culture clashing between african american and the jews

The Culture Clash between African Americans and the Jews

There was at one time an alliance between the African American and the Jews of America . This alliance has eroded to the point of outright antagonism today from the high point of interracial idealism at the time of the King-Kennedy era . This alliance began in the 1950 's , when the Civil Rights era began . Many people have tried to explain the current rift . Disagreement over Israel , affirmative action , conflicts between Jewish conservative and African American liberals or insensitivity over each other 's insecurities

(Steele , 1968 . The notion that there has been a serious falling out is downplaying the historic significance of the relationship . Recent reports by organizations like the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding point that cooperation between African Americans and Jews is far more common today than conflict . Affirmative action and support for reparations for the descendants of black slaves continue to be volatile s for blacks and Jews , but it would be a fallacy to conclude that the relationship is in serious danger because the groups don 't see eye to eye on every policy issue (Watson , 2005

The Jewish community had wanted to fully participate in all aspects of life in the US but had been merely tolerated for the majority of the time . The Jewish people were not exterminated , or physically abused as they were elsewhere , nor were there the Pogroms as there were in early Russia , nor were there the concentration camps of Nazi Germany but they were not welcomed and absorbed into the mainstream of life here . The Jews had not been assimilated . They had wished to participate and had made regular objections , but there had not been sufficient numbers of Jews in the US to cause any sizable protest . But with the Black community allied , there was a large enough group to cause waves of protest , large enough to be noticed . Like the Jews , Blacks had traditionally been excluded from full participation in the life of democratically equal America . This occurred with the onset of the Civil Rights Movement

It was this common ground of systematic exclusion , on which the alliance began . The all-white country clubs , the use of demeaning racial imagery , all are symbols of the majority White civilization While Blacks contributed the people and much of the grass roots organizational wizardry , Jews contributed much of the early intellectual and legal skill as well as a much of the Movement 's economic backing This alliance was important to black and Jewish progress toward the idea of full participation in American society

Blacks and Jews have benefited with this alliance , but the sacrifices have been great , also . Remember Michael Schwermer , Andrew Goodman and James Cheney (two Jews and a Black ) were found in a common grave in a Mississippi earthen dam (Shearer , 1998

The NAACP was founded by African Americans and Jews . Also , it was not a haphazard process by which the goal of full participation was achieved The process was carefully crafted . The target...