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Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America
Examines the history of black-Jewish relations in America, tracing the change from unification during the Civil Rights Movement and the growth of the Democratic Party to the mutual antagonism that surfaced during the 1984 election, and searches for the reason behind the rift.Jonathan Kaufman paints a vivid, moving portrait of the relationship between blacks and Jews in recent decades--from the strong partnership forged during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the angry war of words, recriminations, and highly charged confrontations making headlines today.
- GenresHistoryAfrican American
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First published October 6, 1988
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June 15, 2024
A JEWISH JOURNALIST LOOKS AT BLACK/JEWISH RELATIONS SINCE 1955
Author and journalist Jonathan Kaufman wrote in the Introduction to this 1988 book, “One morning in 1984, Black Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan … spoke at The Boston Globe, where I work. For several years… I had written about black issues: poverty in black families, problems facing black executives in business, and violent attacks against blacks in Boston. I had just finished a series on job discrimination and racism in Boston… I was anxious to hear Farrakhan in person. His speech, from a news point of view, was unremarkable. Farrakhan said more or less what he had been saying in public all year.
“What happened after Farrakhan left overwhelmed me. Within minutes, shouting matches erupted between blacks and Jews in the newsroom, many of them reporters and editors who had worked together for years. How, black reporters asked, could Jews claim to be political allies but be so opposed to quotas and affirmative action? How, Jewish reporters responded, could blacks be so blind to the impact of the Holocaust and brush off the terror Jews felt at any anti-Semitic slur, of feeling vulnerable in a world that could always turn hostile?... I stood in the newsroom arguing with a black college intern that banks and newspapers were not, in fact, owned by Jews… Allies in so many causes, friends at so many levels, it was clear how little blacks and Jews knew about each other.” (Pg. 1-2)
He continues, “the passions unleashed by Farrakhan at the Globe surprised me. I wanted to find out what had happened. What was it that first brought blacks and Jews together, and why have they now split apart? This book is a result of that journey. I decided to tell what I found out through a set of six serial biographies---the stories of five individuals and one family whose lives reflected the … triumphs and losses of black-Jewish relations over the past thirty years… I chose this method of serial biography for several reasons. While the story of black-Jewish relations is, in many ways, a political story, it is also an intensely personal story… Finally, telling the story … through the eyes of real people made the issues and the conflicts more real.” (Pg. 3-4)
He notes, “it was more than coincidence that the three civil rights workers murdered near Meridian in 1964 were black or Jewish. Well over half the white students heading South that summer were Jewish, and Jews wrote most of the checks that bankrolled the fights of Martin Luther King and [SCLS]… of SNCC… and of the Freedom Rides of James Farmer and CORE.” (Pg. 17)
He recounts, “The Jewish response to the outbreak of demonstrations in the South was striking in both its breadth and its depth… In the front ranks, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most learned and respected rabbis in the country, locked arms with [Martin Luther] King and led the march across Petrus bridge toward Montgomery.” (Pg. 93-94)
He observes, “For some black intellectuals, the history of Jewish involvement in black scholarship, black entertainment, civil rights organizations, and, especially, left-wing politics symbolized a colonization of black thought and creativity. These views received their most explicit airing in Harold Cruse’s 1967 book, ‘The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual... Cruse argued that Jews in the Communist Party, with their rigid position on the ‘Negro question,’ had stifled the intellectual development of the black community, preventing black intellectuals from coming up with black solutions to black problems. The pattern was repeated, Cruse charged, in unions with Jewish leadership, in the film and publishing industry… in civil rights organizations.” (Pg. 129)
He notes, “A popular saying in the 1960s went: Of the five [white] people that a black meets in the course of his day---his landlord, the storeowner, the social worker, the teacher, the cop---one, the cop, is Irish. The other four are Jews.” (Pg. 130)
New York Mayor Edward Koch, the city’s second Jewish mayor, described a 1978 visit to a black church in Harlem: “I was asked to go up to one of the major black churches… I went up there with Basil Peterson [a deputy mayor, who was black]… I noticed I was the only white person in the church… They call on me… to read the proclamation. Suddenly I see this guy standing up and yelling in the balcony… ‘Don’t let him speak. Send the Jew back to the synagogues!’ … I am just standing there and thinking, Well somebody is going to get up and say something. Maybe Basil? Now a word in my defense… And this guy in the gallery is screaming away. Finally a couple of deacons… says, ‘Hush, brother.’ Then the minister quieted him. ‘Hush, brother’? I never got over that.” (Pg. 215-216)
He acknowledges, “Jewish suspicion of [Jesse] Jackson reached back to the events following the 1979 resignation of Andrew Young as ambassador to the United Nations… Young had met with the PLO observer at the United Nations… The United States had a policy that it would not meet with the PLO until it recognized Israel’s right to exist… The issue quickly mushroomed amidst accusations from black leaders that Jewish … organizations had pressured Young into resigning… the resignation crystallized the feeling that Jews had set up a litmus test for Israel that no one could pass… black leaders called into question the roots of Jewish support. ‘When there wasn’t much decency Jews were willing to share decency,’ Jesse Jackson declared. ‘But when there is power they don’t want to share power.’” (Pg. 220)
He adds, “Jackson did not understand why Jews were so angry about his [1979] meeting with [Yassir] Arafat. He had embraced Arafat and shaken his hand---not put money … [or] a gun into his hand. He had told Arafat: ‘Your objective should be a mutual recognition policy… You should remove any suggestion about driving Jewish people into the sea.’ How could … challenging him to behave that way be seen as an act of hostility, Jackson wanted to know?” (Pg. 241)
He records about Jackson, “The ‘hymietown’ story broke… in a conversation with Milton Coleman, a black reporter… For two weeks Jackson denied at every opportunity that he had ever used the words ‘hymie’ or ‘hymietown.’ … [But later] Jackson went to a temple … where he confessed that he had, in fact, used the words ‘hymie’ and ‘hymietown.’ [He said] however innocent and unintended, it was wrong.’” (Pg. 243-245)
He states, “From their first encounters with Jews, blacks confused Jewish money with Jewish power. As Jewish income, education, and influence rose, blacks could not understand how Jews could talk as if they were still insecure. By every economic measure, Jews had reached the pinnacle of success.” (Pg. 260)
He acknowledges, “To be frank… if Jews often express a nostalgia for the alliance, or puzzlement that it went awry, blacks, by and large, do not. They never liked the paternalism that infused cooperation during the civil rights movement. And many younger Jews wonder why they need to worry about blacks anymore.” (Pg. 265)
Of Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, he notes, “[Jackson] surrounded himself with white, often Jewish, advisors, and kept his distance from Louis Farrakhan. He spoke carefully of the need for Israel to live in security with its neighbors. But the question of Jackson’s relation with Jews … finally exploded in New York a few weeks before the New York primary when Mayor Edward Koch said that Jews in New York would be ‘crazy’ to vote for Jackson. Jackson’s campaign manager, who was Jewish, responded angrily, calling Koch a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘400-pound hyena.’ But Koch’s statement… also reflected a political reality. Despite Jackson’s 20 percent support among white voters in 1988, he never received more than 3 to 10 percent of the Jewish vote. Twenty-five years after the March on Washington, a black man was mounting a serious run for the presidency, but Jews were the one white group that did not seem able to support him.” (Pg. 270)
He concludes, “the triumph of the Civil Rights movement has left both blacks and Jews with more power than they had twenty-five years ago. Each side has things the other side wants. Finding compromises and building … coalitions may not be as exhilarating as the soaring rhetoric and moral vision that brought blacks and Jews together years ago. But it can provide small victories. And in eking out those victories, blacks and Jews may find their way to larger ones.” (Pg. 278)
Although emphasizing the “Jewish” side more than the “black” side, this book will be of great interest to anyone studying this issue.
Author and journalist Jonathan Kaufman wrote in the Introduction to this 1988 book, “One morning in 1984, Black Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan … spoke at The Boston Globe, where I work. For several years… I had written about black issues: poverty in black families, problems facing black executives in business, and violent attacks against blacks in Boston. I had just finished a series on job discrimination and racism in Boston… I was anxious to hear Farrakhan in person. His speech, from a news point of view, was unremarkable. Farrakhan said more or less what he had been saying in public all year.
“What happened after Farrakhan left overwhelmed me. Within minutes, shouting matches erupted between blacks and Jews in the newsroom, many of them reporters and editors who had worked together for years. How, black reporters asked, could Jews claim to be political allies but be so opposed to quotas and affirmative action? How, Jewish reporters responded, could blacks be so blind to the impact of the Holocaust and brush off the terror Jews felt at any anti-Semitic slur, of feeling vulnerable in a world that could always turn hostile?... I stood in the newsroom arguing with a black college intern that banks and newspapers were not, in fact, owned by Jews… Allies in so many causes, friends at so many levels, it was clear how little blacks and Jews knew about each other.” (Pg. 1-2)
He continues, “the passions unleashed by Farrakhan at the Globe surprised me. I wanted to find out what had happened. What was it that first brought blacks and Jews together, and why have they now split apart? This book is a result of that journey. I decided to tell what I found out through a set of six serial biographies---the stories of five individuals and one family whose lives reflected the … triumphs and losses of black-Jewish relations over the past thirty years… I chose this method of serial biography for several reasons. While the story of black-Jewish relations is, in many ways, a political story, it is also an intensely personal story… Finally, telling the story … through the eyes of real people made the issues and the conflicts more real.” (Pg. 3-4)
He notes, “it was more than coincidence that the three civil rights workers murdered near Meridian in 1964 were black or Jewish. Well over half the white students heading South that summer were Jewish, and Jews wrote most of the checks that bankrolled the fights of Martin Luther King and [SCLS]… of SNCC… and of the Freedom Rides of James Farmer and CORE.” (Pg. 17)
He recounts, “The Jewish response to the outbreak of demonstrations in the South was striking in both its breadth and its depth… In the front ranks, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most learned and respected rabbis in the country, locked arms with [Martin Luther] King and led the march across Petrus bridge toward Montgomery.” (Pg. 93-94)
He observes, “For some black intellectuals, the history of Jewish involvement in black scholarship, black entertainment, civil rights organizations, and, especially, left-wing politics symbolized a colonization of black thought and creativity. These views received their most explicit airing in Harold Cruse’s 1967 book, ‘The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual... Cruse argued that Jews in the Communist Party, with their rigid position on the ‘Negro question,’ had stifled the intellectual development of the black community, preventing black intellectuals from coming up with black solutions to black problems. The pattern was repeated, Cruse charged, in unions with Jewish leadership, in the film and publishing industry… in civil rights organizations.” (Pg. 129)
He notes, “A popular saying in the 1960s went: Of the five [white] people that a black meets in the course of his day---his landlord, the storeowner, the social worker, the teacher, the cop---one, the cop, is Irish. The other four are Jews.” (Pg. 130)
New York Mayor Edward Koch, the city’s second Jewish mayor, described a 1978 visit to a black church in Harlem: “I was asked to go up to one of the major black churches… I went up there with Basil Peterson [a deputy mayor, who was black]… I noticed I was the only white person in the church… They call on me… to read the proclamation. Suddenly I see this guy standing up and yelling in the balcony… ‘Don’t let him speak. Send the Jew back to the synagogues!’ … I am just standing there and thinking, Well somebody is going to get up and say something. Maybe Basil? Now a word in my defense… And this guy in the gallery is screaming away. Finally a couple of deacons… says, ‘Hush, brother.’ Then the minister quieted him. ‘Hush, brother’? I never got over that.” (Pg. 215-216)
He acknowledges, “Jewish suspicion of [Jesse] Jackson reached back to the events following the 1979 resignation of Andrew Young as ambassador to the United Nations… Young had met with the PLO observer at the United Nations… The United States had a policy that it would not meet with the PLO until it recognized Israel’s right to exist… The issue quickly mushroomed amidst accusations from black leaders that Jewish … organizations had pressured Young into resigning… the resignation crystallized the feeling that Jews had set up a litmus test for Israel that no one could pass… black leaders called into question the roots of Jewish support. ‘When there wasn’t much decency Jews were willing to share decency,’ Jesse Jackson declared. ‘But when there is power they don’t want to share power.’” (Pg. 220)
He adds, “Jackson did not understand why Jews were so angry about his [1979] meeting with [Yassir] Arafat. He had embraced Arafat and shaken his hand---not put money … [or] a gun into his hand. He had told Arafat: ‘Your objective should be a mutual recognition policy… You should remove any suggestion about driving Jewish people into the sea.’ How could … challenging him to behave that way be seen as an act of hostility, Jackson wanted to know?” (Pg. 241)
He records about Jackson, “The ‘hymietown’ story broke… in a conversation with Milton Coleman, a black reporter… For two weeks Jackson denied at every opportunity that he had ever used the words ‘hymie’ or ‘hymietown.’ … [But later] Jackson went to a temple … where he confessed that he had, in fact, used the words ‘hymie’ and ‘hymietown.’ [He said] however innocent and unintended, it was wrong.’” (Pg. 243-245)
He states, “From their first encounters with Jews, blacks confused Jewish money with Jewish power. As Jewish income, education, and influence rose, blacks could not understand how Jews could talk as if they were still insecure. By every economic measure, Jews had reached the pinnacle of success.” (Pg. 260)
He acknowledges, “To be frank… if Jews often express a nostalgia for the alliance, or puzzlement that it went awry, blacks, by and large, do not. They never liked the paternalism that infused cooperation during the civil rights movement. And many younger Jews wonder why they need to worry about blacks anymore.” (Pg. 265)
Of Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign, he notes, “[Jackson] surrounded himself with white, often Jewish, advisors, and kept his distance from Louis Farrakhan. He spoke carefully of the need for Israel to live in security with its neighbors. But the question of Jackson’s relation with Jews … finally exploded in New York a few weeks before the New York primary when Mayor Edward Koch said that Jews in New York would be ‘crazy’ to vote for Jackson. Jackson’s campaign manager, who was Jewish, responded angrily, calling Koch a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘400-pound hyena.’ But Koch’s statement… also reflected a political reality. Despite Jackson’s 20 percent support among white voters in 1988, he never received more than 3 to 10 percent of the Jewish vote. Twenty-five years after the March on Washington, a black man was mounting a serious run for the presidency, but Jews were the one white group that did not seem able to support him.” (Pg. 270)
He concludes, “the triumph of the Civil Rights movement has left both blacks and Jews with more power than they had twenty-five years ago. Each side has things the other side wants. Finding compromises and building … coalitions may not be as exhilarating as the soaring rhetoric and moral vision that brought blacks and Jews together years ago. But it can provide small victories. And in eking out those victories, blacks and Jews may find their way to larger ones.” (Pg. 278)
Although emphasizing the “Jewish” side more than the “black” side, this book will be of great interest to anyone studying this issue.
March 9, 2020
Students sophisticated and novice alike enjoy this book when I assign it in my “Race and Judaism” class. This is the best wrap-around intro to (Ashkenazi) Jewish-Black relations in the US. Kaufman tells the story with journalistic clarity, interviewing crucial figures in the post-war American landscape:NAACP lawyer Jack Greenberg; Black educators and activists Paul Parks and Rhody McCoy; Martin Peretz, the too-cautious New Left liberal; political operative Donna Brazille as a youthful up-and-comer. The book has a parade of cameo voices from the Civil Rights Movement and after, and also some unsystematic side-bar selections from Lenny Bruce, Baldwin, Podhoretz, and other primary sources you might find in a Black-Jewish reader. Sadly, the story ends in the mid-90s (Crown Heights is briefly touched on in the preface) and since then a whole barrage of new topics have emerged: the visibility of Jews of Color, new—yet familiar—hot button wranglings around Israel, and the presidency of Obama
December 15, 2014
A very good analysis of an often uncomfortable topic. A quick read. It might do some good for the author to create a second edition, this one ends around the mid 1980s. (However, not much has changed since!)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews