By Jennifer Kohanim
“The segregationists and racists make no fine distinction between the Negro and the Jew.” These were the very words Martin Luther King Jr. declared to the crowds of his supporters during the civil rights movement. These truthful words immediately drew listeners’ attention, especially as spoken by an honored and prominent figure like King. Such speech could and did spark the beginning of a friendly and peaceful alliance between the Black and the Jew. During the years of the Civil Rights movement, a significant connection developed from feelings of empathy and understanding for the others’ oppressive history, and ended up escalating into much more—a meaningful bond of unity, loyalty, and support. Sadly, over time this special bond has evaporated; instead, feelings of hate and distrust have replaced it. One incident did not break the previously tightly-knit relationship, but a series of tragic events created a building tension and eventually destroyed a relationship that most people had believed would last a lifetime.
Even before the years of the Civil Rights movement, Blacks and Jews had established a type of partnership. In 1909, Jews were among those who formed the NAACP. In 1912, Jews and Blacks worked together to form the Urban League, which improved the educational system for Blacks in the South. From 1910 to 1940, over two thousand secondary schools and twenty black colleges were erected by contributions from Jewish philanthropist, Julius Rosenwald (Garza, 50). In addition, African-American newspapers were among the first in America to denounce Nazism (PBS- “From Swastika to Jim Crow”). Blacks identified with the Jewish experience in Egypt and longed for their own exodus, while Jews began drawing parallels between the oppressions they experienced all across the world and the Black movement out of the South. Jewish newspapers referred to anti-Black riots in the south as “pogroms.” Black nationalists used the Zionist movement as a model for their “Back-to-Africa” movement (PBS).
This amiable relationship reached another plateau during the 1960’s. These two nations united, bringing their separate sufferings together into one strong fight. Together they were determined to transform America into a society rid of its religious, ethnic and racial discriminations. Masha Leon, a Jewish journalist, wrote in an Israeli newspaper, Forward, “We may not share a common faith but we share a common fate.” That awareness, of similarities outweighing the differences between the two communities, led them to march arm-in-arm during the Civil Rights movement. Rabbis marched with Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South and were even jailed and beaten in the process. About fifty percent of the civil rights attorneys in the South were Jews, as were over fifty percent of the whites that went to Mississippi in 1964 to challenge the Jim Crow Laws (PBS- “From Swastika to Jim Crow”). The closeness between the two communities during these times is evident when observing the end result of the Civil Rights movement; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were both drafted in the conference room of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
During the 1960’s there seemed to be logic to the unity of these two oppressed nations. Both had experienced extreme attacks of discrimination and were still fighting for acceptance. These similarities between the Jewish and Black experiences were what had brought the two communities together in the 1960’s. When people began emphasizing the differences more than the similarities, the unity tore into pieces. The obvious difference was now color, something that had been overlooked during the 1960’s; seen now through the eyes of the Black, Jews became Whites. In addition to the Jewish “transformation of color,” after 1945 anti-Semitism had sharply declined, while racism was still rampant. Blacks saw this as an end to fighting on the same side. There was no longer one purpose to fight for. With this sentiment, as small a reason as it may seem, the break of the trust and loyalty between the Black and the Jew began.
The distrust and misunderstanding between the Black and Jew suddenly grabbed public attention on August 19, 1991, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, when blind hatred arose like a volcanic eruption. A car driven by a Lubavitch Jew, Yoseph Lisef, drove onto the sidewalk and killed a small black child, Gavin Cato. Black observers were enraged and argued that a Lubavitcher ambulance had arrived at the scene and aided the uninjured Lisef instead of the young Cato, who was badly wounded and who died shortly after (PBS). Thereafter, the streets were filled with running and yelling, “Get the Jews!” The area erupted in riots and African-Caribbean and African American residents were burning cars, vandalizing homes, and looting stores. The uncontrollable riots climaxed with a mob of ten to fifteen black teens and men murdering a Jewish student, Yankel Rosenbaum (PBS). Moishe Katzman, an owner of a kosher restaurant in Crown heights, reflected on the violence and chaos of that day, “I could hear them scream ‘Kill the Jews.’” The crazed disorder and violence in Crown Heights ended in four days, but the memories of this horrid experience still linger in the Lubavitcher, African-Caribbean, and African-American minds.
At this point, relations between the Jews and African-Caribbean community seem to be damaged forever. Not only are the African-Caribbean and Lubavitch residents involved in the Crown Heights riots furious at each other and blaming one another for the deaths during the riots, but all Jews are troubled by the unjustified violence displayed deaths during the riots. Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who personally lived through the Crown Heights “pogrom,” as he calls it, stated, "This was a period in New York City that nobody will forget.” He admits that the “gaping wounds” in the Jewish and black communities caused by the riots "have only just begun to heal." In the New Yorker, Paul Berman explains the difficulty of leaving behind such terrible memories, “The calamity lasts too long; it is overwhelming. People who have undergone that second kind of experience can no longer remember a previous state of healthy self-confidence…They look back and they shudder” (Berman- Reflections).
It’s quite ironic that one of the reasons behind the initial distance existing in this community was the decrease of anti-Semitism after 1945, accompanied by the continuing increase of racism. First, to compare the progress of the two discriminations is unfair and shouldn’t cause feelings of jealousy, rather these changes should have stirred feelings of hope for a united future. Blacks had forgotten the original reasons for the Jewish-Black alliance and had formed the mentality that Jews had already overcome the discrimination of the past. That was far from true. One cannot blame African-Americans for feeling jealous and abandoned in the fight for freedom because such feelings are rooted in human reaction. The irony, however, is striking. Actually, Jews were about to be stricken with another period of strong anti-Semitism. The same year of the Crown Heights riots, Reverend Louis Farrakhan and his group, the Nation of Islam, published The Secret Relationship between the Blacks and the Jews, which offered insulting descriptions of the Jews—“the hook-nosed, bagel-eatin’, lox-eatin’”—as well as detailing the involvement of Jews in the Atlantic slave trade (PBS- “From Swastika to Jim Crow”). Many Blacks were attracted to Farrakhan’s hateful opinions because they served as an explanation fueling suspicions about the Jews. Farrakhan, on November 29, 1993 at a speech at Kean College in New Jersey, declared, “[The Jews] dominated the slave trade…They participated in the civil-rights movement in order to exploit the Blacks…The Jews support apartheid…They raped black women” (Berman-Reflections). The crowd at Kean College was reported to have been cheering enthusiastically throughout the speech. This hate-driven man not only accused Jews of horrendous accusations and misrepresented historical facts, but he also completely undermined the intent of Jewish support begun during the civil rights movement. In one sense, it seemed inconceivable that people believed such accusations, when Jews were supporting the Blacks in the civil rights movement; however, accepting such words essentially put Jewish lives in jeopardy. Rabbis marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and were jailed and beaten as a result. Farrakhan continued beating lies on the heads of his audience by claiming that Jews owned seventy-five percent of the black slaves in the South. The Jewish role in the enslavement of blacks was exaggerated through complete and thoroughly calculated misrepresentation. Selwyn Cudjoe, chair of the African Studies Department at the Wellesley College, comments on the wild accusations, “[The Jews] role was too minimal” (ADL). David Brion Davis of Yale University adds, “Closer investigation shows that [Jews] were exceptional merchants, far outnumbered by the thousands of Catholics and Protestants who flocked to share in the great bonanza” (ADL).
It is difficult to suggest a solution to the lasting deterioration of the formerly rewarding Black-Jewish relations, but I believe a huge step to the repairing of this relationship can be accomplished through the leaders of both communities. If we look back on the civil rights movement, respected and influential leaders pop out immediately in our memories. Martin Luther King Jr. is a great example and his ardent belief in the necessity of a close Black-Jew relationship is what motivated the two people to attempt agreement. His leadership helped blur the lines between the two communities, making them realize they shared a “common fate” even though they did not share a “common faith” or common color.
At this time, it is especially important to have respected leaders in both communities. These are the times where African-Americans and Jews live totally distant lives. People see nothing special about the Jewish and Black lifestyle that should bring them together. Others, like African-American historian Charles Blockson concentrate on, “Blacks and Jews finding themselves on opposite ends on issues such as affirmative action, Afro-centric education, support for Israel, and the limits of free speech” (Mason). But is it right to shrug off the remaining similarities between the two communities? Both communities are still affected by the atrocities of enslavement and the Holocaust. The two communities will be forever scarred from the inhuman mistreatment endured during those dark days. These two communities are still fighting against discrimination and are still the receivers of racism and anti-Semitism in their daily lives. Hate and discrimination is still, unfortunately, not something of the past.
Good leadership has already helped mend some of the above-mentioned problems. In November 2000, after the presidential election in Florida, Reverend Jesse Jackson asked that Jews and Blacks unite as they had done in the Civil Rights Era. He declared to the crowd, “Once again, sons and daughters of slavery and Holocaust survivors are bound together with a shared agenda, bound by their hopes and their fears about national public policy.” At the same conference, Rabbi Steven Jacobs agreed and said, “[The election debacle is] an opportunity for Jews and Blacks to come together” (PBS). We can proudly say that relations have improved and have definitely gotten stronger than they were ten years ago. All agree, however, that healing and restoration between the two groups can progress.
As a youth, I think that another problem holding back African-Americans and Jews from reestablishing relations is widespread ignorance, especially in the youth of today. Students have learned of the horrors of the Crown Heights riots and have been tuning into today’s news, engrossed with the trial of Lemrick Nelson Jr. who has now admitted to being involved in the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum. It is as crucial to know about the peace and harmony between the Blacks and Jews during the 1960’s as it is to know the stories of the Crown Heights riots. A survey was taken by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which found that forty-five percent of Blacks nationally felt Jews helped during the civil rights movement. The other fifty-five percent disagreed, didn’t know, or gave no response (Decade After Crown Heights). I myself never learned of this formerly harmonious relationship and was delighted and surprised to learn of it through my research. I believe that it is imperative that this generation be taught about this past relationship. I truly believe that students who experience this revelation will be motivated to unite and work together as many supporters of the Civil Rights movement did. Residents of these feuding groups might doubt any possibilities of a truce between the two communities, but after and because of the experiences the 196os there seems to be a chance to restore what seems to have disappeared since 1991 Crown Heights dilemma.
The Crown Heights incident has resurfaced in public awareness because Lemrick Nelson Jr. is being retried for the killing of Yankel Rosenbaum; the charge is that Mr. Nelson violated Mr. Rosenbaum’s civil rights. In 1991 the media presented the riots and subsequent trial as a “black” versus “white” issue, when the initial problems were really cultural tensions of the Lubavitcher community versus their African-Caribbean neighbors and vice versa. Many media and political analysts ignored the preceding events which culminated in the deaths of Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum. A 1996 Harvard study, “Framing Identity: The Press in Crown Heights” by Carol B. Conaway, proved that media framing of this crisis as a “black versus white” problem instead of a cultural disagreement between an African-Caribbean and Lubavitcher community actually exacerbated the riots that followed the death of Gavin Cato (Conaway).
Streets closed to the African-American community because of the Lubavitch Sabbath needs, accusation of preferential treatment of the Lubavitch community, and the present civil rights trial are fuel for the fire of further trouble. Dialogue between the two communities, the sharing of positive community programs, monitoring and dialogue with media representatives to insure accurate and non-inflammatory coverage, and building upon former positive connecting points will be difficult to actually achieve; but such attitudes and actions are mandatory needs that will not only prevent further dissension but also to mend and heal a fractured neighborhood.
WORK CITED
ADL- Anti-Defamation League- “Eminent Scholars on ‘The Secret Relationship.’” <http://www.adl.org/cookie_child2.asp
Berman, Paul. “Reflections: The Other and the Almost The Same.” The New Yorker 28
February 1994: pp.61-66.
Conaway, Carol B. “Framing Identity: The Press in Crown Heights.” 1996.
Foundation for Ethnic Understanding - “Decade After Crown Heights”
http://jewishsf.com/bk010817/usp14a.shtml
Garza, Hedda. African Americans and Jewish Americans: A History of Struggle. Grolier
Publishing: New York, 1995.
Mason, Winslow Jr. “Why Does Black Pride Mean Bashing Jews?”
<http://www.sistahspace.com/jewish/bashing.html>
PBS- “From Swastika to Jim Crow- Black-Jewish Relations”
<http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fromswastikatojimcrow/relations.html>