The Jewish Community and BLM: Challenges of Reconcilability
Jhozef Sheldia
Black-Jewish relations in the United States have undergone several iterations of change from the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s through to the present day. Issues such as the Six Day War, the Jewish assimilation into American Whiteness, the hopelessness of Afro-pessimism, the formulation of the “Judeo-Christian West”, and the impact of policies on growing disparities between Jewish and Black people, as well as the mutual conflicts of interest on certain of these policies, have made the once-flourishing alliance between the two groups increasingly difficult to maintain. Today, this has manifested itself in Black Lives Matter (BLM) as an irreconcilable difference on the sovereignty of Israel and a societal friction regarding the status of the Jew in the American hierarchy. In order to understand why these issues exist, it is important to analyze the origin of these ideas and how they have morphed over the last 60 years.
Black Lives Matter began as a response to several incidents of police brutality and violence against Black people. In 2014, the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Dontre Hamilton, among others, sparked national protests which caused the declaration of a state of emergency in several American cities. Over the next six years, due to a series of further police-implicated deaths, the national spotlight converged on race and power dynamics. Former President Trump’s election further contributed to the national tension. His rhetoric on matters of immigration helped compound the issues and created a pressurized environment then lit aflame by the spark that was George Floyd’s death. It is at this point that BLM became a phenomenon with international protests. What began as a social media movement initiated by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi in the form of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, became the Black Lives Matter Global Network, an online platform which acts as a general guide for the many chapters and groups around the U.S. who identify as BLM organizations. Their guiding principles, and the policies BLM Global Network is known to support, are rooted in a set of socio-political ideologies, and their goals often fall into conflict with other minorities, one of them being Jews.
Afro-Pessimism and Critical Race Theory (CRT) are two of the competing ideologies. Afro-Pessimism is the idea that the United States is an inherently racist country, one founded on anti-Black colonialist goals and cannot be reformed without utterly destroying the very foundations the country was built upon. This pervades every aspect of life, and every system or institution. The plights and oppression of other non-Black minorities cannot be compared with that of the Black person, because it is Black people exclusively that were used as the enemy against which to unite. Under this view, the Jew, another minority, can not only never compare his experience of the Holocaust to that of slavery within the U.S., but is deemed an integral part of the problem. Because of his Whiteness, it is not possible for the Jew to extricate themself from the collective crime of Black oppression. The Jew, as a conduit of anti-Blackness, would never be able to take part in the resolution of any of these issues. The “pessimist” in Afro-pessimism, refers to the hopeless approach and grim outlook on the ability of the U.S. to reform itself within its current form. Black Lives Matter does not seem to follow this line of thinking. Activism and pushing for change are integral parts of the BLM movement. If they were to adopt the Afro-pessimist outlook, then activism itself would only act as confirmation of the un-redeemability of America, and their efforts would be futile and unrewarded.
Critical Race Theory offers a way forward. CRT is a collection of legal studies which looks at racial progress as an achievable goal but analyzes its supposed results with an acute racial awareness and skepticism. Change is seen as possible but also reversible which makes activism vital to its progression. CRT does not necessarily see Black people as the singular victim of oppression, but rather analyzes the plights of people of color in general. Where Afro-pessimism identifies anti-Blackness as the driving force behind Black oppression, CRT replaces it with White-supremacy.
Under CRT, the Jew is not actively anti-Black, he is passively White. Although the Jew may not be interpersonally racist towards Black people, he does, however, take part in a system of Whiteness and White-supremacy because of his appearance. Such participation may be inadvertent. While many Jews would deny that they are White, it does not prevent them from enjoying Whiteness’ benefits. CRT’s softer approach to the responsibility of the people caught in between the Black-White dichotomy, nevertheless, creates a difficult dynamic for the Jew. On the one hand, Jewish people can now take part in the dismantling of White supremacy and be actively involved in bringing equality to all people of color. But on the other hand, their own racial status is questioned and they are categorized as guilty by association.
The acceptance of non-Blacks back into the racial equality movement became apparent during the 2020 protests. Black Lives Matter invited everyone to become part of the solution and protest on the streets, regardless of their race, to present a united front against White supremacy. The Jewish community was very involved in this process. The older Jewish generations did have difficulty subscribing to certain chants like “Defund the Police!” The police is seen as a protective force by most Jews—especially due to the history of Black-Jewish relations. An example would be the 1991 Crown Heights Riots when Black residents attacked Orthodox Jews after a Guyanese child was killed by a car following the Lubavitcher Rabbi’s motorcade. Jewish stores and homes were looted and antisemitic slogans were chanted. As a result, police intervention is seen in some similar communities as a stabilizing agent in case comparable incidents were to recur, especially because of the landlord-tenant dynamic between Jewish and Black people in many of these neighborhoods. The younger Jewish generations were more willing to overlook these differences and join the protests in lockstep with the rest of the BLM activists.
Over the years, the Jewish community has even changed its position on key legislative issues such as affirmative action. In the 1960’s, the three main Jewish rights organizations: the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League, all filed amicus briefs in a Supreme Court case against the use of racial quotas in university admissions. The reason for this opposition was that Jews would be harmed by racial quotas if they were to be categorized as White people. With the present goal of many BLM groups who advocate for equitable admissions, this threat is all the more real. Jewish people are over-represented on college campuses, and if they were to be categorized as Jews in an equitable admission process, then their admission rates would go down drastically. Although Jews make up between 13% to 28% of student bodies in the top 60 U.S. colleges, they are just under 2% of the general population. However, the Jewish community seems to have softened its stance vastly on the topic of affirmative action. As Harvard Law Professor and political commentator Alan Dershowitz described it, “Jews have become the WASPs [White Anglo-Saxon Protestants]. They are among the dominant groups on campus, in terms of numbers.” This sentiment seems to be the conclusion of James Baldwin’s argument that Jewish people in America are now White.
In “Negroes are Antisemitic because they are Anti-White,” Baldwin makes the case that although Jews have gone through hardships which could be compared to slavery in intensity, it is not possible to use the Holocaust as a way to relate to the Black struggle because America freed Jews but enslaved Blacks. In a way, Black people are still living in an oppressive system—the same one in which Jews have thrived. Therefore, Jews lack the ability to relate in this new context. Their prosperity in the U.S., and their physical appearance, has gradually gained them entrance into the dominant group—they are now recipients of White privilege. Because of this, many Jews have become more understanding of affirmative action, since they believe that it is not fair for them to claim the oppressed minority status anymore, especially not in respect to Black people. This does not mean that Jews in America no longer face antisemitism. On the contrary, FBI figures for 2019 show that Jews are 2.6 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes. However, the sentiment summed up by Dershowitz shows the willingness of the Jewish community to recognize the higher socioeconomic status they have achieved in the United States compared to Blacks. This allows them to support the objectives of Black Lives Matter.
The Jewish community’s willingness to shift positions on such a contested topic does not hold true in the discussion around Israel’s sovereignty. Black Lives Matter supports the freedom of all Black and brown people. So, it becomes obvious that the Israel-Palestine conflict would be a central point of contention between the Jewish community and BLM. The Israel-Hamas war of May 2021 gave rise to many BLM protests all over the United States and increased friction between the Jewish community and BLM. The proximity of the Jew to Whiteness becomes exacerbated when Israel is viewed as a modern colonial project—a forced “White” settlement in a non-White part of the world. The United States’ support further affirmed this view. In this case, however, the Jewish community cannot easily change their stance. Israel is inextricably tied to Zionism and its existence is seen as the resolution of a long history of statelessness. How can the Jew support the liberation of people of color in the United States if he also supports the subjugation of the non-White Palestinians?
With BLM now becoming a more global movement, the Israel-Palestine conflict has taken center-stage. Within the Jewish community there also exist anti-Zionist groups. The ultra-Orthodox believe the Zionist project is an inherently anti-Messianic one because it seems to believe that humans can take the reconstruction of Israel into their own hands through political means instead of a feat meant only to be realized by the Messiah upon his arrival.
Many Jews, like esteemed Professor and left-wing commentator Noam Chomsky, oppose Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Chomsky has criticized the current regime as a form of apartheid. These stances allow for reconciliation with the Black Lives Matter outlook on the Israel-Palestine conflict, but there is no indication that this will be a stable solution since Chomsky’s views are not representative of the Jewish community as a whole.
In conclusion, the conflicted history of Black-Jewish relations in the United States makes it difficult for Jews to align themselves with the political ideology of Black Lives Matter because of differences surrounding socio-economic standing, socio-racial hierarchy, and historical and generational conflicts. In certain cases, the only path for Jews to fully support Black Lives Matter entails going against their own interests, recognizing the privilege that BLM believes they have because of their appearance and class, and releasing the hegemonic Jewish grip on Israel. This is not easy, and certainly not supported by the Jewish community as a whole. However, progress has been made bridging these gaps. The apparent adoption of Critical Race Theory over Afro-pessimism in guiding Black Lives Matter’s political objectives has allowed for the softening of their stance on Jewish inclusion into the movement. It has opened the door for dialogue. At the same time, Jews’ willingness to recognize their own social progress and realize their newfound societal advantages, in turn, allows them to be a part of the solution. This will allow for further conversation in the future, and allow the two communities to mend their fractured past.