Crown Heights. Teaneck. Jacob the Jeweler. Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. Louis Farrakhan. Those are some of the things that come to mind when I think about the relationship between American blacks and Jews.
I was watching "Washington Journal" one day this week as I do every morning. The calls to Washington Journal entertain me so, with their range of voices, all angry, desperate, hysterical or sad. Extreme lefties and righties, political junkies, highly-educated experts, people who don't know much of anything, racists and wingnuts, 9/11 and New World Order conspiracists, pragmatists.
Since the recent spark in Mideast conflict, there have been a wide range of calls. A few made me cringe. One of these was from an African American woman who complained about Israel's influence in U.S. politics and said the only solution is to vote out every single Jewish American politician.
Ouch. That hurt to hear so much -
much worse than the guy who told DFA head Jim Dean "and we herrre in the red states think yooouuu and yer brother are NUTZ!" It hurt so much that I flipped quickly to QVC just to get it off. I couldn't listen to the rest of the comment. I wanted to find the woman and tell her, "no, we cannot start saying things like this, please stop!"
The next day a Jewish American man called in and prefaced his comment about Israel by saying how disappointed he is in the black community. He alluded to the large number of Jews who stood hand-in-hand with blacks during the civil rights movement. I stood there and nodded my head and said out loud to no one, "he's right on that one." I hadn't thought about it that way up until that call.
This all got me thinking about the complex relationship between American blacks and Jews. There is a lot of literature and research available but I'm going to talk about my own personal thought and experiences - like a rant but more chill. I'd love recommendations to good links, I tried to Google to get ideas and I just came up with so much.
Anyway, it's a relationship I think about often as it has been a central part of my life, my entire life. My mother, who is African American, was best friends with a Jewish woman from Manhattan; my best friend from high school is a Jewish woman from Manhattan. Growing up in New York, Jewish culture permeates the regional culture. So even though I am Puerto Rican and African American, I feel like a tiny part of me is Jewish, along with Italian and some other immigrant groups, and I imagine many New Yorkers feel this way.
I've often thought about what creates a bond between Jewish Americans and African Americans, and more specifically the bond between me and the Jewish people I have known and loved. The fact that we've both been persecuted for a really long time. That we can't hide the thing about us that they hate (though some of both groups can and do pass). That we are both very creative cultures, dominantly so, and that our suffering is part of what makes our art so great. That we've both got awesome comedians.
Jewish Americans were very participatory in the peak of the civil rights movement, and I think many African Americans will always remember that. Joe Lieberman and many other Jews were Freedom Riders; the deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi is probably one of the greatest symbols of the black-Jewish partnership during that period.
You can't think about relations between Jewish Americans and African Americans without considering commerce. Neighborhoods that were predominantly Jewish and slowly became predominantly black were still owned by Jewish businesspeople and landlords, who moved to the suburbs. That created a lot of resentment. Still, business between blacks and Jews goes on. The most symbolic contemporary examples that come to mind are in the hip-hop industry where rappers regularly shout out their Jewish lawyers, Jacob the Jeweler has a monopoly on the "ice" industry, and Scott "Tuff Jew" Storch regularly makes No. 1 hip-hop and r&b hits.
There have been tensions in Crown Heights, a neighborhood of which I knew little. I went a couple of times as a child and remember seeing Orthodox Jews on one side of the street and blacks on the other side. My perception of the neighborhood has been that although relations are tense at times between blacks and Jews there, both communities are hyper-policed and that seems - to me, watching most of this on the local news - to be a common bond.
Then there is Teaneck, N.J., also in my general neighborhood. Again, some tensions but largely both communities are middle- to upper-middle class and are represented in the local government. I have read of more tensions between blacks and the police in this area than between blacks and Jews.
We always hear "the Middle East is so complex, the relationship between the Palestinians and the Israelis are so complicated." Hell, try making sense of the relationship between blacks and Jews in America. I have heard schvartza in more than one conversation, and the Black Hebrew Israelites used to preach in the main square of my hometown weekly about how they are the real Jews. I've had Jewish people imply to my face that I was an affirmative action hire; and I have heard black friends say that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves because they did business only to benefit their communities, to the detriment of other Europeans. And everytime I hear something like this, I get sad - what went wrong in a relationship between two groups with such common ground? Should we nurture that shared experience of historical and sociological trauma?
In general, I have been very much against Israel's aggression toward the people of Lebanon, and I still am. But sometimes I waver in my hatred for the actions of the Israeli government. I do not like being called an anti-Semite. I do believe the mantra that "Israel has a right to exist." I wholly believe in protecting minority rights across the board. Given Jewish history, it makes sense for the diaspora to have a homeland. And given that history, the world has an obligation to make sure this homeland is protected. Maybe that is easier for me to support because I am not the one who was displaced from my home to create Israel; I also hate the way Palestinian history is not acknowledged in the traditional media in the U.S. Regardless of politics, or the main players in this war and my opinions of them, as an African American I do feel a special obligation to support Israel's existence. Which is tough because I do feel a kindredness with the Palestinian people, due to my heritage. How does a member of an oppressed group pick sides between two oppressed groups?
In fact, sometimes I get a little racial jealousy and I think, why can't we have a place to go? Was Liberia supposed to be that place? But Liberia means nothing to me - another point of racial jealousy, not having a "homeland" because my history has been blurred and erased.
That gets me thinking about how "racial jealousy" affects this dynamic relationship. I wonder whether we African Americans are resentful at the success of Jewish Americans. On a personal level, I am not. As a person of African heritage, I am disappointed we have not seen the same success as Jewish and other immigrant groups and their descendants. I also know there is a difference between starting over in a new country and the challenge of making a way in the country that's imposed the generational trauma and institutional racism we're still fighting today. Is it because we will always be viewed as free labor and Jews will always be viewed as moneymakers by the very people who have disdain for us? Does that explain the differing levels of economic and educational success?
Those are just some thoughts about this special relationship. I plan on doing more reading about it and would love recommendations. Looking forward to a constructive discussion (racist/anti-Semite trolls are "on notice").