Blacks and Jews in America: An Invitation to Dialogue

Religion and politics professor Johnson (Tragic Soul-Life) and Jewish civilization scholar Berlinerblau (How to be Secular) expand on the course they co-teach at Georgetown University in this probing examination of the relationship between African Americans and Jews in the U.S. In essays, interviews, and a series of dialogues, Johnson and Berlinerblau discuss Jewish slaveholders in the antebellum South, the partnership between Blacks and Jews in the civil rights movement, the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and ultra-Orthodox Jews joining Blacks Lives Matter protests, among other matters. The authors also analyze the shifting racial categorization of Jews in America and the perception that while Blacks suffer from the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, “(white) Jews symbolize the promise of American success.” The dialogues between Johnson and Berlinerblau are particularly fruitful when they discuss—and sometimes argue over—such topics as the “unacknowledged paternalism” of Jews in the struggle for racial equality and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite some simplifications, as when Johnson suggests that Jews rose “from immigrants to powerbrokers in two generations,” their exchanges are insightful, nuanced, and engaging. This is a perceptive analysis of the “Black-Jewish encounter” in American history. (Feb.)