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Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin
Paperback
First published March 1, 1997
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About the author
Michael Lerner
55 books20 followersMichael Lerner was an American political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley.
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November 9, 2024
A FASCINATING AND ENLIGHTENING DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO ‘PROGRESSIVES’
Rabbi Michael Lerner (1943-2024) and Professor Cornel West published this book of dialogues and interactions in 1995. West [CW] states in his Introduction, “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. Both groups assumed that the status quo was unjust and therefore found strategies to survive and thrive against the odds. Both groups defined themselves as a people deeply shaped by America but never FULLY a part of America… Both groups have been hated and despised peoples who find it difficult, if not impossible, to fully overcome group insecurity and anxiety as well as truly be and love themselves as individuals and as a people. Wearing the masks, enduring petty put-downs, and coping with subtle insults remains an everyday challenges for most Blacks and Jews in America.” (Pg. 1-2)
Lerner [ML] says in his own Introduction, “One of the greatest pleasures of my life in the past six years have been the numerous occasions in which Cornel West and I have holed ourselves away from our respective worlds and spend full days... talking and recording our conversations. The dialogue contained in this book represents only a fraction of the wide range and philosophical, political, religious, and personal issues that we touched on… In the process, I not only came to deeply respect Cornel’s incredible intellect but to love him… we often found common ground… That we had not reached total convergence was highlighted by … Cornel and I in heated argument outside the … National Black Summit which I was picketing (in protest of the inclusion in that meeting of the Minister Farrakhan) and Cornel was attending…” (Pg. 6-7)
ML suggests, “When we talk about the origins of oppression in both communities, it is often possible to look at the current reality … and yet not to recognize the history that produced this reality. To Jews it appears as if Blacks are lumping us together with all whites---and not just any whites but the worst ones on the block. We need to remind ourselves that both communities have histories of oppression… in which there are historical overlaps.” (Pg. 45-46)
CW observes, “The relationship between America and Israel is much more intimate than between America and any African nation. You don’t get much information in the press about Africa. You can’t expect black folk not to focus on Israel when that’s what the papers cover. The major issue black people fear is white supremacy; and what scenario do you find? White Jewish Israeli society---we see very little of Jews of color and Sephardic Jews---with an anti-Arab mentality trading with South Africa, which takes you back to the USA, that other hub of white supremacy in the world.” (Pg. 59)
ML: “Black-American ignorance about Israel and about African nation states … reflect the failure of the Black leadership and of Black liberation struggles. Black progressives spend more time educating American Blacks about what’s wrong with Israel than about what’s wrong with African states.”
CW: “There are reasons for that. One is the blindness of the Black leadership. Another is that Israel, like South Africa, provides a parallel with what is happening here in the U.S. in terms of a light-skinned people victimizing a darker-skinned one… It’s not really hard to understand why Black people here identify with … Palestinians.” (Pg. 60)
ML: “Many Black activists … go out of their way to include Arabs in the category of non-whites, because they want to identify with the history of Arab oppression under the thumbs of Western imperialism. Yet Arabs come from the same racial stock of Semites as Jews. So the category is about something else besides skin color---it’s about one’s relationship to oppression. And by calling Jews ‘white,’ Blacks are in effect denying our history of oppression.” (Pg. 67)
CW: “the emergence of Black nationalism around the turn of the century coincided with the appearance of Zionism… Jews were able to convince others of the Zionist case. At the same time, the Black nationalist movement is experiencing more and more setbacks, even in persuading folk in the Black community. Marcus Garvey was a Zionist. Du Bois was a Zionist. King was a Zionist… they expressed support for the Zionist movement. By the mind-sixties, especially 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the mood in the Black community slowly, but significantly, begins to be critical of Zionism.” (Pg. 108-109)
ML: “I personally believe it’s time to trust non-Jews again, but in order to make that case plausible, I have to first acknowledge what’s reasonable in the case of those who still stand by their paranoia.
CW: In Israel that paranoia is understandable.” (Pg. 121)
CW: “First, I don’t think black churches have adequately reflected on the potentially anti-Semitic element in the Christian narrative. Second, I don’t believe progressive Black nationalists have acknowledged the degree to which anti-Semitic elements have been built into the Black nationalist tradition… I would like to see some comparison of attitudes toward Jews of Black women versus Black men. I do believe that anti-Semitism has an element of machismo…” (Pg. 137)
CW: “Every discussion of crime in the U.S. that I know about has focused on Black Crime.
ML: Yet it’s not true about the Jewish community. When you go to a meeting on crime at a… Jewish Community Federation, you won’t hear a focus on Blacks. You won’t encounter the analogue of a progressive Black rally talking about Jewish crimes in … Israel. There’s plenty of racism amongst Jews, but it’s not manifested by trying to deal with America’s crime problem as a Black problem… amongst Jews you’ll find some blaming of Blacks, but in public forums there’s a little more sensitivity about racism.
CW: A small percentage of Black people are committing a disproportionate amount of crime. There’s nothing racist about pointing that out.” (Pg. 140)
(About Crown Heights)
ML: “… we Jews are not in support of attacking random Blacks because some Black ran over a Jew. If there had been two hundred Blacks putting on the kind of principled demonstration together in Crown Heights, indicating their opposition to other Blacks who were rioting against Jews, the Jewish reaction would have been very different.
CW: I will grant you that point. The Black public condemnation of the anti-Semitic language and deeds of some of the younger Black folk in the community did not take the form of such a rally or demonstration. It took places in spaces where the press, for the most part, were absent.” (Pg. 182-183)
ML: “I am not saying, ‘You are wrong to have a public debate with Farrakhan.’ I’m not against that, although I should say that in my own community I refused to debate [Meir] Kahane, on the grounds that there were certain kinds of hatred that were so far out of the tradition that they no longer deserve to be considered part of the community’s legitimate dialogue. Giving him that debate was in effect legitimating his voice within the community…
CW:… I think that if some good could possibly have come out of it, then a debate between you and Kahane would have been justified. I don’t think that Kahane’s virulent racism would have been justified… in the same way that I don’t think that some of the virulent homophobia in people who are progressive of issues of class means that we don’t talk to them, as wrong as they are… even though we are quite clear and open about the hatred and we put a spotlight on it.” (Pg. 200-201)
ML: “if there were a progressive Black force that had something of the quality of a Martin Luther King tradition, then it would be a lot easier for us in the Jewish world to connect with. Whereas if the only people who are articulating Black rage are also articulating anti-Semitic rage, it’s extremely difficult…
CW: There are a whole host of persons who are part of the same legacy of King’s still at work in the Black churches… There are many King-like figures on the grassroots level in the Black community, but with the chasm in place we hardly ever hear about them. And so one has to go out and do the kind of thing I was talking about before to bring these folk together.” (Pg. 268)
This is an excellent and fascinating dialogue, that will be “must reading” for anyone interested in Black/Jewish issues.
Rabbi Michael Lerner (1943-2024) and Professor Cornel West published this book of dialogues and interactions in 1995. West [CW] states in his Introduction, “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. Both groups assumed that the status quo was unjust and therefore found strategies to survive and thrive against the odds. Both groups defined themselves as a people deeply shaped by America but never FULLY a part of America… Both groups have been hated and despised peoples who find it difficult, if not impossible, to fully overcome group insecurity and anxiety as well as truly be and love themselves as individuals and as a people. Wearing the masks, enduring petty put-downs, and coping with subtle insults remains an everyday challenges for most Blacks and Jews in America.” (Pg. 1-2)
Lerner [ML] says in his own Introduction, “One of the greatest pleasures of my life in the past six years have been the numerous occasions in which Cornel West and I have holed ourselves away from our respective worlds and spend full days... talking and recording our conversations. The dialogue contained in this book represents only a fraction of the wide range and philosophical, political, religious, and personal issues that we touched on… In the process, I not only came to deeply respect Cornel’s incredible intellect but to love him… we often found common ground… That we had not reached total convergence was highlighted by … Cornel and I in heated argument outside the … National Black Summit which I was picketing (in protest of the inclusion in that meeting of the Minister Farrakhan) and Cornel was attending…” (Pg. 6-7)
ML suggests, “When we talk about the origins of oppression in both communities, it is often possible to look at the current reality … and yet not to recognize the history that produced this reality. To Jews it appears as if Blacks are lumping us together with all whites---and not just any whites but the worst ones on the block. We need to remind ourselves that both communities have histories of oppression… in which there are historical overlaps.” (Pg. 45-46)
CW observes, “The relationship between America and Israel is much more intimate than between America and any African nation. You don’t get much information in the press about Africa. You can’t expect black folk not to focus on Israel when that’s what the papers cover. The major issue black people fear is white supremacy; and what scenario do you find? White Jewish Israeli society---we see very little of Jews of color and Sephardic Jews---with an anti-Arab mentality trading with South Africa, which takes you back to the USA, that other hub of white supremacy in the world.” (Pg. 59)
ML: “Black-American ignorance about Israel and about African nation states … reflect the failure of the Black leadership and of Black liberation struggles. Black progressives spend more time educating American Blacks about what’s wrong with Israel than about what’s wrong with African states.”
CW: “There are reasons for that. One is the blindness of the Black leadership. Another is that Israel, like South Africa, provides a parallel with what is happening here in the U.S. in terms of a light-skinned people victimizing a darker-skinned one… It’s not really hard to understand why Black people here identify with … Palestinians.” (Pg. 60)
ML: “Many Black activists … go out of their way to include Arabs in the category of non-whites, because they want to identify with the history of Arab oppression under the thumbs of Western imperialism. Yet Arabs come from the same racial stock of Semites as Jews. So the category is about something else besides skin color---it’s about one’s relationship to oppression. And by calling Jews ‘white,’ Blacks are in effect denying our history of oppression.” (Pg. 67)
CW: “the emergence of Black nationalism around the turn of the century coincided with the appearance of Zionism… Jews were able to convince others of the Zionist case. At the same time, the Black nationalist movement is experiencing more and more setbacks, even in persuading folk in the Black community. Marcus Garvey was a Zionist. Du Bois was a Zionist. King was a Zionist… they expressed support for the Zionist movement. By the mind-sixties, especially 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the mood in the Black community slowly, but significantly, begins to be critical of Zionism.” (Pg. 108-109)
ML: “I personally believe it’s time to trust non-Jews again, but in order to make that case plausible, I have to first acknowledge what’s reasonable in the case of those who still stand by their paranoia.
CW: In Israel that paranoia is understandable.” (Pg. 121)
CW: “First, I don’t think black churches have adequately reflected on the potentially anti-Semitic element in the Christian narrative. Second, I don’t believe progressive Black nationalists have acknowledged the degree to which anti-Semitic elements have been built into the Black nationalist tradition… I would like to see some comparison of attitudes toward Jews of Black women versus Black men. I do believe that anti-Semitism has an element of machismo…” (Pg. 137)
CW: “Every discussion of crime in the U.S. that I know about has focused on Black Crime.
ML: Yet it’s not true about the Jewish community. When you go to a meeting on crime at a… Jewish Community Federation, you won’t hear a focus on Blacks. You won’t encounter the analogue of a progressive Black rally talking about Jewish crimes in … Israel. There’s plenty of racism amongst Jews, but it’s not manifested by trying to deal with America’s crime problem as a Black problem… amongst Jews you’ll find some blaming of Blacks, but in public forums there’s a little more sensitivity about racism.
CW: A small percentage of Black people are committing a disproportionate amount of crime. There’s nothing racist about pointing that out.” (Pg. 140)
(About Crown Heights)
ML: “… we Jews are not in support of attacking random Blacks because some Black ran over a Jew. If there had been two hundred Blacks putting on the kind of principled demonstration together in Crown Heights, indicating their opposition to other Blacks who were rioting against Jews, the Jewish reaction would have been very different.
CW: I will grant you that point. The Black public condemnation of the anti-Semitic language and deeds of some of the younger Black folk in the community did not take the form of such a rally or demonstration. It took places in spaces where the press, for the most part, were absent.” (Pg. 182-183)
ML: “I am not saying, ‘You are wrong to have a public debate with Farrakhan.’ I’m not against that, although I should say that in my own community I refused to debate [Meir] Kahane, on the grounds that there were certain kinds of hatred that were so far out of the tradition that they no longer deserve to be considered part of the community’s legitimate dialogue. Giving him that debate was in effect legitimating his voice within the community…
CW:… I think that if some good could possibly have come out of it, then a debate between you and Kahane would have been justified. I don’t think that Kahane’s virulent racism would have been justified… in the same way that I don’t think that some of the virulent homophobia in people who are progressive of issues of class means that we don’t talk to them, as wrong as they are… even though we are quite clear and open about the hatred and we put a spotlight on it.” (Pg. 200-201)
ML: “if there were a progressive Black force that had something of the quality of a Martin Luther King tradition, then it would be a lot easier for us in the Jewish world to connect with. Whereas if the only people who are articulating Black rage are also articulating anti-Semitic rage, it’s extremely difficult…
CW: There are a whole host of persons who are part of the same legacy of King’s still at work in the Black churches… There are many King-like figures on the grassroots level in the Black community, but with the chasm in place we hardly ever hear about them. And so one has to go out and do the kind of thing I was talking about before to bring these folk together.” (Pg. 268)
This is an excellent and fascinating dialogue, that will be “must reading” for anyone interested in Black/Jewish issues.
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