The Black-Jewish Relations Paradigm Is A Racist And A-Historical Trope: Who Made It Up?

uwm.edu  |  That Black antisemitism was frequently motivated by economic oppression is corroborated by Eddie Ellis who, in 1966, wrote, “The most violent type of oppression of Black Americans – economic oppression – is waged by solely profit-motivated members of that other ethnic minority [i.e. Jews]. Hence, it stands to reason the Black man who is constantly under the heel of economic tyranny lashes out, quite naturally, at the visible tyrant.”15 

Ellis’ statement highlights numerous issues within the Black-Jewish relationship. Jews frequently voiced their treatment of being an ethnic minority when discussing Black woes. Letters such as those from Frances Dale, a Jewish teacher in New Jersey, point to some Jews viewing themselves as the victims of the white-Black racial conflict that was brewing.16 

Jews, being the pale-skinned people that Blacks interacted with most frequently in urban areas since they owned many of the shops that were in ghettos, were seen as white, rather than Jewish. However, Jews often did not see this in the same light. Eddie Ellis wrote in January of 1966 that “America’s Jewish communities have assimilated themselves into white Protestant America – and done it so damn well – they have assumed the attitudes and prejudices of this WASP ‘in group’ ….to our sorrow.”17 

Ellis’ sentiment was not far from the truth. Many Jews in the inner-city had developed similar racial prejudices to whites and it was because of this racial discrimination that many Blacks began viewing Jews as white. This is, perhaps, one of the many great issues surrounding Black-Jewish tensions; whites often did not view Jews as white and were thus alienated, while Blacks did view Jews as white and were similarly ostracized. White southerners were outraged that Jews were helping with the civil rights movement and by the 1950s Jews had become targets of white violence.18 

Many Jews found themselves in an uncomfortable position, rejected and even persecuted by some whites and blacks and caught in the middle the fight for civil rights. One key aspect of the Black-Jewish relationship, and perhaps the entire reason why the conflict grew so rapidly, is that the two sides never saw the issue in the same way. Blacks saw Jews as oppressive white urbanites who were taking advantage of a history of racial oppression, while Jews thought that Blacks despised Jews for religious reasons. Samuel Lipschitz, a New York Jew, wrote to Dore Schary, the chairman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for much of the 1960s, voicing his concerns on a Black-Jewish coalition. Lipschitz, when stating his belief about the motivation for the Black-Jewish alliance proposed by Schary stated, “Is it not that the Jew is using the Negro as a tool to take revenge or to manifest their resentments against the white Christian who for so long have persecuted the Jews.”19 

Rather than seeing the issue as Dore Schary saw it, i.e. as an issue of racial inequality where both Jews and Blacks were being abused, many Jews saw it as an issue of religious persecution. An anonymous teacher in New York wrote to Dore Schary that, “Maybe you should tell your Negro friends that, from 1619 to 1861, Christian Southerners enslaved them, and that thereafter a vicious discriminatory system has been perpetrated, largely by southerners? And that when the products of this terrible system come North, uneducated and unprepared for city life, to eat up our welfare money, even the most sympathetic becomes angry after a while?”20 

Indeed, this sort of misunderstanding made it difficult for Jews to comprehend why Blacks were displeased, since many viewed Blacks as being disgruntled over the Jewish religion, rather than their economic situation.