Jews and Blacks

In the book Jews and Blacks the authors Cornel West and Michael Lerner attempt to solve some of the problems and tension that have turned Black against Jews, and Jews against Blacks. What ethnic groups have suffered the most? They asked. It was believed that Jews and Blacks have been some of the most oppressed people in America and the world. This factor has linked these two groups as allies and enemies.

The Civil Rights Movement in America was centered on the coalition between Blacks and Jews. The late Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Hershel marched side by side in the March of Washington. While other Blacks and Jews fought, protested and died for the sake of the movement. In the book Michael Lerner and Cornel West explored the relationship between the two groups during and after the 1950’s-1960’s. Lerner and West exclusively addressed the bitter end of what seemed to become of a good relationship between Jews and Blacks. In spite of the remarkable force that the Black-Jewish group has become the outcome was that it came to an end.

After the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King the process declined and the new Black Nationalism emerged from the surface. The nationalist movement broke the partnership between the Blacks and Jews diminished and forced the two groups towards separation. The Black Nationalists believed that if the Whites considered themselves good people then they would go back to their own neighborhoods and teach their own race so that the Blacks could solve their own problems.