If you’re still reeling a bit from the slew of anti-Semitic comments hurled by DeSean Jackson, Ice Cube, and most recently, Nick Cannon, you’re not alone. The public tone of self-proclaimed Jewish allies seems to have shifted slightly, with calls asking for stronger indictments against anti-Semitism, epecially from vocal advocates of racial justice.
But are we looking at a parting of ways between white Jews frustrated by anti-Semitic tropes and the movement for black lives?
Marc Dollinger, the author of several books including Black Power, Jewish Politics (Brandeis University Press, 2018) and a Jewish Studies professor at San Francisco State University, believes we have reason to hope.
His reasoning involves taking a look at our history.
“Jews were [statistically] overrepresented in the Civil Rights movement,” he explained in an interview with TribeHerald. “But that doesn’t mean we should stop at self-congratulations… there was more to the story.” In other words, the oft-circulated image of Rabbi Heschel marching from Selma with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965 doesn’t actually represent most white Jews at the time. According to Dollinger’s research, the typical white American Jew in the ‘60s was “…at home, in the suburbs, supporting the movement theoretically but not actually…marching.”
If this image sounds familiar, perhaps we should give ourselves slightly more credit. When asked how Jewish engagement in Black Lives Matter compares to Jewish engagement in the 1960s, Dollinger commented, “It is impressive how many Jews, and white people generally, are [now] involved in racial justice work, in the notion that black lives matter, in examining their own complicity in racism and their eagerness to learn and understand new narratives that they’ve never seen before – I didn’t see this during the research for the book.”
So there’s the first glimmer of hope – that perhaps authentic and rigorous examination of our country’s racial history means that progress is likely to happen and stick. But what about anti-Semitism as a sticking point?
There is no doubt that we should be very concerned about anti-Semitism in America. Dollinger points out that in the last several years, we have seen the worst examples of anti-Semitism in US history: “America has never been a place where Jews were shot dead while they prayed.” There is no doubt that our current climate is empowering and mainstreaming anti-Semitic ideas which were previously kept in the shadows.
However, referring to black anti-Semitism is a different notion altogether, and a phrase that may be, at best, an unhelpful generality. Citing comments by HUC Rabbinic Intern Evan Traylor, Dollinger explains that associating anti-Semitism with an entire people is problematic in and of itself. In other words, to demand that every person of color in America repudiate a single black person (i.e., a football player) before they can get support for racial justice (or, as Dollinger puts it, American Jews threatening to “take our ball and go home”) is an expectation that does not translate to other groups. It’s also a power play – and one that comes at the cost of dealing with either racism or anti-Semitism.
So should we make political alliances with those we don’t agree with about other issues – the state of Israel, for example? What about those who are outright dangerous, like Louis Farrakhan? Dollinger suggests that we certainly shouldn’t wait for universal repudiation before we jump in to support racial justice. Because, even from a tactical perspective, if our goal is to be able to engage in a broader discussion about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, “It’s a whole lot easier to do that sitting side by side, engaged in conversation.”
There is further room for hope here. Dollinger’s book Black Power, Jewish Politics suggests that in the 1960s, white Jews and African Americans shared a moment of unity, but by the ‘70s that moment had passed. Now, though? We’ve once again got a common foe in white supremacy. And that is the place where, if we can stay focused, we can find our common cause.
