r/JewsOfConscience • u/AshkeNegro • Aug 09 '24
Opinion Black-Jewish Relations
This, in the aftermath of AIPAC’s grotesque primary of Cori Bush, is so apt—and, as a Black Jew myself, I’ve observed so many of these dynamics Jeffrey writes about playing out right in front of me. I’ve included text + screen shots (here’s the thread itself: https://x.com/melnickjeffrey1/status/1821328641298407653?s=46&t=CbiBTaJMC2qzQe-v__e8gw):
“I've been studying Black-Jewish relations for decades and often it parses as "second verse, same as the first." But there is something really different at play right now--so many establishment Jews act triumphalist, demand such complete obeisance from their Black counterparts.
I remain optimistic that it's the last gasp of a dying culture and I hope that Bowman and Bush will shine some needed light on how AIPAC has disfigured our national politics. But it's our job as Jews to show how AIPAC has poisoned us with their dark twisted fantasy of US life.
Last spring showed that establishment Jews (like Josh Shapiro) are in a real Kill Your Sons moment. They'd sooner sacrifice their own kids before questioning their loyalty to the Zionist project. But these children that you spit on? I think they'll abide.
Kamala Harris tried to silence Palestine justice protesters at a rally today--that is (terrible, disgusting) business as usual for Democrats. It's something else I'm trying to index--I guess it's just the logical end of Zionism I'm noting: the insatiable brutal hunger for more.
David Levering Lewis's "Parallels and Divergences: Assimilationist Strategies of Afro-American and Jewish Elites from 1910 to the Early 1930s" really got me going in my research and while still SO useful, it seems so....innocent now.
tbh it's Adolph Reed's insight that stays with me most. In his Jesse Jackson book he reminds us that Black-Jewish relations has been constituted largely by conversations between civil rights groups, but often those conversations had Jews on both sides, helping steer.”
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u/PatrickMaloney1 Jewish Aug 09 '24
I think prior to the 1960s an authentic Black-Jewish solidarity did exist in the United States, especially as Jews were more geographically spread out and subject to housing discrimination. Due to redlining, Black and Jewish Americans tended to live very close to each other in some places. Many faced prejudice from the same kinds of groups, so even if it is true that Black-Jewish relations were mainly facilitated by civil rights organizations with Jews on both sides, in the main there was a *general* recognition of a shared interest. There was also a cultural convergence via jazz music. This seems to have ruptured in the 1960s as Jews joined the middle/upper middle class, moved out of cities en masse, Israel became even more hawkish, etc.
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Aug 09 '24
There's also the left-wing political movements Jews were part of...
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u/touslesmatins Non-Jewish Ally Aug 09 '24
"Black Power and Palestine" is also a great book. One of the threads in the history the author tells is how every time a black group or politician dared to have a radical view of Palestine instead of the allowed liberal status quo, there were Jewish groups ready to condemn them, threaten or cut funding to them, and destroy them in the public sphere.
It really paints a picture of a transactional partnership where one side held all the reins and the dynamic is playing out to this day with the AIPAC primaries we're seeing. In Missouri I thought it was especially grotesque, hand-picking a compliant corporate candidate, but one with black skin, to go against a black candidate that they had decided to eliminate. To me it reads " there is an acceptable way of being black and you will not deviate from it". So many racist tropes at play.
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u/Klutzy-Pool-1802 Ashkenazi, atheist, postZ Aug 09 '24
Just read this article about how this played out among Audre Lorde and other leading feminists a few decades ago:
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u/wearyclouds Non-Jewish Ally Aug 09 '24
Thank you for linking this amazing writeup! I need to go read more about Jenny Bourne now.
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u/Specialist-Gur Ashkenazi Aug 09 '24
Never heard of that book, I’ll have to read!
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u/touslesmatins Non-Jewish Ally Aug 09 '24
Author is Michael Fischbach. A lot of unknown bits of history and well researched!
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u/proletergeist Jewish Anti-Zionist Aug 09 '24
I understand that this is a reddit comment and doesn't reflect the whole of your ideology, but this sounds a whole lot like you think Jews are directly controlling elections and their outcomes, erasing the agency of not only the black liberal politician who ran against Cori Bush but also the black people who presumably voted for him. The largest demographic group in her district is black!
Neoliberalism is not new to black communities in the US, and it's not rooted in the question of Palestine. I highly recommend the book Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics by Lester K Spence if you're interested in learning more about why and how neoliberalism has been embraced by many black american communities for decades.
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u/Specialist-Gur Ashkenazi Aug 09 '24
I appreciate the chime in! Personally I don’t believe Jews control elections at all… and I don’t really thing Zionists(who are not just Jewish) do in every case exclusively.. I just think that aipac has a disgusting amount of influence, and it’s not about “Jews” for me, it’s about any organization dedicated to uphold the liberal status quo.. and in the case of this particular election.. Israel was a major player. In other elections, it would be other things that “Jews” wouldn’t be involved in to a disproportionate degree.
That all said, you cited something else important! So I think it’s two fold, black voters might be willing to adopt neoliberalism in order to succeed in America and integrate, similar to any marginalized group. BUT ALSO.. aiapc is bad
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u/touslesmatins Non-Jewish Ally Aug 09 '24
Thank you for the book recommendation, it sounds very related to the book I mentioned, and the liberal/radical divide is an interest of mine. Jewish people and Judaism are not my enemy but I feel that liberalism and zionism are.
Of course Bell has agency, he chose not to prosecute Michael Brown's murderer, he chose to cozy up with AIPAC and republicans opportunistically, he chose to not condemn attack ads that photoshopped Bush to play up racist visual tropes. He has agency and he's a bad person and he wouldn't have won had not the airwaves been saturated with attack ads and disinformation paid for by majority republican AIPAC donors.
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u/famous5eva Aug 09 '24
I live in St. Louis (voted for Cori) and what happened here is beyond tragic for a multitude of reasons. This Jewish community has self-inflicted a huge wound that puts us against our neighbors and made us take a huge step backwards from getting free all because the people leading our institutions couldn’t accept a Black woman wouldn’t jump when they said jump. I’m so sick and disgusted by it all.
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u/ArmyOfMemories Jewish Anti-Zionist Aug 09 '24
Thank you for posting. This is really interesting stuff and only something I had a vague impression of (mostly from seeing how Jonathan Greenblatt interacts with Al Sharpton during joint press conferences or 'discussions' on CNN or MSNBC).
It was just this weird subtext.
Could also be projection to some extent, given how cynical and transparent Greenblatt's advocacy has been - but all this history and theory does make it seem like an accurate hunch/instinctual feeling. The proverbial 'vibes' were off.
I also recall pro-Israel lobbyists in Al Jazeera's documentary cynically speaking about this sort of thing as well.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Aug 09 '24
Why conflate AIPAC with all Jews, let alone use AIPAC as representative of Black-Jewish communal relations? I also think the term "establishment Jews" does a lot more harm than good in attempting to influence (or even explain) the dynamics of American Jewish support for Israel.
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u/ArmyOfMemories Jewish Anti-Zionist Aug 09 '24
I don't think he means it literally.
He is clearly talking about some mainstream organizations.
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u/Roy4Pris Zionism is a waste of Judaism Aug 09 '24
I was wondering why Democrats would allow such massive outside interference in a primary. But then I realised all of the activity was via super PACs, which are not actually connected with the party. It’s just rich people running shit loads of ads. No, surely the party could change its rules to ban candidates primarying each other with the support of such massive outside influence. Could, but won’t I guess. It’s all so totally corrupt.
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Aug 09 '24
If you were wondering why Democrats would allow such interference...I'm sorry, but have you been paying attention to the Democrats at all for the past century?
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u/Roy4Pris Zionism is a waste of Judaism Aug 10 '24
Lol true. It makes AOC’s primary victory even more impressive.
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u/MollyGodiva Aug 09 '24
Blacks and Jews in the US should be political allies. Their interests align pretty well.
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u/myownpersonallab Jewish Anti-Zionist Aug 09 '24
Adding that we cannot have this conversation to its fullest extent without the Black Jewish perspective.
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u/mobert_roses Jewish Aug 09 '24
This is kind of beside the point, and not to defend Harris' opinions, but have you ever seen a politician NOT "silence" protestors at a rally? I'm not sure it has the significance the poster is implying.
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u/CrashTestDuckie Aug 09 '24
Well for starters, many do not silence protesters themselves. They let security remove them. Adding to that, she didn't just silence them, she made an incredibly dumb comment showing how she isn't listening to her constituents who are calling her out for defending genocide.
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