Encore Archive

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An Appeal to Two Troubled Communities

Harold Schulweis (Sh'ma, 9/177, September 21,1979)

In a few weeks the Jewish community, entering the High Holy Day season of turning and reconciliation. High on that agenda will be the relationship between Blacks and Jews which has plummeted to its nadir point. The precipitating occasion is the beclouded resignation of Ambassador Andrew Young. But it is apparent that the intensity of the reaction and counter- reaction to that event as expressed by Black and Jewish leaders stems from earlier and deeper sources.

A decade of disenchantment has burst forth in a cumulative rage. Jewish leaders have senses with deep unhappiness the rise of Black anti-semitism; Black leaders have interpreted certain Jewish positions on affirmative action and busing as a reversal of the traditional Jewish liberal stance. Jews perceive the Black aid and comfort to the PLO as an atrocious act, as bizarre as would be Jewish alliance with the Ku Klux Klan. Blacks view the amicus curiae support of some Jewish organizations in the Bakke case and prominence of men and women with Jewish identities opposing school busing as racist. Angers are impatient with distinctions. It seems to matter little that neither community is a monolith or that not all who bear Jewish names or Black identities speak for their entire communities. There is a consensus that the two communities no longer share their historic congruence of interest.

As one raised in the Jewish tradition and committed to the prophetic and rabbinic value-system, I find such a rift painful and tragic. By Biblical precept and historic experience, Jews share with Blacks a kinship of suffering. They have each of them "gone down to Egypt land." They know the bitterness of slavery, the genocidal terror of their enemies, the shame of discrimination. They know the heart of the slave and the stranger. In my own community, when we read Nat Turner's sermons to his fellow slaves grounded in the story of Exodus, when Mahalia Jackson sang the promise of "we shall overcome," when Martin Luther King raised his voice of righteous indignation, the sounds resonated in the marrow of being. We trembled with recognition. Is it all over between us now? Are we destined to enter our isolated camps as enemies? Are we content to accept such a separation?

Let us say "No" to Divide and Conquer

That verdict would visit a moral blight upon the land and upon the promise of its future. No society can remain so deeply divided, economically, educationally, politically that its dream is broken into contradictory parts. Between Whites and Blacks there are real conflicts and different judgements which cannot tolerate benign neglect. Between Jews and Blacks the conflicts produce a special pain precisely because there were such high expectations from each other. But where there is pain, there is hope.

Jews and Blacks must not allow themselves to be used. They must be wary of those who would polarize us. They must not allow divided judgements to be converted into racial or religious prejudices. The rhetoric of accusation and counter-accusation only serves to frustrate the constructive forces within both communities, and to justify the cynics who counsel indifference. Jews and Blacks know that within their respective constituencies are many men and women with strong memories. There are people in both communities with the power to heal the bruises and bind up the wounds. The leaders and laity of both groups should know that only the bigot profits from our falling apart. According to Wayne King, the New York Times correspondent based in the South, the Klan, which we thought to be long dead, has increased its national membership by 25 per cent in the five years. In Jackson, Mississippi, Klan night-riders shot up a synagogue and several Black churches. Klansmen burned crosses on the lawns of both Jewish and Black homes. They must not hand their common enemy victories through their severed relationship.

We can work together and disagree

Admittedly, they are separate communities with separate agenda and interests which do not and will not always coincide. But they become self-destructive when they blind themselves to the transcending commonality which binds them. Of course, a certain distance is necessary for the dignity of each communal self-identity. Over-dependence upon others often destroys a people's sense of self. But autonomy does not mean isolation. Blacks and Jews need each other. They are interdependent communities and they cut themselves off from each other at their own peril. Uncaring, angry, they prosper their enemies and lose their own souls.

A passage in the Talmud which is applicable to both our communities records the commentary of the rabbis on a verse in Deuteronomy 33:28, "And Israel dwelleth in safety, all alone, at the fountain of Jacob. " Then the prophet Amos came and revoked that terrible judgement and declared, "Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech Thee. How shall Jacob stand alone? for he is small, and then the Lord repented concerning this: 'This shall not be,' saith the Lord" (Amos 7:5-6). No community dares stand alone. Now, in the midst of anguish and pain, is the time for religious and secular leaders and laity, Blacks and Jews, to initiate candid and caring dialogue towards reconciling the interests of these two troubled communities.

The focus of our attention has centered upon Blacks and Jews, but the issues confronted are by far not exclusively theirs. No group can remain without, as if it were an uninvolved, innocent spectator. If we take the incident of Andrew Young to be a Jewish-Black affair, we will deceive ourselves. At its root it remains an American dilemma calling for a moral American solution.