Blacks and Jews
during the struggle to end slavery. Bender’s work is a history of Jewish involvement in

civil liberty politics that briefly delves into the relationship between Blacks and Jews in

antebellum America. However his 1969 essay is still currently one of the only texts that

describe Jewish involvement in slavery and abolitionism, while simultaneously dissecting
African American perceptions of their fellow Oppressed brethren. Hi3 article identifies
problems that would face both Black and Jewish communities well into the twentieth
century. Black Americans contemplated whether to consider Jewish Americans their
brethren or merely enemies cloaked in white skin, and Jewish Americans had to decide
between security, status, and safety or complying with their religious doctrines and aiding

those in need.
Early Writings on Black and Jewish Associations

The atrocities surrounding World War II and the reactions it saw, caused both
groups begin to fully realize their vulnerability as “ethnic outcasts.” We see numerous
calls and responses from both groups to act favorably in each other’s behalf to purge
social and government institutions of their discriminatory practices. Forced to evaluate
their positions as allies against violations of human and civil rights globally, many
members of Jewish American and African American communities formed alliances. The
horrors of Nazi Germany, genocide, and concentration camps resounded worldwide, and
reinvigorated domestic fears of government sanctioned human rights violations. If the
United States was allowing the human rights of its African American citizens to be
violated through lynching, disenfi'anchisement, and Jim Crow, how long before the
atrocities committed in Europe became domestic realties? A mutual realization of the
need for Blacks and Jews to unite prompted scholars and social activists Louis Harap and
L.D. Reddick to address the public in 1942 with their concerns. Harap’s article “Anti-
Negroisrn among Jews” appeared in the Negro Quarterly in 1942. He argued that “the

full and active realization on the part of Jews of their common destiny with the Negroes

has come very slowly”;11 he also encouraged Jews to look more closely at formulating

organizational alliances between African Americans and Jewish Americans.

Harap acknowledged that Jews were probably slow to act due to their higher
economic status coupled with delusions that the intensity of Afiican American oppression
did not warrant a strong reaction.12 “This different intensity of oppression has fostered in
many Jews that their position is different fiom that of the Negro.”13 He identified the
possible rationale of some Jews for their lack of action on behalf of the Black community
by arguing that in their quest for acceptance adherence to the “color line” can largely be
to blame for their sentiments toward African Americans. In his assessment of Jewish
inaction he does not overlook those Jews who were dedicated to the Black struggle early
on. He spotlights the work of individuals such as Dr. David Einhom and Moriz Pinner
during the abolitionist movement. “While Jews have never as an organized group been
enemies of the Negro people, they might be said to have erred by omission rather than by
commission. Nevertheless, there are plenty of examples of Jews who have been in the
front lines of the battle for Negro rights.”l4 Harap clearly identified the personal
challenges that many members of the Jewish community faced when having to decide
their role in the struggle for Black rights. Harap’s essay illuminates the reservations and
internal conflicts that even the most liberal Jewish Americans faced when deciding their
position on African American civil liberties. Jewish omission, Harap claimed, was a
necessary means of survival in a society that is often less accepting of those that are not

of white European descent.

L.D. Reddick embraced a more direct approach in his examination of Black
sentiments toward Jews, and chastised both Blacks and Jews for their inability to work

together as two oppressed peoples. He asserted:

To a man fi'om Mars it must seem strange and tragically
ironic that the Jewish and Negro peoples on planet Earth
are not allies. The Martian observer sees the Jews kicked
about in Germany and the Negroes kicked about in
Georgia; and yet both Jew and Negro continue to insist
upon the privilege of facing their doom separately, whereas
together they could stand and fight. '5

Published in the same issue of the Negro Quarterly as Harap’s article, Reddick’s “Anti-
Semitism among Negroes” confronted the manifestations and issues surrounding anti-
Semitism and “anti-Negroism” in a strategic fashion that left no party without blame.
“Worst of all, we must admit that there is anti-Negroism among Jews and anti-Sernitism
among Negroes.”l6 A3 did Harap, Reddick attempted to provide the reader a framework
within which both Black anti-Semitism and Jewish racism can be contextualized. He
pointed to anti-Semitism among Blacks as principally an urban phenomenon, and also
argued that ill feelings towards Jews were primarily tied to stereotypes held by the larger
American society. Furthermore, he perceived Black anti-Sernitism as a symptom of
greater conflict-ridden associations between African Americans and White Americans.
The relationship of merchant and consumer, landlord and tenant, employer and employee,
servant and mistress wherein Blacks were typically the exploited party impaired African
American perceptions of White Americans, both Jew and Gentile.“The more overt and
intense forms of anti-Jewish sentiment among Negroes are to be found clustered about
certain rather definite areas of competition and conflict .. .the belief is widespread in the

Negro community that a large share of the exploiting landlords are J ewish.”l7 Reddick’s

essay is a valuable critique of the negative impact of both Black anti-Semitism and

Jewish racism on the creation and sustainability of inter-ethnic coalitions.

While the early 19403 saw increased empathy on the part of both African
Americans and Jews, it appears that true collaboration still eluded them. Reddick claimed
that “[t]he Martian observer sees the Jews kicked about in Germany and the Negroes
kicked about in Georgia; and yet both Jew and Negro continue to insist upon the privilege
of facing their doom separately, whereas together they could stand and fight.”18 Despite
the combined efforts of individuals such as W.E.B. DuBois and Henry Moskowitz to
establish the NAACP in 1909 and such philanthropic contributions as ‘those of Julius
Rosenwald to Tuskegee University, large-scale Black-Jewish coalitions during the

opening years of the twentieth century were limited.

Leading African American intellectual Horace Mann Bond proposed a different
analysis of Black sentiments towards Jews contending that Blacks do in fact hold more
positive attitudes towards Jews than most White Gentiles. Like many of his counterparts,
he believed any negative dispositions toward American Jews came from their economic
role as landlords and merchants and not fiom their ethnic identity. “Some Jews have
bought up that urban redevelopment land and are putting up shoddy apartments they call
‘Nigger housing’ on it.”19 The true extent of African American anti-Semitism and Jewish
racism will never be known; nevertheless, scholarship suggests that it was the struggle for
power, economic gain, and security that lay at the heart of so much of the discord
between Afiican Americans and Jewish Americans. By the 19503, such discord was still
apparent, and issues of the past (i.e. Jewish inaction, slavery and sentiments of economic

exploitation) were regaining attention in the scholarly literature.

Scholarship from 1956-1981

A resident of Miami Beach, Florida Esther Levine did not mix words when she
called for immediate Jewish action in supporting school desegregation and an end to Jim
Crow. In 1956, at the height of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Esther Levine was quite
disenchanted with leaders and members of the Anti-Deformation League (ADL) and the
American Jewish Committee (AJ C) for their unwillingiess to act quickly and boldly. Her
essay, “Southern Jewish Views on Segregation: Report of a Discussion on Approaches
toward Meeting the Problem” recognized that “there must be a special approach to
Southern Jewry to help it find its rightful place in the struggle for equality and justice in
the South.”20 Yet, she warned against the “super-cautious and super-gradual’m approach
of hoping that by educating southern Jews it will prompt them into action. Levine pointed
to the thousands of Jews in the South that she claimed were ready to champion equality
for all, but were stymied for want of leadership from larger organizations such as ADL
and'AJ C. Unlike her male intellectual counterparts of the 19403 and early 19503, Esther
Levine prompted southern Jews to recognize their peculiar position in the South, but not
let it hinder them in the slightest from their activist responsibilities. Unlike so many other
works, she focused less on assessing blame for inaction, and instead prompted Jewish
action. Unfortunately by the mid-19603 the optimism found in Ester Levine’s article was

almost obsolete.

The 1969 collection of essays introduced by Nat Hentoff in Black Anti-Semitism
and Jewish Racism, is indicative of Black and Jewish willingness and unwillingness to
confront issues of racism and anti-Semitism, and the impact that these matters had on the

creation and collapse of Black-Jewish relations. Hentoff’s volume contains essays

10

written throughout the 19603 by James Baldwin, Earl Raab, Harold Cruse, Walter Karp,
and HR. Shapiro, some of the most prominent members of both the Afiican American

and Jewish communities.

Afiican American migration during the first half of the twentieth century to
northern cities where Jews were more prevalent increased inter-etlmic contact between
Blacks and Jews, and it is in these interactions where we see the roots of future points of
accord and conflict. Echoing Reddick’s and Bond’s essays, James Baldwin’s “Negroes
Are Anti-Semitic because They’re Anti-White” discusses growing up in New York and
what he considers as his demoralizing series of Jewish landlords.22 Baldwin’s prominence
as an African American leader during the modern civil rights movement, and as a poet,
novelist, and playwright, makes his explanation of Black anti-Sernitism all the more
intriguing. While ethnic and cultural differences undoubtedly played a role in formulating
negative perceptions of Jewish Americans, it appears as if Baldwin’s, Reddick’s, and
Bond’s work all attribute Black anti-Semitism to the Jewish man’s role as a White
merchant and landlord and not their ethnic heritage. Drawing from his experiences
growing up in Harlem, Baldwin offered a candid first-hand interpretation of urban
African American opinions of the Jewish community. “When we were growing up in
Harlem our demoralizing series of landlords were Jewish, and we hated them. We hated
them because they were terrible landlords and did not take care of the building.”23
Baldwin explains how as a child, he resented Jewish Americans because he felt as
exploited by them. He complicates his anti-Semitism by asserting that he was angry with
anyone who appeared to have white skin that exploited Black people. More importantly

and contrary to the arguments of many of his contemporaries, “[t]he root of anti-

11

Sernitism among Negroes is, ironically, the relationship of colored peoples-all over the
globe-to the Christian world.”24 Baldwin associates Christianity with being the catalyst
behind global oppression and therefore it is the true stimulus behind Black anti-Semitism.
“[T]he most ironical thing about Negro anti-Sernitism is that the Negro is really
condemning the Jew for having become an American white man-for having become, in
effect, a Christian.”25 While many Afiican Americans are Christians, for Baldwin
Christianity should ultimately be considered the religion of White European descendant
peoples. Christianity was but one means used to oppress Jewish peoples globally, and its
practices, both negative and positive, have been passed down over time to all of its
followers irrespective of race. For Baldwin, the intolerance toward Jews found in

Christianity is but another catalyst to promote Black anti-Semitism.

He then scolded those Jewish Americans who insist that their struggle resembled
that of Afiican Americans, and illuminated how such commentary made Black
Americans more hostile towards them. “One does riot wish. . .to be told by an American
Jew that his suffering is as great as the American Negro’s suffering. It isn’t, and one
knows that it isn’t from the very tone in which he assures you that it is.”26 Baldwin
further asserted that many Americans including Jews do not realize the America that they
live in is not the same America that most Afiican Americans live in, and implored Jewish
Americans to understand that fact. “Very few Americans, and this includes Jews, have
courage to recognize that the America of which they dream and boast is not the America
in which the Negro lives. It is a country which the Negro has never seen.”27 This idea of
space and occupying “insider vs. outsider” status as an American citizen proves to be a

topic of contention that resonated in the literature by the late 19603.

12

The space that Jewish Americans occupy in America was a theme found
continually in Hentoff 3 collection of essays. Like Baldwin, Rabbi Jay Kaufman
attempted to tackle the issue of Black anti-Semitism, but provided a less objective
approach of analyzing both groups to derive conclusions. Rabbi Kaufman’s “Thou Shalt
Surely Rebuke Thy Neighbor” focuses on Black manifestations of anti-Serrritisrn and the
strain that it placed on Black-Jewish relations. Not willing to merely explain away Black
anti-Semitism as anti-White sentiment, Kaufman challenged African American leaders to
chastise prejudice and speak out boldly against Black Power ideology which he felt

encouraged anti-Jewish and Israeli opinion.

By the end of the 19603, literature on Black-Jewish relations began to focus less
on manifestations of early prejudice and more on the rise and fall of the coalition formed
between Afiican Americans and Jews during the modern civil rights movement. The
successfirl efforts of Blacks and Jews to end Jim Crow, end lynching, desegregate
schools, protect Afiican American voting rights, and put an end to legal discrimination
were all missions that had brought them together since the beginning of the century. The
redirection of the literature can primarily be attributed to a growing need to make sense
of the events of the 19603 and how they impacted the state of Black-Jewish relations.
Scholars saw the decline of the Black-Jewish coalition, the emergence of Black Power,
the support of many militant African Americans of Arabs in Israel in the aftermath of the
1967 Six Day War (Arab-Israeli War), and the shift by many Jewish Americans toward
liberal causes such as the anti-war campaign against Vietnam and the women’s rights
struggle as a signal to investigate Black-Jewish associations. Scholars became

increasingly fascinated by the accomplishments and failures of the Black-Jewish

l3

coalition, chiefly for its ability to promote tangible change in the structure of America’s
social and political institutions. Emerging scholarship became preoccupied with
analyzing the intricacies that surrounded the Black-Jewish alliance of the civil rights
movement. Dialogues often began with analysis of manifestations of Jewish racism and
Black anti-Semitism during the inter-war years and conclude with critiques of Black
Power and Jewish nationalism. This pattern can initially be seen in 1970 with Robert

Weisbord and Arthur Stein’s Bittersweet Encounter.

Originally, Weisbord and Stein were attempting to answer the call by scholars for
a historic analysis of Black-Jewish relations during the twentieth century by writing
Bittersweet Encounter: The A fio-American and the American Jew. Nevertheless, it fell
short of expectations and proved to resemble a book length analysis of the evolution of
twentieth century Black sentiments toward J ews.28 Along with not meeting other’s hopes,
the book did not meet the authors’ intended goals of “provid[ing] a study which places
contemporary J ewish-Negro relations in historic perspective; and hopefully to shed some
light on an area of interracial relations that has already generated much heat and
misunderstanding in recent years.”29 Bittersweet Encounter differed fiorn the works of
Harap and Rabbi Kaufman in two distinct ways. Weisbord and Stein argued that despite
some superficial similarities, the Jewish American experience had little in common with
the Black experience and that the racism of many Jews is inseparable and
indistinguishable from White Americans’ racism. “Clearly though, the pattern of social
discrimination was never as extensive as that which affected the Negro. Jews have not
been forced to walk across southern towns to get a drink of water.”30 The first chapter,

“The Jew and the Negro in American History,” is dedicated to chronicling the differences

l4

between the Black American and Jewish American experiences. The authors’ asserted
that while American Jews were discriminated against, the atrocities that Afiican

Americans suffered on American soil were far worse.

But who can deny that Jews are privileged, not deprived? In
the main, they are comfortably ensconced as members of
America’s bourgeoisie. When they are barred from country
clubs, Jews build their own, just as big and just as gaudy as
those that exclude them. If Jews live in ghettos today they
are golden ghettos for the most part, and Jews are there by
choice. Therefore, a Jew who tells a Negro that he, too,
understands bigotry and brutality may actually enrage the
latter.

They also contended that Afiican American resentment of Jews has little in
common with traditional types of anti-Semitism. In fact, they argue that Afiican
American resentment was a manifestation of urban ghetto life and disdain for
underhanded economic exploitation. The so-called Bronx Slave Market,32 the
unwillingness of shop owners to employ African Americans, discrimination in shopping
areas, and inequity in promotion and recruiting were all factors that lead to anti-White
and anti-Semitic sentiments among Afiican Americans between WW1 and WWII.
Weisbord and Stein argued that the Great Depression firrther aggravated tensions
between Blacks and Jews, a time during which with Afiican Americans had to continue
to humble themselves in order to survive. Still, the bulk of the authors’ work focused on
discrediting allegations of Black anti-Semitism during the 19603 in relation to events
such as the civil rights movement, the New York City Ocean-Hill Brownsville school
strike of 1968, the 1968 “Hatchett Affair” at New York University,” and the rise of

Black Power ideology.

15

By dissecting the prevalence and nature of anti-Sernitism among Blacks,
Weisbord’s and Stein’s text served as a counter argument for those that exaggerate and
distort the degree of anti-Sernitism among Afiican Americans. “Blacks consistently
emerge as less anti-Semitic than white gentiles where economic stereotypes are not
involved?“4 The authors also challenge tenets of Jewish racism and the reluctance“ of the
many members of the Jewish community to openly address some of their racist practices.
“Jewish negative feelings about Negroes are often expressed privately but rarely appear
in print?” While Bittersweet Encounter falls short of its objective of providing a
historical analysis of the evolution of Black-Jewish relations, it is still noteworthy for its
ability to provide a broader understanding of how opinions and stereotypes developed

across ethnic lines.

Taken in combination, the studies of Baldwin, Kaufman, and Weisbord and Stein
appear to suggest that many Afiican Americans during the 19603 were willing to publicly
discuss, identify, and challenge charges of Black anti-Sernitism. This so-called
willingness on the behalf African Americans can be attributed to two different
circumstances. During the early half of the 19603, Afiican Americans were willing
discuss and sometimes dismiss their anti-Sernitism as a symptoms of their anti-
White/anti-exploitation sentiments. Secondly, by the latter half of the 19603 many
Afiican Americans were condemning Black anti-Sernitism as nothing more than a
product of problematic Black Power ideologies that sought to isolate Afiican Americans

from the rest of society.

The scars of an alliance that had all but dissipated by the end of the 19603 are

most readily seen in the literature produced in the aftermath of the civil rights movement.

16

All too often scholars writing about the Black-Jewish coalition were still linked to their
experiences as young liberals working in an inter-ethnic movement to rid America of its
discriminatory practices. Young idealists eventually became leading intellectuals whose
scholarship on Black-Jewish relations often reflected their experiences. While scholarly
in nature, the literature between 1969-1981 is often wrought with conspiracy theories,
accusations of anti-Sernitism, and more importantly the need to declare culpability for the
demise of the alliance. Objectivity is not lost on all authors during this era; yet
preoccupation with determining “what went wrong” left significant holes in the
scholarship regarding matters such as region, gender, political association, and class that

would not be adequately addressed until the end of the millennium.

The lessons of history have been demonstrated in every
corner of the globe: that no “minority” which fights alone
can save itself and that the world will “little note nor long
remember” any minority which howls about its own
persecutions and at the same time stands indifferent when
the same persecutions are inflicted upon another
disadvantaged group.36

When L.D. Reddick wrote these words, he could not have predicted that in as
little as a decade American society would see the fruits of a Black-Jewish alliance with
the 1954 Brown v. Board decision to desegregate schools. As early as 1969, Eugene
Bender had called for “a historic analysis of change and stability in these
relationships...and an attempt to assess the patterns of these relationships with reference
to the dynamics of American society.”3’7 Philip Foner contended that “most recent works
exist in an historical vacuum. . .and it seem[s] none of the authors concern themselves
with a systematic exploration of black-Jewish relations before the 19503.”38 Calls by

Foner and Eugene Bender for scholarship that offered a historic analysis seem to have

17

fallen on mostly deaf ears until the 19703, when two significant scholarly studies
appeared that focused on the evolution of Black-Jewish relations in the United States.
Both works, authored by, Lerona Berson and Hasia Diner, were the first books by women

officially on the subject.

Lenora E. Berson’s 1971 work The Negroes and the Jews is the first book that
thoroughly addressed the historic evolution of the Black-Jewish alliance. Berson begins
with her analysis in antebellum South Carolina and concludes with the 1968 Ocean Hill-
Brownsville case in Brooklyn, NY and the rise of Black Power. “This book is the strange
story of the relationship between the Negroes and the Jews, from its. beginning to the
present. This is the story of the facts and the myths, the real and the illusory. It is the
story of the effect of this ambivalent partnership on America’s past, present, and
future.”39 Berson’s study still serves as one of the most comprehensive studies to
investigate how social and political issues in the United States effected Black-Jewish

relations.

Touching on urban conflicts, fascism, communism, association with the
Democratic Party, the Depression, WWII, White flight, creation of suburbs, the civil
rights movement, Zionism, and the treatment of Black Jews, Berson’s study concluded
that “As allies [Black and Jewish Ameicans] are at the core of the liberal movement in
the United States. As antagonists they may well hasten the nation down the bloody road
of racism and reaction.”40 She asserted that the connnon denominator that unites Blacks
and Jews is found in the tradition of otherness. “Both have been victims of caste systems
which viewed them as pariahs, and in this they are unique among Americans.”41 While

the Depression of the 19303 coupled with the mass migration of J ews proceeding WWII

l8

triggered urban anti-Semitism among Whites; the migration of Afiican Americans after
the war set off nationwide phobia against Black Americans. “Whereas the J ew-hater
envies the Jew his success and attributes his own failure to Hebrew guile, the Negro-hater

fears becoming contaminated by the man he scorn, deprived of class and caste.”42

Following her analysis of White anti-Semitism and “Negrophobia,” Berson
discussed African American self-help efforts that preceded the union between Blacks and
Jews. Discussing the self-help initiatives of individuals such as Booker T. Washington in
conjunction with the larger Afiican American community, Berson reconstructed Black-
self help initiatives and its appeal to the larger Jewish community. She pointed to the
early efforts of Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and his work with Washington as
foreshadowing efforts by the larger Jewish community in the African American struggle
for civil rights. One drawback of Berson’s study is her often seeming paternalistic tone
when addressing the need for Jewish Americans to act on behalf of African Americans,
or the establishment of a sect of Black Jews as attempting to ultimately emulate Jews.
“When they [Jewish Americans] recovered from their initial shock, most Jews were
bemused by the spectacle of Negroes trying to emulate them?” The relationship between
African Americans and Jewish Americans that appeared in Berson’s text is one that never
reached a deep level of respect or sincerity, but was merely the product of both groups
recognizing the beneficial nature of such an alliance to meet the greater goals and
ambitions of their respective communities. This is seen in her discussion of Jewish
philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. Rosenwald donated large sums of money to the cause of
Black uplift primarily because he saw the great strides being made by African Americans

and the glass ceiling they hit because of their supposed lower class, racial, and citizenship

19

status. “The dictum is that discrimination against one minority group is bad for all
minority groups; in essence the battle for Negro rights is the battle for Jewish rights. The

lesson of Cain had been learned. The Jew was to be his black brother’s keeper.”44

By the book’s conclusion, the reader should have gained clarity not only on issues
dealing with Black anti-Sernitism and Jewish racism, but also on the factors that
contributed to various circumstances and interactions between~ Blacks and Jews. Berson’s
discussion of the impact of Black Power ideology, the Ocean Hill-Brownsville case, and
the relocation of Jews to areas outside of the city are provocative in the sense that she
grapples well with the notion of how group identity influences future politics. She
predicted the Afiican American shift from focusing on liberal politics to addressing
problems plaguing the Black community (i.e. poverty and access to institutions that
provide economic and social mobility) coupled with the movement of Jewish Americans

toward conservatism would adversely impact the future of the Left.

Should either the Jew or the Negro desert his position in the
liberal coalition, which realistically exists only within the
Democratic Party, the nation would undoubtedly veer
sharply and rapidly to the right. It has been the tacit
electoral alliance between Negroes and Jews which lain at
the heart of Democratic party liberal politics and has acted
as a brake not only on the conformist instincts of the
Catholics and Southerners within its tent, but also as a
safety valve in the political life of the nation as a whole.45

Although it was published six years later and deals with a shorter time span, Hasia
Diner’s 1981 In the Almost Promised Land proved in many ways to be less provocative
than Berson’s work. Diner’s work focused mainly on American Jewish involvement in

the modern civil rights struggle of the 19403-19603. She uses Black American struggles

20

as the lens to view Jewish ethnic responses to American democratic hypocrisy. Diner
contends that Jewish involvement in the Black struggle stemmed less from the prophetic
outsider tradition of Jews, and more from a need to fulfill their ethnic needs in a society
that was not accepting of Jews. Fighting for freedom, justice, and equality are considered
fundamental components of being American. As a result, Diner asserts that championing
a fight for African American civil rights would essentially strengthen their connection to
true American citizenry. Her work is also unique as it placed the disintegration of Black-
Jewish relations not in the late 19603 but in the mid-19303 when she claims the needs of

both groups were diverging.

Both groups sought the protection of the law against discrimination and physical
harm, but by the 19303 the dissimilar needs of both communities became apparent.
African Americans were increasingly concerned with open access to all institutions,
community control, economic and educational empowerment and gaining their rights as
full citizens. Jewish American concerns were often reflective of those of Afiican
Americans when it came to issues such as institutional access, but by the 19303 Jewish
Americans were increasingly aware of how to negotiate the space between being White,
Jewish, and American. Restrictive covenants that denied them access to White suburban
nei borhoods repeatedly reminded them of their status as not quite American. While the
Holocaust proved to be a uniting force between African Americans and Jews, it also
amplified Jewish concern for the safety of their corrrrnunities globally and domestically.
Like Diner, Philip Foner’s 1975 article fiirther expounded on the difficulties that both

Blacks and Jews faced during the first half of the twentieth century.

21

Philip Foner’s “Black-Jewish Relations in the Opening Years of the Twentieth
Century” remains a significant source on early twentieth century Black-Jewish relations.
Using primary sources, he examines a sometime dysfunctional relationship between
Blacks and Jews that made itself most evident in printed primary sources of both groups.
“[I]t is an essential part of that study [on Black-Jewish relations], for the opening years of
the twentieth century provided the first well-focused incidents of national importance in
which blacks and Jews came into conflict?“ He reconstructs Black-Jewish relations at
the dawn of the twentieth century by analyzing newspapers such as The Christian

Recorder, The Colored American, The Public, and the Baltimore Sun.

Foner argued that at the dawn of the twentieth century the sympathy and
willingness of African Americans to identify with and help Jews was met primarily with
contempt by their Jewish brethren. Foner sites Dr. Solomon Cohen’s 1903 letter to the
The Public, a weekly newsletter in Chicago. “There was, he charged, absolutely no
relationship between the treatment of Jews in Russia and that accorded to Negroes in the
United States, for it was simply ridiculous ‘to contrast the advance stage of intellectual
and moral development of the Jews in general with the limited progress that masses of
Negroes in America have made.”’47 Notions of Jewish contempt and unwillingness to be
classified amongst Blacks is a far cry from Hasia Diner’s point that American Jews

equated working for the advancement of Blacks as bolstering their American identities.

Afiican American leaders along with the Black newspapers such as The Crisis
and the Pittsburgh Courier continually encouraged African Americans to use the Jewish
experience as a viable model to overcome oppression and gain economic and educational

empowerment. Despite being praised for their perseverance as a people, Foner declared

22

that by dawn of the twentieth century, anti-Semitic editorials were also being produced in
conjunction with more positive pieces. Black Americans, according to Foner, were
beginning to recognize the flaws in the Jewish community and its connection to and
aspirations for “whiteness.” “Black-Jewish Relations in the Opening Years of the
Twentieth Century” does an excellent job of utilizing printed materials to illustrate how
African Americans initially identified with the plight of Jews internationally; but upon
being met with indifference fiom Jewish Americans their attitudes toward Jews gradually
shifted. “A reading of the black press in the early years of the twentieth century leads to
the conclusion that many blacks believed that the Jews had been tested and had failed to

live up to the principles of Moses and the prophets.”48

The suspicion that Foner’s article addressed is a reflection of sentiments that can
also be found in Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual which touches on a
host of the various themes found throughout this essay (i.e. anti-Semitsm, Jewish racism,
and power/economic struggles). More importantly, it is indicative of both the growing
suspicion among some members of the African American community and the
disintegrating nature of the Black-Jewish civil rights coalition. Published in 1967,
Cruse’s work sparked debate within both Afiican American and Jewish American
communities. By questioning Jewish motives for their involvement in the struggle for
civil rights and condemning Afiican American figures such as James Baldwin and Archie
Shepp for their close relationships with Jewish Americans, Cruse prompted mass

response from scholars and activists regarding his opinions.

In “Negroes and J ews-The Two Nationalisms and the Bloc(ked) Plurity,” Cruse

begins by acknowledging that the words that follow may shock or offend certain readers,

23

but quickly reminds readers that Jewish literature consistently comments on inter-
minority group issues. Cruse chastised the African American community, particularly its
intellectuals, for their willingness to believe that Jewish Americans are in fact kindred
spirits and brethren to Black Americans. “For, many years, certain Negro intellectuals
have been unable to face the Jews realistically. Among the many myths life and history
have imposed on Negroes. . .is the myth that the Negro’s best friend is the Jew. There is
little evidence that the Jewish group was much interested in the Negro’s plight for ‘social
uplift.”’49 He pointed first to the issue of slavery and rejected the notion that liberal
traditions among Jews dated back to abolitionism. “They were pro-slavery, anti-slavery,
slave-owners, slave-traders, pro-Union, pro—Confederate, war profiteers, army officers,
soldiers, spies, statesmen, opportunistic politicians or indifferent victims of intersectional
strife of the Civil War.”50

Cruse encouraged Black intellectuals and activists to be more critical in their
thought processes, including their stance regarding Jewish Americans and their role in
aiding the Afiican American community. Cruse seemed to be less troubled with the
position Afiican Americans took regarding Jewish Americans as long as they arrived at a
conclusion using critical analysis. He goes on to critique Black intelligentsia for allowing
Jewish Americans .to deal with the plight of African Americans on their own terms.
“Negroes have either been uncritically pro-Jewish or critically tongue-tied on both
matters. Such ambivalence toward Jews stems partly fiom the fact that Negro
intellectuals and critics allow them to deal with the Negro issue on their own terms fi'om
their position of social power.”51 While scholarship does consistently indicate that the

question of power and who possess it has been source of contention, the literature has yet

24

to prove that either group’s voice was completely silenced during their interaction. The
relationship that Cruse portrays is one of unquestioning servitude by Afiican Americans.
Such a depiction of his community not only oversirnplifies the fluid nature of Black-
Jewish relations, but reduces members of the African American community to little more
than mindless puppets. The concern then becomes, if in fact Jewish Americans possess
the power in this coalition where does that leave Afiican Americans in their struggle for

community control and identity?

It is in answering the above question that Cruse approaches the most sensitive and
contentious of topics, and also where he received some of the most outspoken criticisms.
By rejecting the notion that American Blacks and Jews are fellow sufferers, Cruse argued
that in fact most Afiican Americans and Jews are embarrassed or resentfirl that such
comparisons are even made. He also declared that in the case of Zionists it is less the
sentiment of “brotherhood” that drew them to the fight against racism, but a strategic plan
to dismantle the American Anglo-Saxon power structure. “[O]rganizational and
propaganda techniques reveal that influential Zionist thought sees Anglo-Saxon
nationalism in the United States as its main potential political threat.”52 Furthermore, he
accused Jews of using Afiican Americans as a means to divert the attention of Anglo-

Saxon America away from the positive strides made by the Jewish community.

Cruse condemned Jewish Americans that believed Afiican Americans should be
grateful for their assistance in the struggle for equality, particularly since he believes they
had ulterior motives. While he does admonish Jewish Americans, Cruse’s focus is on
speaking to the Afiican American community regarding their interactions with Jewish

Americans. He implores them to be wary of what he considers to be Jewish modes of

25

manipulation and propaganda. “There are far too many Jews from Jewish organizations
into whose privy councils Negroes are not admitted, who nevertheless are involved in
every civil rights and American-Afiican organization, creating policy and otherwise
analyzing the Negro fi'om all possible angles.”S3 In his estimation, African American
leaders “will never achieve any kind of equality until more Negro intellectuals are
equipped with the latest research and propaganda” and are willing to accept the path to
greatness is through cultural nationalism.S4 For Cruse, this is the same cultural
nationalism that made Jews a powerful force in American society. Harold Cruse’s The
Crisis of the Negro Intellectual is indicative of the scholarship of both Black and Jewish
Americans that focuses on negative aspects of the interactions between Blacks and Jews;
nevertheless by the late 198.03 and into the new millennium the trend in scholarship shifts

toward telling the story of coalition building and social change.
Scholarship of the 19803 and the New Millennium

Literature on Black-Jewish relations began to fade by the early 19803. The once
praised alliance seemed to disintegrate and this lack of scholarship reflected the dying
political and social coalition. In 1986, Huey Perry and Ruth B. White’s article “The Post-
Civil Rights Transformation between Blacks and Jews in the United States” reflected the
sentiments of Peter Rose’s works that categorizes the great alliance as reaching its high
point during the Civil Rights Movement and rapidly crumbling by the late 19603.55 “The
position taken in this paper is that the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been
transformed from one of support and cooperation during the civil rights movement of the
19503 and 19603 to one of conflict and suspicion during the 19703 and 19803.”56 As far

as the analysis of the 19503 and 19603, White and Perry’s article brings little that is new

26

to the conversation. It is in their discussion of events during the 19703 and 19803 where

the work shows promise.

For a coalition that was thought to be all but dead by the early 19703, it is
intriguing that into the 19803 Afiican Americans and Jews still seemed to express hostile
feelings towards one another.57 Perry and White explore the issues of the late 19703 and
19803 that resulted in increasing antagonism between both communities, and its impact
on the union’s ability to function. According to Perry and White, the partnership began
to weaken when Afiican Americans started focusing less on issues of segregation and
discrimination in the South and turned their attention to the socio-economic ills of
northern cities such as Chicago and New York. Furthermore, “[a]nother reason for the
exodus was that some Northern civil rights supporters who applauded the victories in the
South had difficulty coping with the social and economic integration of blacks in their

region of the country.”58

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s summer 1965 speech illuminated African
Americans’ shift of focus from issues of segregation to matters of access and inclusion.
Johnson encouraged the nation to understand that it was not merely enough to “open the
gates for opportunity. All of our citizens must have the ability to walk through those
gates.”59 This speech would give way to one of the largest point of contestation between
Afiican Americans and Jewish American, affirmative action. Many Jewish Americans
saw affirmative action as reflective of quota systems instituted during the earlier half of
the century to restrict their access to universities and government employment. “Jews
saw compliance with quota regulations as favoritism for some groups in the pursuit of

jobs, promotions, and school admissions. Quotas evoked for Jews their own history of

27

exclusion”60 Tensions regarding quotas coupled with the rise of Black Power redefined

interactions between Blacks and Jews permanently.

The emergence of Black Power also coincided with grong Afiican American
sympathy for non-White oppressed peoples across the world. The 1967 Six Day War
(Arab-Israeli War) in the Middle East was condemned by many members of former
integrationist organizations such as SNCC and CORE as an attempt by Jews at
imperialism in the Middle East. “SNCC saw the Arabs as victims and the creation of
Israel as an extension of imperialism and violation of the territory of the Arabs?“51
However, for many Jewish Americans the victory of Jewish Israeli’s was seen as a point
of pride and garnered a high level of support. Black Power, anti-imperialism, and
reluctance towards affirmative action can be considered some of the earliest markers of
the disintegrating alliance, but by the 19803 the tensions of the decade before had reached
full impact. The Andrew Young Affair of 1979,62 Jesse Jackson’s bid for presidency in
1983, affirmative action, and the rising popularity of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of
Islam further estranged Blacks and Jews during the 19803. The argument is clear.
Distinct from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
problems of the 19803 created a sense of “color consciousness” that pitted Blacks against

whites and Blacks against Jews. 63

J onanthan Kaufman’s Broken Alliance follows much the same path as the
previous authors in arguing the time line for the creation and collapse of the Black-Jewish
coalition. A journalist, Kaufman’s 1988 portrayal relied primarily on the biographies of
activists both Afiican American and Jewish American. In opposition to focusing on the

histories of political or social factors, he focused on how activists interpreted the reasons

28

for the shifting nature of Black-Jewish relations. Interviews place Kaufman in an
advantageous position; whereby he can reconstruct the Black-Jewish coalition through
the words of its members. Had he not been privy to such information he may have
overlooked that even in times when the alliance seemed strongest “the symbols of
cooperation covered a cauldron of ambivalent feelings and conflicting emotions.”64

Fortunately, by the 19903 scholars were far enough removed from these feelings to begin

producing works that explored the intricacies of the alliance.

The subject of Black-Jewish relations is one area of United States history that saw
revitalization during the mid-19903. Academics were no longer satisfied with
interpretations that spoke merely of Black-Jewish relations in grand narrative terms. The
typical grand alliance analogy that has Black-Jewish relations growing in strength during
the 19403 and 19503 and meeting its demise during the late 19603 needed to be
complicated, and the turn of the century was an ideal time to do so. The focus changed to
include a closer examination of the early twentieth century, women (both northern and
southern), Jews in the South, the works of rabbis, labor unionization, music, and

Hollywood as fundamental aspects that represented American Black-Jewish relations.65

Murray Friedman, former mid-Atlantic regional director of the American Jewish
Committee, scrutinizes the Black-Jewish coalition with his 1995 book What Went
Wrong? The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance. Friedman condemned
the revisionist scholarship that questioned Jewish motives for participating in civil
liberties struggles, and calls for scholars to be responsible historians. 66 He is disturbed by
what he sees as increasing tendencies of academics to write Jews out of civil rights

histories. To challenge scholars that focus primarily on the dissolution of the coalition,

29

Friedman reminds readers that it is remarkable “that it held together for so long—or

indeed that it ever existed.”67

Overall Friedman’s work reflects the arguments and positions of the dominant
historiography, except in his analysis of Blacks and Jews in the arts and social sciences. It
is in his evaluation of this subject that Friedman carves out a space for his text in the
historiography. “Blacks and Jews as Allies in the Arts and Social Sciences” traces the
cooperation and sometimes conflict between Blacks and Jews fiom the 19103 until the
19303 in the academic and artistic worlds. One of the most significant elements of this
chapter is Friedman’s discussion of Jewish attacks on scientific racism, and how the
pairing of Black and Jewish intellectuals focused on disproving scientific racism, helped
lay the intellectual foundations for the civil rights movement. Gunnar Myrdal is quoted as
writing “[t]he gradual destruction of the popular theory behind race prejudice is the most
important of all social trends in the field of race relations?“ Much like Friedman, Cheryl
Greenberg relies on the social and organizational efforts of Afiican Americans and Jews

during the 19303 and 19403 to develop her thesis about the great coalition.

As the most recent study on Black-Jewish relations, Cheryl Greenberg’s 2006
study Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century
complicates the existing historiography. Greenberg answers the call to add new and
refieshing concepts to the literature with her discussions of Black and Jewish women in
labor unions as predating their male counterparts, the reluctance of Southern Jews to
participate in civil rights ventures, and how contemporary Black-Jewish tensions are
manifesting themselves on university campuses across the country. The major strength of

her argtnnent lies in her discussion of post-war liberalism as a catalyst for encouraging

3O

African Americans and Jewish Americans to work together to fashion a more liberal and
egalitarian America. In many ways her work upholds older sentiments of the “great
alliance,” but not without offering a revisionist view as to why it did not succeed. A

. Black-Jewish alliance could never survive because at its core existed misunderstandings
and gender and ethnic biases that were never properly addressed. “Focusing on liberal
political organizations as sites of interaction, I seek to temper the idealized vision of
perfect mutuality by demonstrating that blacks and Jews had different but overlapping

goals of interests which converged in a particular historical moment.”69

Greenberg challenges Friedman’s and Kaufman’s assertion that Jews because of
their shared history of oppression are “natural” allies with Afiican Americans, and echoes
Diner’s position that Jewish self-interest is a motivating factor for their involvement in
the struggle for civil liberties. However, she argued that acts of “self-interest” were
obvious by both parties. “For both Jews and blacks, the collaboration. . .emerged out of
clear and explicit self-interest, but a self-interest that corresponded with a broader moral
vision.”7o She points to the bonds formed by Blacks and Jews as largely coming out of
the principles of post-war liberalism such as individualism, limited government influence,
and pluralism. She does not limit her discussion to the liberal leanings of African
Americans and Jewish Americans in the post-war years, but goes on to interrogate the
consequences of the shift in recent years of the liberal agendas of both groups. What is
most impressive about her work is that she situates Black—Jewish relations within the
larger history of American liberalism, and equates the decline in positive Black-Jewish

relations with the weakening of post-war liberalism.7|

31

Murray Friedman and Cheryl Greenberg share optimism for the resurgence of a
strong Black-Jewish relationship during the twenty-first century that is lost on Seth
Forman. Seth Forrnan’s Blacks in the Jewish Mind directly confronts all the
historiography on Black-Jewish relations and condemns scholars for not recognizing the
“detrimental” effect this grand alliance had on American Jewish identity. He employs the
same fiamework as Greenberg and places Jewish activism in the larger tradition of post-
war American liberalism, but he comes to starkly different conclusions than his

colleagues.

Forrnan argues that the grand alliance literature based on a framework of alliance
and conflict, while useful, has many limitations, particularly in it analysis of race
relations. “[M]any historians have been unwilling to relinquish some standard and highly
valued presumptions about white racism and its impacts on Blacks and have therefore
approached the subject of Blacks and Jews as merely an extension of the study between
Blacks and whites.”72 Historians straining under the pressure of contemporary racial
politics sought to downplay the complex and volatile nature of race relations, and in his
estimation have downplayed issues such as Black anti-Semitism. “The result has been a
series of interpretations that redefine benevolent Jewish attitudes toward Blacks as
primarily motivated by self-interest and, to that extent not markedly distinct from the
racist attitudes of the larger white society. Black anti-Semitism. . .has become the most
vocal manifestation of a largely justified animosity toward whites.”73 While a well
researched study, Blacks in the Jewish Mind often times leaves the reader questioning
whether the author’s animosity toward the grand alliance has resulted in an overtly biased

critiques of the historiography.

32

Published in 1998, Blacks in the Jewish Mind is polerrric in nature yet in still, one
of the most controversial and thought provoking studies to come out of the scholarship on
Black-Jewish relations. The uniqueness of his argument must be dealt with in layers
beginning with his thesis. “This book shows not only that American cultural and political
institutions have been more responsive to Black communal needs than to Jewish ones but
that American Jewish leaders and intellectuals have been, at times, preoccupied with
matters of race due primarily to their belief. . .that freedom from external bigotry is all
that is necessary for a minority group to flourish in this great land.”74 Forman calls his
study one of self- reflection that uses Jewish sentiments toward Blacks to ‘illuminate the
often complex amalgam of emotions, memories, presumptions, and beliefs that constitute
Jewish identity.”75 For Forman the post-war decline of anti-Semitism left American Jews
unable define themselves in relation to Jewish oppression and victimization, and quickly
produced the need for Jews to identify with the victimization of Afiican Americans.
Forman does not view the concerns of 'J ews and Blacks as being inextricably linked, and
criticizes Jewish leaders for favoring Black issues over Jewish problems. Blacks in the
Jewish Mind contends that Jewish liberalism, in its quest to promote Black civil equality,
resulted in the need for Jews to express “J evvishness” through political rather than

religious forms.
Activism of Southern Blacks and Jews

By the dawn of the new millennium, the historiography on Black-Jewish relations
was once again undergoing much needed revisions. Scholars such as Clive Webb, Debra
Schultz, and Raymond Mohl filled two voids in the historiography by addressing both the

South and Jewish women. Previous scholarship tended to overlook the complexities that

33

living in and traveling to the South presented for Black-Jewish relations, particularly its
women. Scholars were either evading or content with dismissing southern Jewish
involvement in civil rights struggles as mostly nonexistent, and also relegated both
northern and southern women to the margins of the scholarship. Scholars such as Jeffrey
Melnick and Debra Schultz have in many ways taken a new approach to critiquing Black-
Jewish relations, rejecting the notion of a continuity during the civil rights era that
disintegrated by the late 1960’s. They replace these notions with scholarship that
identifies conflict and turmoil throughout; while simultaneously recognizing that there
are distinct periods when differences between Blacks and Jews were set aside in the fight

for human liberty.

“Black-Jewish Relations on Trial attempts to call into question the dominant
historical narrative of this relationship. My [Melnick] title is meant to suggest that the
class of behaviors andutterances we call ‘Black-Jewish relations’ might be best
understood as conring to light most clearly in the medium of crisis.”76 Melnick and Diner
seem to differ on their interpretations of the significance of Leo Frank’s trial as a vehicle
to promote Black-Jewish political and social alliances. While Diner argued that Frank’s
trial was the catalyst for Jewish involvement in thestruggle for civil rights, Melnick used

the case to illuminate the intense ethnic tensions between Afiican Americans and Jews.

Black-Jewish Relations on T rial challenges the “so-called” connectedness that
Blacks and Jews share during times of crisis. Melnick relied heavily on court transcripts,
newspaper articles, and other writings to reconstruct Black-Jewish associations in
Atlanta, Ga. and his findings encouraged scholars to reinterpret their conceptions of

industrialization, sexuality, and perceived threats associated with Jewish migration. After

34

Frank was accused of murdering Mary Phagan, the Jewish community was outraged.
However, the literature suggests that their indignation reached new heights when they
realized a Jim Conley (a Black man) was testifying against him. It is from those
sentiments that Melnick makes the assertion that “Frank and his supporters used racist
language to demean Conley and took refirge in what they understood to be the privilege

of Jewish whiteness.”77

After learning of Jewish assaults on Conley’s character, the Black press
immediately defended Conley and the character of Black men. Perhaps outside of the
South the Frank case served as an awakening to American Jews regarding their
susceptibility toward oppression and violence. However, the atmosphere of Atlanta told a
much different story; one where southern Jews were fighting to maintain their
“whiteness” and superior status and Blacks were constantly challenging Jewish

proclamations of superiority.

Debra Schultz addresses the issue of region in a much different manner than
Melnick by focusing on northern Jewish women who traveled south. Going South is a
study of fifteen individual northern Jewish women who traveled South to work during the
Civil Rights Movement; it “focuses on a group of boundary-crossing, northern Jewish
women had the Opportunity, and the means, and will to put their bodies on the line to
challenge the entrenched system of southern racism in the 19603.” 78 This is the first text
study that is dedicated to surveying the role of Jewish women during the Civil Rights
Movement. She addresses the intersection of race, class, gender, region, and religion to
investigate the factors that pushed them to travel South and their experiences once they

arrived. Jewish women were constantly negotiating their multiple and contradictory

35

identities in a movement that was led primarily by Black men and Christians. Debra
Schultz does an excellent job of unpacking how identity politics often left northern
Jewish women in a precarious position trying to negotiate their activism, gender,

“whiteness”, and “J ewishness.”

For Schultz, the collapse happens long before SNCC ousted its White members.
She blames the influence of racial tensions and the ill treatment of the movement’s
women as two significant reasons that ultimately caused Blacks and Jews to go their
separate ways by the late 19603. Melnick and Schultz appear to agree on two major
issues. First, those internal and external struggles between Blacks and Jews have always
plagued Black-Jewish relations and made it highly susceptible to collapse. Secondly, that
the center could never hold in an alliance that was divided along racial and gender lines
from its inception and its dissolution inevitable. Because her work focused on Jewish
women activists who traveled south, she largely neglects those Jewish women that were

already living in the South.

Clive Webb is particularly incisive at portraying the position of southern Jewish
women when he quotes an Alabamian Jewish women as saying, “we are not able to take
a position contrary to the community at large.”79 Webb argues that the activism of
southern Jewish women often had to be cloaked in the actions of the larger White female
Christian society. Southern Jewish women participated in activities such as building
kindergartens for Black children and opposing lynching, but these programs were always
spearheaded and protected by the presence of White Christian women. One drawback is
that Jewish women appear less courageous for their reluctance to establish organizations

without the cloak of White Christian female membership. Webb’s Fight against F ear:

36

Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights focuses specifically on southern Jews’ activism
duringthe civil rights movement. He revisits the history of the civil rights movement
through the experiences of southern Jews. Webb argues that no Black-Jewish alliance
existed in the southern states, but that southern Jews did do more to advance civil rights
than previous scholarship acknowledges. In grappling with the complex existences of
southern Jews and their attitudes toward civil rights agitation, Fight against Fear

attempts to offer explanations for the activism or lack thereof by southern Jews.

Building on Baumin and Kalin’s revisionist argument that some southern Rabbis
were in fact active in encouraging the civil rights activities of their congregations, Webb
reconstructs the story of southern Jews. 80 However, he still “assumes that the majority of
southern Jews were motivated solely by the desire for self-preservation.”81 While his
analysis sometimes mitigates southern Jewish attitudes toward Afiican American
struggles, he does critique to those Jews who had been indoctrinated with racist-
segregationist ideology. Yet unlike Melnick, Webb does not consider Jewish racism as
characteristic of most southern Jews, and urges that future works, readers, and scholars

analyze the southern Jew according to his circumstances.

Raymond Mohl’s South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights
Movement (2004), deals primarily with two activist Jewish women, Matilda “Bobbi”
Graff and Shirley M. Zoloth, who migrated to Miami, Florida during 19403 and 19503
only to be disgusted with the intense racist and segregationist policies of the country’s
vacation destination. In the midst of communist hysteria, anti-Sernitism, and racism these
women helped build organizations such as C.O.R.E. to challenge racial segregation.

South of the South contributes significantly to the historiography by recognizing the

37

public activism of Jewish women living in the South. Graff and Zoloth contradict the
model of “fearful white southern women” that Webb presents, and challenges us to
reconsider “fear” as a primary factor for the overall lack of southern Jewish involvement
in civil rights activities. Furthermore, Mohl’s northern born activists went one step
further than Schultz’s in that they relocated and took up residence in the South. Since
their communal and activist ties occupied the same space, returning home to the North
precipitously or at the first sign of trouble was not an option for Graff and Zoloth. Their
involvement in liberal civil activism consistently placed their lives, bodies, homes, and
families in imminent danger. While the new millennium saw the works of men and
women both northern and southern entering the historiography, most often we must still
look to edited volumes to find literature that reaches beyond an analysis of the rise and

fall of the grand alliance.

Edited Works

Few scholars have offered a comprehensive analysis of the history of Black-
Jewish relations. Currently edited works such as Jack Salzrnan’s and Come] West’s
Struggles in the Promised Land, Maurinne Adams and John Bracey’s Strangers and
Neighbors: Relations between Blacks and Jews in the United States and VP. Franklin’s
Afi’ican Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century: Studies in Convergence and
Conflict82 are the best tools for providing comprehensive analysis of Black-Jewish
relations. These volumes trace the history of Black-Jewish relations and touch on topics
ranging fiom the 17th to the 20th centuries. Topics include the slave trade, affirmative
action, Jewish racism, urban development, southern Jews, Black Nationalism, and the

civil rights movement.

38

The significance of edited volumes goes beyond their abilities to address a wide
range of topics, but lies in the ethnicity of their authors. According to scholar Eric
Sundquist, to date edited volumes are the only manuscripts dedicated to Black-Jewish
relations that are authored by Afiican Americans.83 This is not to say that Afiican
Americans have not contributed to the scholarship on Black-Jewish relations but typically
it has been in the form of essays or articles. Furthermore, Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro
Intellectual does not fit Sundquist’s criteria for several reasons. It does not exclusively
deal with Black-Jewish relations nor can they be seen as possessing the objectivity
necessary to classify them as objective works on Black-Jewish relations. If this is the
case, then the story of the grand alliance has mainly been told through the eyes of J ewish’
men. The absence of Afiican American voices has two implications: that Salzman is
correct in his assertion that Blacks care little about the former union, and that in order for
the historiography to be complete the perspectives of the other half of the Black-Jewish

alliance must enter scholarly discourse.

Edited works that include Afiican Americans are Cornel West’s Struggles in the
Promised Land, John Bracey’s Strangers and Neighbors, and VP. Franklin’s African
Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century. Working off the assumption that the
authors of these works hand picked the articles for their texts, to date edited volumes and
scholarly articles are some of the only secondary sources addressing Black-Jewish
relations that reflect the position and opinions of African American intellectuals. Yet
irrespective of the ethnic composition of its authors, edited works are significant for their

ability to offer a wide range of topics, themes, and opinions for its readers.

39

Struggles in the Promised Land is composed of twenty-one essays that aim to
recreate the history of Black-Jewish relations by providing a detailed analysis of points of
conflict and convergence beginning in the 17th century. “The peculiar entanglements of
Blacks and Jews have, at times, provided an important impetus for social justice in the
United States and, at other times, have been the cause of great tension.”84 Jack Salzman
and Cornell West intended to present a detailed history of Black-Jewish relations in
hopes of restoring the tattered alliance. While most of the essays are not particularly
original, some of the more stimulating essays are by David M. Goldenberg’s “The Curse
of Ham” where in he asserts that the so called “Curse of Ham” that is visited upon
Afiican Americans is largely a myth formulated by racist Jewish rabbis. Goldenberg goes
on to recognize that charges of Jewish racism consist of three parts: the rabbinic
statements that project an anti-Black sentiment; interpretations of rabbinic literature
(Talmud and Midrash) that reflect a “Talmudic view” of Blacks; and the notion that
racism in Western civilizations is the product of rabbinic and Talmudic bigotry.“ David
Davis’s “Jews in the Slave Trade” confronts those that place Jews at the center of the
African slave trade. Davis acknowledges that some Sephardic Jews engaged in the slave
trade but overall they were not the primary financial benefactors of slavery. “To blame
Jews for participating in the Atlantic slave trade is a bit like blaming Native Americans
for contributing to the oil industry that now threatens the earth with atmospheric pollution
and global warming.”86 Thomas Cripps “African Americans and Jews in Hollywood”
balances earlier arguments made by Seth Forman. Unlike Forman, Cripps focuses on
explaining how Hollywood is reflective of both the goals of African Americans and

Jewish Americans to assert their individual and cultural identities. Gary Rubin’s

4o

“African Americans and Israel” and Letty Cottin Pogrebin’s “Blacks, Jews, and Gender:
The History, Politics, and Cultural Anthropology of a Women’s Dialogue Group” is an
analysis of a women’s group composed of Black and Jewish women. Pogrbin’s essay

A demonstrates the significance of the female voice in articulating issues surrounding
Black-Jewish relations. Collectively, these works meet West and Salzman’s goal to
‘fimdercut the rhetoric by trying to determine what might in fact have happened between
Blacks and Jews during the slave trade, in Hollywood, and in the struggle for civil

ri ts.”87 Yet despite his dedication to preserving the history of the grand alliance,
Salzman concedes that “increasingly, many Afiican Americans seem to have lost interest
in ‘dialoguing,’ in trying to understand what went wrong. Jobs, not talk, is necessarily the

prime agenda.”88

Maurinne Adams and John Bracey’s volume proves to be the most dense and
comprehensive of the three edited works. Broken into both thematic and chronological
categories, Strangers and Neighbors contains essays dated as early as 1868 and ending in
1997. Several essays such as Nell Irvin Painter’s “The Kansas Fever Exodus” and Roi
Ottley’s “Found: The Lost Tribe of Black Jews” address the means by which Afiican
Americans identify with elements of Judaism such as Moses and the children of Israel,
bondage in Egypt, parting of the Red Sea, Exodus, and being God’s chosen people.
Irrespective of era Afiican Americans often recognized their shared heritage with Jews as
those that were similarly forced to endure slavery and degradation as a result of their

supposed otherness.

The eradication of slavery did little to thwart Afiican Americans’ attachment to

stories of the Exodusters and God’s never failing mercy and grace for those that suffer. It

41

was through the Christianity found in the Bible that Afiicans made sense of their slavery,
and saw themselves relative to the children of Israel who God delivered fiom bondage.
The distinct nature of Afro-Christianity can easily be seen in African American
interpretation of the Exodus. “No single symbol captures more clearly the distinctiveness
of Afro-American Christianity than the symbol of Exodus. [T]he Middle Passage had
brought them to Egypt land, where they suffered bondage under a new Pharoh.”89 It is in
African American identification with the children of Israel where readers begin to
understand the outrage of many Afiican Americans and Jewish Americans with the lack
of early involvement by Jews in the struggle for civil liberties; especially for peoples with

shared histories.

V.P. Franklin’s African Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century is one the
most recent edited volume on Black-Jewish relations. Part I of the volume delves into
issues of social policy, African American and Jewish American neoconservatives, and
welfare. Nancy Haggard Gilson’s “Against the Grain: Black Conservatives and Jewish
Neoconservatives” interrogates the stereotype of the consistently liberal African
American and Jewish American by probing the social and political positions of the rising
number of Jewish and Black conservatives. Despite sharing the title of conservative,
many African American and Jewish Americans differ on their assessment of poverty and
government assessment. “[T]he heart of the Black conservatives’ criticism of poverty and
civil rights policy is an argument about racial identity and community, whereas the
Jewish neoconservatives focus primarily on the limitations of state intervention and
19603 New Left influences on liberal welfare policies.”90 While many Black

neoconservatives still argue that race is still a significant obstacle in their path to

42

community stability and achievement, many neoconservative Jewish Americans
subscribe to the models of broader White conservatives and argue the only obstacle to
success is self. It appears that even in an arena where they should once again be united
they often find it difficult; they continue to be divided by remains a difference opinions

regarding power and Afiican American access to power.
Conclusion

The 19903 saw a growth in the scholarship on Black-Jewish that has lasted into
the twenty-first century. The literature has flourished by moving away from the grand
narrative and by focusing on the smaller themes within the historiography. Southern
Jewish men and women made appearances through Clive Webb’s Fight against Fear,
Raymond Mohl’s South of the South, and Mark Bauman’s and Berkley Klains The Quiet
Voices of Black Rabbis and Civil Rights. However more work still needs be done
regarding the coalitions of Black and Jewish women in the North and South; Black-
Jewish relations and its ties to post-war liberalism; the shifting nature of Black-Jewish
relations on University campuses; Reaganomics and the move during the 19803 toward
conservatism; Black-Jewish relations during the labor struggles of the 19203, 19303, and
19403; impact of events in the Middle East post the 1967 Six Day War leading into the
contemporary struggles in Israel and Palestine on the coalition; and how/if increased
economic mobility on behalf of Blacks has altered contemporary associations between

Afiican Americans and Jewish Americans.

The scholarship on Black-Jewish relations has progressed from early twentieth

century proclamations of Black anti-Sernitism and Jewish racism into a body of literature

43

whose topics are as diverse as its people. The literature has shown us that internal power
struggles, gender bias, and conflicts regarding ethnic identity can weaken the core of
even the most fi'uitful alliance. Scholars agree that Black and Jewish self-interest coupled
with a rise in liberal politics created a climate post-war climate that was ripe for social
change and inter-ethnic coalitions. However with every civil rights gain it appears that
there was growing fiiction between the groups that could not be masked. Whether one
sides with Diner and places the unraveling of the alliance in the 19303 or with Berson and
places it in the mid-19603, the fact is true that the once budding coalition of liberals is

virtually non-existent in present society.

In 1995, Afiican American intellectual and pastor Cornel West sat down with
Jewish intellectual Michael Lerner to have an open conversation about the current status
of Black-Jewish relations. Their discussion was recorded, transcribed, and turned into a
national bestseller, Jews and Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in
America. West and Lerner’s discussion does an excellent job of identifying, interrogating,
and discussing the subjects that have historically plagued Black—Jewish relations. While
not scholarly in nature, it acts as a significant primary source for its ability to attack
issues at the heart without the unnecessary scholarly jargon. West and Lerner position
themselves as descendents of Jewish American and Afiican American peoples.
Articulating the position of many members of both groups regarding matters such as
Louis Farrakhan and OJ. Simpson, both men are able to provide insight into cultural
understandings and interpretations of both these men. Lerner and West often disagree but

seem optimistic about the potential of a rekindled Black-Jewish relationship.

Faith is often lost as to whether the grand alliance will ever reach another high
point in American history, but with the upcoming 2008 presidential election we may in
fact see Blacks and Jews working together to elect Senator Barack Obarna as the first
Afiican American president of the United States. The historiography tells the story of an
alliance often wrought with conflict and dissentions but ultimately bearing many fruits.
As members of two historically marginalized communities, both American Blacks and
Jews have been placed in each other’s paths to facilitate social change as partners in the
fight for a more egalitarian society. In assessing the literature, I am hoping that scholars
will utilize the model set forth by Blacks and Jews to critique and encourage acceptance
in an increasingly multi ethnic, racial, and cultural society. However if Blacks and Jews
remember that “[t]he best of the Jewish tradition puts a premium on mercy and justice;
the best of the Black heritage, on improvisation and experimentation”91 we may once

again be able to show America the benefits and successes of inter-ethnic cooperation.

45

Notes

 

1 Peter Rose, “Blacks and Jews: The Strained Alliance,” Annals of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science 454 (March 1981): 55.

2 Huey L. Perry and Ruth B. White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the
Relationship between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” Phylon 47 (1986):
51.

3 Eugene Bender, “Reflections on Negro-Jewish Relationships: The Historical
Dimension,” Phylon 30 (1969): 57.

4 Perry and White, “The Post Civil Rights Transformation,” 52.

5 Bender, “Reflections on Negro-Jewish Relationships,” 58.

6 Bender, “Reflections on Negro-Jewish Relationships,”59.

7 Bender, “Reflections on Negro-Jewish Relationships,” 59.

3 Bender, “Reflections on Negro-Jewish Relationships,” 60.

9 Bender, “Reflections on Negro-Jewish Relationships,”59.

'0 Tony Martin’s The Jewish Onslaught, Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro
Intellectual, and speeches by Leonard J effries and Lewis Farrakhan are all
individuals that publicly questioned the sincerity of Jewish involvement in the
Civil Rights Movement; in addition to openly discussing Jewish complicity in the
slave business and in producing negative stereotypes of African Americans in
Hollywood.

” Louis Harap, “Anti-Negroism among Jews,” Negro Quarterly 1 (1942): 445.
'2 Harap, “Anti-Negroism among Jews,” 108.

'3 Harap, “Anti-Negroism among Jews,” 109.

'4 Harap, “Anti-Negroism among Jews,” 109.

'5 Harap, “Anti-Negroism among Jews,” 112.

'6 Harap, “Anti-Negroism among Jews,” 112.

'7 Harap, “Anti-Negroism among Jews,” 117.

'8 L.D. Reddick, “Anti-Semitism among Negroes,” Negro Quarterly 1 (1942):
112.

'9 Horace Mann Bond, Negro-Jewish Relations in the United States: Leading
Negro and White Scholars Examine One of the Crucial Problems of Present-Day
America (New York, 1966), p. 5.

2° Maureen Adams and John Bracey, eds., Strangers and Neighbors: Relations
between Blacks and Jews in the United States (Massachusetts, 1999), 526.

2' Maureen Adams and John Bracey, Strangers and Neighbors, 526.

23 Black anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism (New York: Richard W. Baron, 1969),
3.

24 Black anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism (New York: Richard W. Baron, 1969),
5.

25 Black anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism, 9.

46

 

26 Black anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism, 6.

27 Black anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism, 7.

28 Although Stein and Weisbord were attempting to fashion a historic analysis of
Black-Jewish relations it fell short of their goal, and was presented more as a
historic analysis of African American attitudes toward Blacks. For this reason I
have decided to include it in this section in opposition to placing it into my
analysis of manuscripts published in the 19703 regarding Black-Jewish relations.
29 Robert Weisbord and Arthur Stein, Bittersweet Encounter: the Afro-American
and the American Jew (Westport, Connecticut: Negro Universities Press, 1970),
xxrr.

3° Weisbord and Stein, Bittersweet Encounter, ll.

3' Weisbord and Stein, Bittersweet Encounter, 14.

32 The Bronx Slave Market was an exploitative system where White, middle-class
women selected domestic workers on their ability to offer an abundance of
services for the lowest wages.

33 In September 1968 controversy erupted at NYU’s campus over the appointment
of John Hatchett as head of the Black student center. Soon after his appointment,
an article that he wrote in 1967 on the New York public school system surfaced.
The article which was thought to be attacking Jewish Americans and African
Americans that sided with Jews was used by some students and faculty to demand
his dismissal. The controversy surrounding the Hatchett affair widened the gap
between those African Americans, particularly students that supported Hatchett
and those Jewish Americans that called for his dismissal.

34 Weisbord and Stein, Bittersweet Encounter, 210.

35 Weisbord and Stein, Bittersweet Encounter, 208.

36 Reddick, “Anti-Semitism among Negroes,”112.

37 Bender, “Reflections on Negro-Jewish Relationships,” 57.

38 Philip S. F oner, “Black-Jewish Relations in the Opening Years of the Twentieth
Century,” Phylon 36 (1975): 359.

39 Lenora Berson, The Negroes and the Jews (New York: Random House, 1971),
9.

4° Berson, The Negroes and the Jews, 9.

4' Berson, The Negroes and the Jews, 13.

42 Berson, The Negroes and the Jews, 61.

43 Berson, The Negroes and the Jews, 213.

44 Berson, The Negroes and the Jews, 80.

45 Berson, The Negroes and the Jews, 417.

46 Foner, “Black-Jewish Relations in the Opening Years of the Twentieth
Century,” 359.

47 Foner, “Black-Jewish Relations in the Opening Years of the Twentieth
Century,” 363.

47

 

48 Foner, “Black-Jewish Relations in the Opening Years of the Twentieth
Century,” 367.

49 Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual 476

50 Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 478.

5' Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 481.

52 Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 487.

53 Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 497.

54 Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 497.

56 Perry and White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” 51.

57 Perry and White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” 57.

58 Perry and White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” 58.

59 Perry and White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” 58.

60Perry and White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” 58.

61 Perry and White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” 59.

62 The Andrew Young Affair of 1979 refers to the resignation of African American
UN ambassador to Palestine Andrew Young after having an unauthorized meeting
with Palestine Liberation Organization. After his resignation it is said that he
condemned Israel as terrorists and imperialists.

63 Perry and White, “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
between Blacks and Jews in the United States,” 58.

64 Jonathan Kaufman, Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times between Blacks and
Jews in America (New York: 1988), 267.

65 What interests me is that to date other than edited works by V.P. Franklin,
Comel West, and John Bracey there has been no manuscript written by an African
American that is dedicated to examining twentieth Black-Jewish relations. 13
Friedman correct in his assessment that African American’s are not concerned
with the alliance between African Americans and Jewish Americans?

(’6 Murray Friedman, What Went Wrong? The Creation and Collapse of the Black-
Jewish Alliance (New York, 1995), 3.

67 Friedman, What Went Wrong?, 33.

68 Friedman, What Went Wrong?, 126.

69 Cheryl Greenberg, Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the
American Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), l.

70 Greenberg, Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American
Century, 92.

43

 

7' Greenberg, Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American
Century, 253.

72 Greenberg, Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American
Century, 2.

73 Greenberg, Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American
Century, 2.

74 Seth Forman, Blacks in the Jewish Mind: A Crisis of Liberalism (New York:
New York University Press, 1998), 216.

75 Forman, Blacks in the Jewish Mind, 3.

76 Jeffrey Melnick, Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in
the New South (Jackson, 2000), ix.

77 Melnick, Black-Jewish Relations on Trial, xi.

78 Debra Schultz, Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement (New
York: New York University Press, 2001), xv-xvi.

79 Clive Webb, Fight against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2001), 148.

3° The Quiet Voices ofSouthern Rabbis edited by Mark Bauman and Berkley Kalin
is a dense volume of edited works that explores the activism of southern rabbis
during the Civil Rights Movement. Often relegated to the margins of the master
narrative of Black-Jewish relations, many southern rabbis were in fact active
during the civil rights movement and encouraged the activism of their
congregations.

8' Mark K. Bauman and Berkely Kalin, eds., The Quiet Voices of Southern Rabbis
and Black Civil Rights, [8803- 1990s (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
1997), xv.

82 Another notable edited text is Paul Berman’s Blacks and Jews: Alliances and

Arguments. This compilation of essays was first published in 1994 to address
concerns facing Black and Jewish communities. Divided into four sections, the
book thematically categorizes the scholarship on Black-Jewish relations. Focusing
on literary battles, historical and political reflections, controversies, and
philosophical interpretations the text offers a variety of explanations for the
emergence and deterioration of the alliance.

83 Eric Sundqist, Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, post-Holocaust America
(Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005), 3.

84 Jack Salzman and Cornel West, eds., Struggles in the Promised Land: Toward a
History of Black-Jewish Relations in the United States (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997), 5.

85 Salzman and West, Struggles in the Promised Land, 24.

86 Salzman and West, Struggles in the Promised Land, 65.

87 Salzman and West, Struggles in the Promised Land, 8.

49

 

88 Salzman and West, Struggles in the Promised Land, 5.

89 Maureen Adams and John Bracey, Strangers and Neighbors, 58.

90 Franklin, African Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century, 166.
91 Salzman and West, Struggles in the Promised Land, 416.

50

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, M & John Bracey (eds) Strangers and Neighbors: Relations between Blacks and
Jews in the United States. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.

Bauman, Mark K. and Berkley Kalin. The Quiet Voices of Southern Rabbis and Black
Civil Rights, 18803 to 19903. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997.

Bender, Eugene. “Reflections of Negro-Jewish Relationships: The Historical
Dimension.” Ph [on 30, no. 1 (1960): 56-65

Berman, Paul (ed). Blacks and Jews: Thirty Years of Alliance and Argument. New York:
Delacorte Press, 1994.

Berson, Lenora E. The Negroes and the Jews. New York: Random House, 1971. 4

Brown, Cherie R. Face to Face: Black-Jewish Campus Dialogues. NY: American
Jewish Committee, 1987.

Cruse, Harold. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. New York: Morrow, 1968.

Davis, Lenwood G. Black-Jewish Relations in the United States. Westport: Greenwood
Press, 1984.

Diner, Hasia R. In the Almost Promised Land: American Jews and Blacks, 1915-1935.
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977.

Foner, P. “Black-Jewish Relations in the Opening Years of the Twentieth Century.”
Phylon 36, no.4 (1975): 359-67.

Forman, Seth Blacks in the Jewish Mind: A Crisis of Liberalism. New York: New York
University Press, 1998.

Franklin V.P. ed, Afi'ican Americans and Jews in the Twentieth Century: Studies in
Convergence and Conflict. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998.

 

Friedman, Murray. What Went Wrong?: The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish
Alliance. New York: Free Press, 1995.

Goldner, Sanford. The Jewish People and the Fight for Negro Rights. Los Angeles: The
Committee for Negro-Jewish Relations, 1953.

Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn. Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American
Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Kaufman, Jonathan. Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times between Blacks and Jews in

51

 

America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Lerner, Michael & Come] West. Jews & Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and
Culture in America. New York: Plume, 1996.

Melnick, Jeffrey. A Right to Sing the Blues: Afiican Americans, Jews, and American
Popular Song (Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Melnick, Jeffrey Paul. Black—Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the
New South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000.

Mob], Raymond A. South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in
Miami, 1945-1960. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.

Perry, H. & R. White. “The Post-Civil Rights Transformation of the Relationship
Between Blacks and Jews in the United States.” Phylon 47, no. 1 (1986): 51-60.

Pritchett, Wendell E. Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the
Ghetto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Salzman, Jack Salzman, Adina Back, and Gretchen Sullivan Sorin (eds.)Bridges and
Boundaries: Afi'ican Americans and American Jews. NY: George Braziller, 1992.

Salzman, Jack & Cornel West. Struggles in the Promised Land: Toward a History of
Black- Jewish Relations in the United States. New York : Oxford University Press,
1997.

Schultz, Debra L. Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement. New York:
New York University Press, 2001.

Shapiro, Edward. Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot. Brandeis
University Press, 2006.

Sundquist, Eric J. Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, post-Holocaust America.
Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005.

Webb, Clive. Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights. Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2001.

Weisbord, Robert G. Bittersweet Encounter: The Afro-American and the American Jew
Conn: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

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