The conventional historical narrative about Blacks and Jews runs as follows: Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a “special relationship” between African Americans and American Jews. In recent years, this progressive alliance for social justice has been torn asunder as periodic flashpoints have rendered the Black-Jewish relationship shrill and tension-filled. This political development is, in fact, the real story behind the break-up of the New Deal Coalition: When Blacks found that white liberals were false friends, what they really meant was that they were departing from white Jewish liberals; when Jews found that the left had turned against them, what they really meant was that they were separating from the Black left. This dominant narrative of American politics is supported by two basic story lines.

The “Golden Past” Story

As ethnic minorities and hyphenated Americans, Blacks and Jews were aliens knocking on the door of American politics and society. They shared outsider status against a common enemy: Blacks and Jews had parallel histories of suffering and discrimination (“No Blacks, Jews, and Dogs Allowed”), residential segregation into geographically defined communities (ghettos and shtetls), and persecution and repression by government and their allies (pogroms and lynchings, accusations of Blacks raping white women, and of Jews and blood libel). Blacks and Jews were pariahs and parvenus, as West (1995: 2) indicates: “Both Jews and Blacks are a pariah people - a people who had to make and remake themselves as outsiders on the margins of American society and culture.”

Blacks and Jews reacted to these shared problems in similar ways. Both groups have a history of counterculture activities (literature, music, dance, and theatre), labor and socialist organizing, and militant ethnic politics. Interestingly, Blacks and Jews frequently drew upon a common religious background to fuel their protests: they shared a “dream” of a slave revolt - exodus, liberation, redemption, a covenant, and a promised land - that would set them free ; and they looked to the Prophets, who believed that pride and power were sins and hence were on the side of the poor and downtrodden, as a source of moral sensibility, personal righteousness, humble ethics, and social justice. In fact, many Blacks and Jews shared a radical dissident subculture (especially in New York) that rejected the hypocrisy of liberal, civil, and responsible bourgeoisie society and encouraged a rigorous rhetoric of dissent, concrete political action, and strong political organization as the prerequisites of progressive change.

Consequently, Blacks and Jews were natural allies in the struggle to empower themselves within an American society predominately biased towards White Anglo Saxon Protestants. “Essentially the ‘Jewish struggle’ and the ‘Negro struggle’ are one” (cited in Clarke 1992: 96). As coalition partners their fortunes and prosperity were intertwined and interwoven: they were the stalwarts of the New Deal electoral coalition and logrolled on many issues (e.g., support for Israel and Africa).

To Blacks, Jews were therefore also oppressed and hence part of their own solution: Jews provided welcome moral, financial, and personal involvement in the struggle for civil rights. Financial ties existed between wealthy Jews and Booker T. Washington, Black educational institutions throughout the South, the NAACP, and the Southern Christian Leadership Council under Martin Luther King. Jewish lawyers assisted the “Scottsboro Boys,” Esther Brown in her fight against the Board of Education, the Freedom Riders, and even revolutionary Black organizations such as the Black Panther Party. Finally, such secular Jews as Andrew Goodman and Michael Henry Schwerner and such religious Jews as Rabbi Abraham Heschel did community organizing and protest work during the 1950s and 1960s – directly relevant to African-American struggles.

To Jews, Blacks were also part of their own salvation: Blacks assisted Jews in their fight against such oppressive elements of the dominant gentile society as the Ku Klux Klan (who opposed Koons, Kikes, and Katholics), Neo-Nazis, Militias, Holocaust-deniers, Skinheads, and White Supremacists; Blacks participated in desegregating facilities that benefitted their Jewish counterparts; Blacks came to their assistance against the Arabs in 1967; and, Blacks and Jews were partners in numerous working class and socialist causes. Jews thus incorporated Blacks into their political, economic, and social struggles with mainstream gentile America.

The “Troubled Present” Story

This part of the story begins when Blacks rethink the past and discover that Jews were oppressors and hence part of the problem. First, Jews in America never experienced slavery, Jim Crow, and (except for Leo Frank in Atlanta) lynching. As Lester (cited in Carson 1992: 48) writes, “Jews have never suffered at the hands of black people. Individuals, yes. But en masse, no.” Second, Jewish racism was no different than white racism. Jews used Blacks as a bridge to assimilation to higher status by identifying with the dominant group and against the oppressed group. For example, they agreed with whites generally that blacks are lazy and (unlike whites) not hard-working. Some Blacks have located a prominent Jewish role in slavery and the slave trade. Third, Jewish power was different than Black power. Jews were able to function as court Jews and middlemen. These Jewish “uncle toms” were much more successful than Black “uncle toms” at “passing” and hence being included in the dominant group. Fourth, Jewish patrons of the civil rights movement were self-interested and status-conscious:

Jews were “free-riders” on Black’s efforts at ending discimination, paying few costs but getting many benefits;

Jews used Blacks as a “buffer” or “scape goat” against attacks by gentiles;

Jews used Blacks as a “stalking horse” for attacking anti-Semites and other enemies;

Jews used Blacks in their campaign to boost their own positive image in American society (support for Blacks demonstrated that Jews were true Americans because they supported its values and demonstrated that Jews did not conform to the stereotypes about the greedy and clannish Jew);

Jews used support for Blacks to assert their own differences with mainstream America; and,

Jews expected “tit-for-tat” reciprocity on issues such as Israel (even today as Jews reassess their interests and priorities they are trying to cash in on there past involvement).

Finally, Jews were paternalistic “pipers” that “called the tune” that limited the struggle for civil rights and deradicalized Black protest. Specifically, Jews picked and chose among Black protest leaders and organizations as suited their purposes. Hence, Jews were the Blacks’ ally, but became their gatekeeper to the white power structure.

Jews have also rethought the past. Black antisemitism (rooted in Black’s trump card - that they are Christian and hence ultimately part of American society), has been an enduring part of the American experience. It consists of widely-held and deeply-embedded views of the Black community which are reinforced by the statements and actions of prominent leaders. Many young and educated Blacks, for example, accept many of the Jewish stereotypes fashioned by white society (e.g., Jews are money-grubbing). There is also organized Black bigotry: mobs in Crown Heights and Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam are two prominent examples. Moreover, Jewish contributions to the civil rights struggle, which dwarf the contributions of other ethnic groups (e.g., Italians, Irish, Greeks, Hispanics, Chinese), have been minimized, forgotten, or turned into something as immoral and unjust as the racism against which Blacks rebelled. Blacks are either enemies or ingrates. Finally, several key issues now split Blacks and Jews: quotas and affirmative action and Israel and the Palestinians (and, up to recently, South Africa).

The result has been racial polarization and uncivil intergroup relations. Black-Jewish affairs have been marked by a set of periodic crises, as shown by recent events:

In 1990, Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues stereotyped two Jewish nightclub owners, Joe and Josh Flatbush, as exploiters of black musical talent; the rap group Public Enemy issued a best-selling record calling Jews “Christ killers”; Oprah Winfrey benignly accepted the claim of a guest that Jews murder children for religious ritual; and Nobel Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu lectured Jews on forgiving Nazis for the murder of six million Jews.

In 1991, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam published The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews: Volume One, which claimed to document a major Jewish role in the African slave trade; a predominantly black jury acquited the Arab man believed to have murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane; and the accidental death of a Black youngster by a car driven by an orthodox Jew triggerred a riot in Crown Heights that lasted for four days.

In 1992, a predominantly black jury acquitted the black youth thought to have killed rabbinical student Yakel Rosenbaum in Crown Heights; and to show that no good deed goes unpunished: a PBS film The Liberators told the story of the all-black Army units that liberated Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, but it turned out that the battalions featured in the film did not liberate the camps.

In 1993, Khalid Abdul Mohammed, Nation of Islam spokesman, referred to Jews as “blood suckers” of the Black nation at Kean College in New Jersey; Leonard Jeffries, black professor at CCNY, said in a speech that Jews financed the slave trade and conspired, through their control of Hollywood, to foster racist images of blacks; Lani Guinier, a black female whose nomination for assistant attorney general of civil rights in the Department of Justice was opposed by Jewish groups, withdrew her nomination; and to again show that efforts at peacemaking often backfire, a Valentine’s day issue of the New Yorker, which ran a cover by Art Spiegelman showing a Black woman and Hasidic man kissing, was condemned by the Black and Jewish communities.

In 1995, Michael Jackson released a song with the line, “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/Kick me, kike me, don’t you Black or white me.”