I have not participated actively in this thread before now apart from likes throughout. I have read it end to end and have learned a great deal and will seek out more knowledge.
I will be honest and say that my views at the beginning of the thread were informed with very little data. I've never taken a history class that covered any of this- we did Caribbean history only if we didn't continue with history as an elective. I've mostly been educated on this topic by various news sources and NPR.
In fact although my tiny island has had a synagogue since the mid 1600s, I know very little about the religion, culture and people.
That's pretty shameful for someone who considers herself to be fairly well read.
I'm sorry this thread was hurtful to so many. I'd like to say I'm appalled @bunnybean's behavior in this thread but I'm not as it is completely within her character.
I'm opening to answering any questions you (and anyone else) may have, anytime! Although I'm certainly not an expert on all things Jewish and I'm learning new things myself every day.
She was also among those who endorsed peeing in the shower.
I'm still working my way through this thread but I'm a loud and proud shower peer! Come at me.
Also, if I recall the r-word threads were a while ago so I hope to God my friend BB has had a change of heart because I would be genuinely crushed if anyone I knew or cared about used that word, ever.
Yeah, my point in bringing that up was that it shows a pattern of "I don't care if people are offended, because my intent is not to be offensive."
I have not participated actively in this thread before now apart from likes throughout. I have read it end to end and have learned a great deal and will seek out more knowledge.
I will be honest and say that my views at the beginning of the thread were informed with very little data. I've never taken a history class that covered any of this- we did Caribbean history only if we didn't continue with history as an elective. I've mostly been educated on this topic by various news sources and NPR.
In fact although my tiny island has had a synagogue since the mid 1600s, I know very little about the religion, culture and people.
That's pretty shameful for someone who considers herself to be fairly well read.
I'm sorry this thread was hurtful to so many. I'd like to say I'm appalled @bunnybean 's behavior in this thread but I'm not as it is completely within her character.
I'm not sure what island you're from, but I'd venture to guess it was established by Jews fleeing Spain during the Inquisition. Some fled to Eastern Europe and a good portion fled to the New World. In fact, there some interesting evidence that Christopher Columbus was Jewish.
Here is more about what I was referring to regarding the relationship between black and Jewish people.
I hate to quote Wikipedia, but their page on this specifically is pretty detailed and has a lot of citations. This is completely separate from the NOI issues, which I think is a minority view for black people in general.
Following the Civil War, Jewish shop-owners and landlords engaged in business with black customers and tenants, often filling a need where white business owners would not venture. This was true in most regions of the South, where Jews were often merchants in its small cities, as well as northern urban cities such as New York, where they settled in high numbers. Jewish shop-owners tended to be more civil than other whites to black customers, treating them with more dignity.[15] Blacks often had more immediate contact with Jews than with other whites.[16]
In 1903, black historian W. E. B. Du Bois interpreted the role of Jews in the South as successors to the slave-barons:
The Jew is the heir of the slave-baron in Dougherty [Georgia]; and as we ride westward, by wide stretching cornfields and stubby orchards of peach and pear, we see on all sides within the circle of dark forest a Land of Canaan. Here and there are tales of projects for money getting, born in the swift days of Reconstruction 'improvement' companies, wine companies, mills and factories; nearly all failed, and the Jew fell heir.[17]
Black novelist James Baldwin (1924–1987) grew up in Harlem in the years between the world wars. He wrote,
n Harlem.... our ... landlords were Jews, and we hated them. We hated them because they were terrible landlords and did not take care of the buildings. The grocery store owner was a Jew... The butcher was a Jew and, yes, we certainly paid more for bad cuts of meat than other New York citizens, and we very often carried insults home along with our meats... and the pawnbroker was a Jew—perhaps we hated him most of all.[16][18]
Baldwin wrote other accounts of Jews that were more sympathetic.
The first white man I ever saw was the Jewish manager who arrived to collect the rent, and he collected the rent because he did not own the building. I never, in fact, saw any of the people who owned any of the buildings in which we scrubbed and suffered for so long, until I was a grown man and famous. None of them were Jews. And I was not stupid: the grocer and the druggist were Jews, for example, and they were very very nice to me, and to us... I knew a murderer when I saw one, and the people who were trying to kill me were not Jews.[19]
Martin Luther King, Jr. suggested that some black anti-Semitism arose from the tensions of landlord-tenant relations:
When we were working in Chicago, we had numerous rent strikes on the West Side, and it was unfortunately true that, in most instances, the persons we had to conduct these strikes against were Jewish landlords... We were living in a slum apartment owned by a Jew and a number of others, and we had to have a rent strike. We were paying $94 for four run-down, shabby rooms, and .... we discovered that whites ... were paying only $78 a month. We were paying 20 percent tax.
The Negro ends up paying a color tax, and this has happened in instances where Negroes actually confronted Jews as the landlord or the storekeeper. The irrational statements that have been made are the result of these confrontations.[20]
Entertainment[edit]
Questioning the "golden age"[edit] Some recent scholarship suggests that the "golden age" (1955–1966) of the black–Jewish relationship was not as ideal as often portrayed.
Philosopher and activist Cornel West asserts that there was no golden age in which "blacks and Jews were free of tension and friction". West says that this period of black–Jewish cooperation is often downplayed by blacks and romanticized by Jews: "It is downplayed by blacks because they focus on the astonishingly rapid entry of most Jews into the middle and upper middle classes during this brief period—an entry that has spawned... resentment from a quickly growing black impoverished class. Jews, on the other hand, tend to romanticize this period because their present status as upper middle dogs and some top dogs in American society unsettles their historic self-image as progressives with a compassion for the underdog."[39]
Historian Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz points out that the number of northern Jews that went to the southern states numbered only a few hundred, and that the "relationship was frequently out of touch, periodically at odds, with both sides failing to understand each other's point of view."[40]
Political scientist Andrew Hacker wrote: "It is more than a little revealing that whites who travelled south in 1964 referred to their sojourn as their 'Mississippi summer'. It is as if all the efforts of the local blacks for voter registration and the desegregation of public facilities had not even existed until white help arrived... Of course, this was done with benign intentions, as if to say 'we have come in answer to your calls for assistance'. The problem was... the condescending tone... For Jewish liberals, the great memory of that summer has been the deaths of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and—almost as an afterthought—James Chaney. Indeed, Chaney's name tends to be listed last, as if the life he lost was worth only three fifths of the others."[41]
Because we haven't really touched on it in this thread and just to add yet another thing to study and understand, Jews of color are a real and thriving subset of American and international Jewry.
We come in all colors and all nationalities. We're black, white, Native, Latino, Asian, Islander. Throughout the history of the Jews, we have traveled and settled on every continent and intermarried among the local people.
As a Latina Jew, I definitely count myself as a Jew of color.
Post by lovelyshoes on Sept 20, 2016 12:15:16 GMT -5
I just finished this thread and had so many feelings throughout. I will echo in agreement with what the other Jewish women in this thread have said and what imo @kirkette accurately pointed out. as a Jewish woman and an immigrant I have always felt as an "other". My name, my features, they give me "away" and I never fully feel comfortable. I also worry about my child in school as he already heard some really unpleasant things hurled at him. I worry about how I can protect him and explain to him why people say these things. I never really felt comfortable until I visited Israel. That was the first time that I felt like I actually belonged, it was pretty incredible. Jews come in all shapes and colors and nationalities and it was a really beautiful experience. Like some of the pervious posters said, being Jewish is who I am, not a religion to me. Thank you for this thread, there is some really good dialogue in here.
Post by Velvetshady on Sept 20, 2016 12:15:47 GMT -5
Not sure if I'm sad or happy I was offline during the bulk of this thread ^o)
Re the "trying to pass" history of Jewish people. My dad has been trying to trace back his family as his parents really only spoke/knew about 2-3 generations back. In the last couple of years he has traced his mom's side back to an area of North Carolina where the population was primarily made up of Jews that emigrated from Germany in the 1800s. Odds are that branch moved to Illinois, passed as Gentile, and purposely hid their history even from their own descendants, which is why the later generations knew nothing about them beyond their roots "being German".
Re anti-Semitism still being alive and kicking today, my two closest friends are Jewish. I've witnessed the prejudice and discrimination they and their families deal with on a daily basis, trust--it still exists, even in large metro areas. It amazes and angers me that people are surprised "such blatant acts were still in existence today". Actually, it amaze and angers me that people think there is *any* minority group that isn't *still* being targeted with blatant prejudice and discrimination in America today. Fuck, open your damn eyes and stop drinking the Trump kool-aid.
Still waiting and we've been here six generations. I think that's what is so difficult about zionism for me as a black woman to understand. Blaxit will never happen. Maybe it's jealously? I'm gonna think about that.
I'd rather be black.
I hope that doesn't offend anyone but I've studied and read about various histories and memoirs and all sorts going back hundreds of years. For the most part, black folks see gains, sometimes small, sometimes large, frustratingly slow but worldwide, we tend to hold these little victories and each generation sees a little better world.
Jewish people live in a more circular world. Two forward, one or three steps back. And they are never far from a fresh outbreak of violence and oppression. People often wonder why Jews did not "fight harder" harder against Nazism but those people seemingly do not realize that Jews have been persecuted and expelled appallingly often by the communities surrounding them so when the Third Reich rose, the only thing new was the coordinated extermination.
As a black woman, I know where I stand. But I would imagine that as a Jew, you never know when or where the simmering anti-semitism that is ever present will flare up into widely accepted and public discrimination, expulsion, or genocide.
And that is why at the core of it, Israel exists and why many Jews feel such a strong tie to the nation of Israel as a whole even while feeling ways about the government.
Black women on the WOC board were talking about limiting themselves sometimes to other POC to minimize the amount of racism they have to deal with. It's obviously a shame that POC are made to feel that way.
But Jewish people literally need an exist strategy. History has proven that.
So yeah, imma stay black.
New Jew jumping in here. I only got halfway through this thread yesterday because I was feeling sick to my stomach. But you really hit on something talking about Jews needing an exit strategy. I can't tell you how many of my parents friends literally have packed bags in their closets as a result of being children of Holocaust survivors. I have a friend who has a route up the Hudson from NYC to Canada planned out.
And I used to tell my parents that it would never happen here, and that "they" would be coming for the Muslims first (which I still believe), but I'm not so certain of my safety anymore. I see socially acceptable anti-semitism on the rise (often called anti-Zionism as others have mentioned. It "cleans it up" for academic circles). And I find myself wondering "how did the Jews of Germany feel before the tide began to turn?" Did they feel like this?
Sorry for the word vomit, I'm trying to be clear but my brain is on overload.
ETA: I don't think it's better that they would come first for the Muslims instead of the Jews, but rather I believed instead of worrying about ourselves, we needed to worry about our Muslim brothers and sisters. Now I think we need to worry for all of us.
I think the connection between Jewish and Black communities is going to vary quite a bit depending on when and where.
The Bronx of the late 1950s and early 1960s was not a magical place of friendship and acceptance, especially with Jews trying to assimilate into waspy America and rise above their social standing.
On the flip side, Jewish clergy members and hundreds of young college students actively and proudly participated in the civil rights movement.
Rabbi Saul Berman was one of the rabbis who marched at Selma and happened to attend the synagogue I went to when we lived in NYC. He wrote this recollection in the Jewish Press about 10 years ago that I preroodically go back to read. It's called "Martin Luther King, Jr and the Exodus Narrative." In fact he mentions that Dr. King was one of the first to realize that "anti-Zionism" is code for anti-semitism. It's worth reading utzedek.org/files/MLK%20and%20the%20Exodus%20Narrative%20(Rav%20Berman).pdf
Here is more about what I was referring to regarding the relationship between black and Jewish people.
I hate to quote Wikipedia, but their page on this specifically is pretty detailed and has a lot of citations. This is completely separate from the NOI issues, which I think is a minority view for black people in general.
Following the Civil War, Jewish shop-owners and landlords engaged in business with black customers and tenants, often filling a need where white business owners would not venture. This was true in most regions of the South, where Jews were often merchants in its small cities, as well as northern urban cities such as New York, where they settled in high numbers. Jewish shop-owners tended to be more civil than other whites to black customers, treating them with more dignity.[15] Blacks often had more immediate contact with Jews than with other whites.[16]
In 1903, black historian W. E. B. Du Bois interpreted the role of Jews in the South as successors to the slave-barons:
The Jew is the heir of the slave-baron in Dougherty [Georgia]; and as we ride westward, by wide stretching cornfields and stubby orchards of peach and pear, we see on all sides within the circle of dark forest a Land of Canaan. Here and there are tales of projects for money getting, born in the swift days of Reconstruction 'improvement' companies, wine companies, mills and factories; nearly all failed, and the Jew fell heir.[17]
Black novelist James Baldwin (1924–1987) grew up in Harlem in the years between the world wars. He wrote,
n Harlem.... our ... landlords were Jews, and we hated them. We hated them because they were terrible landlords and did not take care of the buildings. The grocery store owner was a Jew... The butcher was a Jew and, yes, we certainly paid more for bad cuts of meat than other New York citizens, and we very often carried insults home along with our meats... and the pawnbroker was a Jew—perhaps we hated him most of all.[16][18]
Baldwin wrote other accounts of Jews that were more sympathetic.
The first white man I ever saw was the Jewish manager who arrived to collect the rent, and he collected the rent because he did not own the building. I never, in fact, saw any of the people who owned any of the buildings in which we scrubbed and suffered for so long, until I was a grown man and famous. None of them were Jews. And I was not stupid: the grocer and the druggist were Jews, for example, and they were very very nice to me, and to us... I knew a murderer when I saw one, and the people who were trying to kill me were not Jews.[19]
Martin Luther King, Jr. suggested that some black anti-Semitism arose from the tensions of landlord-tenant relations:
When we were working in Chicago, we had numerous rent strikes on the West Side, and it was unfortunately true that, in most instances, the persons we had to conduct these strikes against were Jewish landlords... We were living in a slum apartment owned by a Jew and a number of others, and we had to have a rent strike. We were paying $94 for four run-down, shabby rooms, and .... we discovered that whites ... were paying only $78 a month. We were paying 20 percent tax.
The Negro ends up paying a color tax, and this has happened in instances where Negroes actually confronted Jews as the landlord or the storekeeper. The irrational statements that have been made are the result of these confrontations.[20]
Entertainment[edit]
Questioning the "golden age"[edit] Some recent scholarship suggests that the "golden age" (1955–1966) of the black–Jewish relationship was not as ideal as often portrayed.
Philosopher and activist Cornel West asserts that there was no golden age in which "blacks and Jews were free of tension and friction". West says that this period of black–Jewish cooperation is often downplayed by blacks and romanticized by Jews: "It is downplayed by blacks because they focus on the astonishingly rapid entry of most Jews into the middle and upper middle classes during this brief period—an entry that has spawned... resentment from a quickly growing black impoverished class. Jews, on the other hand, tend to romanticize this period because their present status as upper middle dogs and some top dogs in American society unsettles their historic self-image as progressives with a compassion for the underdog."[39]
Historian Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz points out that the number of northern Jews that went to the southern states numbered only a few hundred, and that the "relationship was frequently out of touch, periodically at odds, with both sides failing to understand each other's point of view."[40]
Political scientist Andrew Hacker wrote: "It is more than a little revealing that whites who travelled south in 1964 referred to their sojourn as their 'Mississippi summer'. It is as if all the efforts of the local blacks for voter registration and the desegregation of public facilities had not even existed until white help arrived... Of course, this was done with benign intentions, as if to say 'we have come in answer to your calls for assistance'. The problem was... the condescending tone... For Jewish liberals, the great memory of that summer has been the deaths of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and—almost as an afterthought—James Chaney. Indeed, Chaney's name tends to be listed last, as if the life he lost was worth only three fifths of the others."[41]
Again sorry for using Wiki.
You're going to find it hella difficult to sort out what of these perceptions are accurate and what is black acceptance of the tired ass racist trope that Jews are greedy money grubbers.
I'm not sure what island you're from, but I'd venture to guess it was established by Jews fleeing Spain during the Inquisition. Some fled to Eastern Europe and a good portion fled to the New World. In fact, there some interesting evidence that Christopher Columbus was Jewish.
I'm from Barbados. The current synagogue building is a national heritage site and was built in 1654. It's also a UNESCORTED world heritage site.
Here's an old article with tons of info. I will go visit the museum on my next visit home.
Ah, well maybe their descendants then, lol. We were married Jamaica and the rabbi told us he could trace his family tree to the Spanish Inquisition. I had a coworker once who's family converted to Catholicism but we're still expelled from Spain. They landed in Puerto Rico. I know that's tangential, but the migration patterns and variations (and lack there of) are interesting.
I hope that doesn't offend anyone but I've studied and read about various histories and memoirs and all sorts going back hundreds of years. For the most part, black folks see gains, sometimes small, sometimes large, frustratingly slow but worldwide, we tend to hold these little victories and each generation sees a little better world.
Jewish people live in a more circular world. Two forward, one or three steps back. And they are never far from a fresh outbreak of violence and oppression. People often wonder why Jews did not "fight harder" harder against Nazism but those people seemingly do not realize that Jews have been persecuted and expelled appallingly often by the communities surrounding them so when the Third Reich rose, the only thing new was the coordinated extermination.
As a black woman, I know where I stand. But I would imagine that as a Jew, you never know when or where the simmering anti-semitism that is ever present will flare up into widely accepted and public discrimination, expulsion, or genocide.
And that is why at the core of it, Israel exists and why many Jews feel such a strong tie to the nation of Israel as a whole even while feeling ways about the government.
Black women on the WOC board were talking about limiting themselves sometimes to other POC to minimize the amount of racism they have to deal with. It's obviously a shame that POC are made to feel that way.
But Jewish people literally need an exist strategy. History has proven that.
So yeah, imma stay black.
New Jew jumping in here. I only got halfway through this thread yesterday because I was feeling sick to my stomach. But you really hit on something talking about Jews needing an exit strategy. I can't tell you how many of my parents friends literally have packed bags in their closets as a result of being children of Holocaust survivors. I have a friend who has a route up the Hudson from NYC to Canada planned out.
And I used to tell my parents that it would never happen here, and that "they" would be coming for the Muslims first (which I still believe), but I'm not so certain of my safety anymore. I see socially acceptable anti-semitism on the rise (often called anti-Zionism as others have mentioned. It "cleans it up" for academic circles). And I find myself wondering "how did the Jews of Germany feel before the tide began to turn?" Did they feel like this?
Sorry for the word vomit, I'm trying to be clear but my brain is on overload.
Yes, my grandparents were survivors and having grown up around them, I agree that an exit plan is always in my thoughts as well.
Post by bernsteincat on Sept 20, 2016 12:54:35 GMT -5
As with most of these long, important threads, I can't keep up while they're happening, and then it takes a while to wade through and process it all. But I did want to say I'm here and absorbing, and thank everyone for sharing their insights and information.
Post by imobviouslystaying on Sept 20, 2016 12:58:26 GMT -5
Just to be clear, I am not saying that all things are or have been harmonious between black folks and Jews. Jewish people are still white, still live in the same racist culture as the rest of us. And in many places they have been in competition for the same resources with Jews having different address than ours. Naturally you're going to see conflict and resentment build.
But that does not take away or diminish either the work many Jews have engaged in to help address equality nor does it make ignoring the discrimination they face acceptable.
Jews are not our salvation but their contributions and challenges are real.
Andplusalso, there are plenty of black Jews both as whole communities and as the descendents of black and Jewish relationships.
Lenny Kravitz is Jewish. And so is Rebecca Walker iirc (Alice's daughter) and those are just the ones I know off top.
And yes, like someone above mentioned, an armed member of the Chicago Police Department is stationed outside of my son's Jewish preschool school and it gives me pause every single day.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that all things are or have been harmonious between black folks and Jews. Jewish people are still white, still live in the same racist culture as the rest of us. And in many places they have been in competition for the same resources with Jews having different address than ours. Naturally you're going to see conflict and resentment build.
But that does not take away or diminish either the work many Jews have engaged in to help address equality nor does it make ignoring the discrimination they face acceptable.
Jews are not our salvation but their contributions and challenges are real.
Andplusalso, there are plenty of black Jews both as whole communities and as the descendents of black and Jewish relationships.
Lenny Kravitz is Jewish. And so is Rebecca Walker iirc (Alice's daughter) and those are just the ones I know off top.
Post by emoflamingo on Sept 20, 2016 13:17:13 GMT -5
Thank you for all the thoughtful posts and links. I have 2-3 book links open on my phone to see if I can get them from the library to read before I buy them.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that all things are or have been harmonious between black folks and Jews. Jewish people are still white, still live in the same racist culture as the rest of us. And in many places they have been in competition for the same resources with Jews having different address than ours. Naturally you're going to see conflict and resentment build.
But that does not take away or diminish either the work many Jews have engaged in to help address equality nor does it make ignoring the discrimination they face acceptable.
Jews are not our salvation but their contributions and challenges are real.
Andplusalso, there are plenty of black Jews both as whole communities and as the descendents of black and Jewish relationships.
Lenny Kravitz is Jewish. And so is Rebecca Walker iirc (Alice's daughter) and those are just the ones I know off top.
So im 100% eastern european jew, and always considered myself white, without giving it much thought at all. Because, well, im white.
However, a few different (presumably anti-semitic) people in unrelated contexts told me jews arent white, because only christians are white. I did explain religion and race were not the same thing, and ill assume this relates to the KKK and white supremicists view of things. Im sure they are shocked and confused by white Muslims.
Anyway, i still consider myself white, but its interesting to note other people view Jewish people as something else. It was never really clarified to me what that was, and it makes no sense since Judaism isnt a race. I realize it shouldnt really matter how an anti-semite views Jews, but just thought id mention since it came up (and, as others mentioned, there are jews of all races).
I can understand the idea that "ultra-orthodox" is offensive to strictly Orthodox Jews. However, I think there is a lot of debate in the Jewish religious community re: the practices of Hassidim vs Orthodox vs the more liberal movements. To be honest, as a Reform Jew, I get a lot of push back from the more orthodox Conservatives and modern Orthodox Jewish communities and of course none of us who are not Haredi are not really Jews to that community. We get told we're not really Jewish or that we've sold out our Jewishness. Non-religious Jews get the same kind of treatment.
We have to fight against the negative stereotypes and antisemitism from the non-Jewish world, but we're no real friends to each other within international Jewry.
I'm "modern orthodox" (though I identify more with the open Orthodoxy movement and so does my rabbi and synagogue.) My son goes to preschool at a reform synagogue at the moment. When we told a Haredi "friend" that, he said "but why would you do that? Reform isn't even Jewish!" I wanted to punch him (I did, verbally). But I'm sorry if you've even had your Judaism belittled by someone more "religious." It's such bullshit. The only way we will survive is together as a community.
this is just kind of a random tidbit - but a group called Jews United for Justice mostly out of DC, but also in Bmore protested a develoment project recently because of the impact to majority black neighborhoods (in Bmore) nearby. There's a big jewish community in the city and northwestish into Baltimore County, but thats nowhere near where this project is going in.
I'd never heard of them before, but was checking out their website after seeing them at the public meeting, and they seem like they do great work. Campaigns for affordable housing in DC and Baltimore, police reform, lots of awesome social justice stuff.
I'm not making a point, just mentioning it as an aside? I dunno. Thought it was interesting. It's more relevant than my usual pointless interjections at least...
I don't even know what to say after reading this thread. I shouldn't be surprised after what has gone on around here lately, but I am.
For anyone who doesn't think anti-Semitism exists today, especially on a college campus, let me tell you about my roommate freshman year. She moved in late. She walked in, took one look around the room, looked at me, and said "Oh no. I'm not living with a jap." And she switched rooms. We never even spoke. Apparently even being half Jewish was too much for her.
Here is more about what I was referring to regarding the relationship between black and Jewish people.
I hate to quote Wikipedia, but their page on this specifically is pretty detailed and has a lot of citations. This is completely separate from the NOI issues, which I think is a minority view for black people in general.
Following the Civil War, Jewish shop-owners and landlords engaged in business with black customers and tenants, often filling a need where white business owners would not venture. This was true in most regions of the South, where Jews were often merchants in its small cities, as well as northern urban cities such as New York, where they settled in high numbers. Jewish shop-owners tended to be more civil than other whites to black customers, treating them with more dignity.[15] Blacks often had more immediate contact with Jews than with other whites.[16]
In 1903, black historian W. E. B. Du Bois interpreted the role of Jews in the South as successors to the slave-barons:
The Jew is the heir of the slave-baron in Dougherty [Georgia]; and as we ride westward, by wide stretching cornfields and stubby orchards of peach and pear, we see on all sides within the circle of dark forest a Land of Canaan. Here and there are tales of projects for money getting, born in the swift days of Reconstruction 'improvement' companies, wine companies, mills and factories; nearly all failed, and the Jew fell heir.[17]
Black novelist James Baldwin (1924–1987) grew up in Harlem in the years between the world wars. He wrote,
n Harlem.... our ... landlords were Jews, and we hated them. We hated them because they were terrible landlords and did not take care of the buildings. The grocery store owner was a Jew... The butcher was a Jew and, yes, we certainly paid more for bad cuts of meat than other New York citizens, and we very often carried insults home along with our meats... and the pawnbroker was a Jew—perhaps we hated him most of all.[16][18]
Baldwin wrote other accounts of Jews that were more sympathetic.
The first white man I ever saw was the Jewish manager who arrived to collect the rent, and he collected the rent because he did not own the building. I never, in fact, saw any of the people who owned any of the buildings in which we scrubbed and suffered for so long, until I was a grown man and famous. None of them were Jews. And I was not stupid: the grocer and the druggist were Jews, for example, and they were very very nice to me, and to us... I knew a murderer when I saw one, and the people who were trying to kill me were not Jews.[19]
Martin Luther King, Jr. suggested that some black anti-Semitism arose from the tensions of landlord-tenant relations:
When we were working in Chicago, we had numerous rent strikes on the West Side, and it was unfortunately true that, in most instances, the persons we had to conduct these strikes against were Jewish landlords... We were living in a slum apartment owned by a Jew and a number of others, and we had to have a rent strike. We were paying $94 for four run-down, shabby rooms, and .... we discovered that whites ... were paying only $78 a month. We were paying 20 percent tax.
The Negro ends up paying a color tax, and this has happened in instances where Negroes actually confronted Jews as the landlord or the storekeeper. The irrational statements that have been made are the result of these confrontations.[20]
Entertainment[edit]
Questioning the "golden age"[edit] Some recent scholarship suggests that the "golden age" (1955–1966) of the black–Jewish relationship was not as ideal as often portrayed.
Philosopher and activist Cornel West asserts that there was no golden age in which "blacks and Jews were free of tension and friction". West says that this period of black–Jewish cooperation is often downplayed by blacks and romanticized by Jews: "It is downplayed by blacks because they focus on the astonishingly rapid entry of most Jews into the middle and upper middle classes during this brief period—an entry that has spawned... resentment from a quickly growing black impoverished class. Jews, on the other hand, tend to romanticize this period because their present status as upper middle dogs and some top dogs in American society unsettles their historic self-image as progressives with a compassion for the underdog."[39]
Historian Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz points out that the number of northern Jews that went to the southern states numbered only a few hundred, and that the "relationship was frequently out of touch, periodically at odds, with both sides failing to understand each other's point of view."[40]
Political scientist Andrew Hacker wrote: "It is more than a little revealing that whites who travelled south in 1964 referred to their sojourn as their 'Mississippi summer'. It is as if all the efforts of the local blacks for voter registration and the desegregation of public facilities had not even existed until white help arrived... Of course, this was done with benign intentions, as if to say 'we have come in answer to your calls for assistance'. The problem was... the condescending tone... For Jewish liberals, the great memory of that summer has been the deaths of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and—almost as an afterthought—James Chaney. Indeed, Chaney's name tends to be listed last, as if the life he lost was worth only three fifths of the others."[41]
Again sorry for using Wiki.
You're going to find it hella difficult to sort out what of these perceptions are accurate and what is black acceptance of the tired ass racist trope that Jews are greedy money grubbers.
So are you saying that it is not true (or most likely not true) that black people were saying that Jewish landlords were charging them more or that store owners were charging them higher prices? Like I said this is not something I am very familiar with. I looked it up and .2% of my county identifies as religiously Jewish (and that is rounding up). I would assume that the culturally Jewish population is not much higher, but I may be mistaken since I have only gone to Christian schools. Either way I don't like the idea of disregarding what people are saying as "racist trope" because it does not align with the common belief. I still want to do more research and I will.
There is also part of that same wiki page that discusses the racism that went from Jewish towards black people. So it is not like black people were just saying negative stuff about Jewish people and it was all because they were racist or bought into racist beliefs.
Post by jojoandleo on Sept 20, 2016 13:47:25 GMT -5
I am always so amazed at how posters can respond to this crap with so much kindness and information. This thread was very educational. I am so incredibly sorry for the dismissiveness posters on this board were greeted with. You deserve better. Thank you all for taking your time to share your stories, sources, and historical context, even though you shared it with people who didn't deserve a second of your time.
I don't even know what to say after reading this thread. I shouldn't be surprised after what has gone on around here lately, but I am.
For anyone who doesn't think anti-Semitism exists today, especially on a college campus, let me tell you about my roommate freshman year. She moved in late. She walked in, took one look around the room, looked at me, and said "Oh no. I'm not living with a jap." And she switched rooms. We never even spoke. Apparently even being half Jewish was too much for her.
Jesus.
My freshman roommate kept trying to convert me, but at least she was polite about it.
Questioning the "golden age"[edit] Some recent scholarship suggests that the "golden age" (1955–1966) of the black–Jewish relationship was not as ideal as often portrayed.
Political scientist Andrew Hacker wrote: "It is more than a little revealing that whites who travelled south in 1964 referred to their sojourn as their 'Mississippi summer'. It is as if all the efforts of the local blacks for voter registration and the desegregation of public facilities had not even existed until white help arrived... Of course, this was done with benign intentions, as if to say 'we have come in answer to your calls for assistance'. The problem was... the condescending tone... For Jewish liberals, the great memory of that summer has been the deaths of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and—almost as an afterthought—James Chaney. Indeed, Chaney's name tends to be listed last, as if the life he lost was worth only three fifths of the others."[41]
I agree that relations between Jews and blacks are complicated and have often been adversarial. However, the part above seemed familiar to me, it's from "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual" by Harold Cruse. Andrew Hacker was just quoting/paraphrasing in his book. The anti-semitism in Mr. Cruse's book is very obvious and not really worthy of proving a factual point about the relationship between blacks and Jews.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that all things are or have been harmonious between black folks and Jews. Jewish people are still white, still live in the same racist culture as the rest of us. And in many places they have been in competition for the same resources with Jews having different address than ours. Naturally you're going to see conflict and resentment build.
But that does not take away or diminish either the work many Jews have engaged in to help address equality nor does it make ignoring the discrimination they face acceptable.
Jews are not our salvation but their contributions and challenges are real.
Andplusalso, there are plenty of black Jews both as whole communities and as the descendents of black and Jewish relationships.
Lenny Kravitz is Jewish. And so is Rebecca Walker iirc (Alice's daughter) and those are just the ones I know off top.
I'm grateful for all of the book recs in here as well as the articles. I have them on my to read list along with some others I've found referenced or linked in the articles, as well as some I had on a previous list. I'm going to Israel in May and had the previous ones on a list to become more educated on the history of the area. Thank you all for sharing your personal stories and histories with us.
I don't even know what to say after reading this thread. I shouldn't be surprised after what has gone on around here lately, but I am.
For anyone who doesn't think anti-Semitism exists today, especially on a college campus, let me tell you about my roommate freshman year. She moved in late. She walked in, took one look around the room, looked at me, and said "Oh no. I'm not living with a jap." And she switched rooms. We never even spoke. Apparently even being half Jewish was too much for her.
whats a jap?
Jewish American princess. Apparently, I had decorated the room too well