As today marks the start of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, we reflect on decades of Black and Jewish social justice activists struggling, living – and dying – side by side in the cause of creating a more equitable world.
I started my activism fighting against South African apartheid and quickly leared about Jewish South African activist and politician, Joe Slovo. “A Marxist-Leninist, Slovo was a long-time leader and theorist in the South African Communist Party (SACP), a leading member of the African National Congress (ANC), and a commander of the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). A South African citizen from a Jewish-Lithuanian family, Slovo was a delegate to the multiracial Congress of the People of June 1955 which drew up the Freedom Charter. He was imprisoned for six months in 1960, and emerged as a leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe the following year. He lived in exile from 1963 to 1990, conducting operations against the apartheid régime from the United Kingdom, Angola, Mozambique, and Zambia. In 1990 he returned to South Africa, and took part in the negotiations that ended apartheid. After the elections of 1994, he became Minister for Housing in Nelson Mandela’s government.” (from Wikipedia). One of our strongest supporters in the fight against South African apartheid was the former Canadian Jewish Congress.
Elements of Jewish involvement in the U.S. civil rights movement, like the June 1964 murders of young, Jewish activist “freedom riders” Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama in March 1965, have been well publicized. However, what has gotten less far attention are things like, “…in the early 1900s, Jewish newspapers drew parallels between the Black movement out of the South and the Jews’ escape from Egypt, pointing out that both Blacks and Jews lived in ghettos, and calling anti-Black riots in the South “pogroms”. Stressing the similarities rather than the differences between the Jewish and Black experience in America, Jewish leaders emphasized the idea that both groups would benefit the more America moved toward a society of merit, free of religious, ethnic and racial restrictions.
A 1934 ore-miner strike leading to the killing of several Black miners was the catalyst for physicist Joseph Gelders‘ civil rights activism and labor organizing efforts. Gelders and his wife Esther started hosting a weekly discussion group for students at University of Alabama at Birmingham. He established an Alabama committee to work on the Scottsboro Boys case, [where nine African American teenagers and young men, ages 13 to 20, were accused in Alabama of raping two white women in 1931.] Due to his efforts, on September 23, 1936, Gelders was kidnapped and assaulted by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
The American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League were central to the campaign against racial prejudice. Jews made substantial financial contributions to many civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. About 50 percent of the civil rights attorneys in the South during the 1960s were Jews, as were over 50 percent of the Whites who went to Mississippi in 1964 to challenge Jim Crow Laws.[5] Julius Rosenwald was a Jewish philanthropist who donated a large part of his fortune to supporting education of Blacks in the South by providing matching funds for construction of schools in rural areas.[14] Jews played a major role in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in its early decades. Jews involved in the NAACP included Joel Elias Spingarn (the first chairman), Arthur B. Spingarn, and founder Henry Moskowitz. More recently, Jack Greenberg was a leader in the organization.
Cooperation between Jewish and African-American organizations peaked after World War II—sometimes called the “golden age” of the relationship. Leaders of each group joined each other in order to launch an effective movement for racial equality in the United States, and Jews funded and led some national civil rights organizations. Conversely, African-American Civil Rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois wrote testimonies and op-eds in Jewish publications that decried the Nazi violence in Europe after he visited the eviscerated Warsaw Ghetto. Historically, Black colleges and universities also hired Jewish refugee professors who were not given comparable jobs in white institutions because American culture was anti-semitic. This era of cooperation culminated in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial or religious discrimination in schools and other public facilities, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited discriminatory voting practices and authorized the government to oversee and review state practices.
Northern and Western Jews often supported desegregation in their communities and schools, even at the risk of diluting the unity of their close-knit Jewish communities, which were frequently a critical component of Jewish life.
In 1965, Martin Luther King Jr., said,
How could there be anti-Semitism among Negroes when our Jewish friends have demonstrated their commitment to the principle of tolerance and brotherhood not only in the form of sizable contributions, but in many other tangible ways, and often at great personal sacrifice. Can we ever express our appreciation to the rabbis who chose to give moral witness with us in St. Augustine during our recent protest against segregation in that unhappy city? Need I remind anyone of the awful beating suffered by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland when he joined the civil rights workers there in Hattiesburg, Mississippi? And who can ever forget the sacrifice of two Jewish lives, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, in the swamps of Mississippi? It would be impossible to record the contribution that the Jewish people have made toward the Negro’s struggle for freedom—it has been so great.” (all italics from Wikipedia)
In Canada, Jewish advocacy led to striking down inequitable laws that disproportionately impacted Jews and Blacks. In his 2000 address, Jews, Human Rights and the Making of a New Canada, former Canadian Jewish Congress president Irving Abella spoke about how advocacy by the Congress’ Joint Public Relations Committee (JPRC) led to the Ontario government passing the 1951 Act to Promote Fair Employment Practices in Ontario. He spoke about how, in Dresden, Ontario at that time, “…it was reported that 4 of the town’s 5 restaurants would not serve Blacks nor would the hotels allow Blacks as guests….Blacks were excluded socially and economically from town life; barbershops, beauty salons, taverns and pool halls refused admission and service to all Blacks.”
Abella detailed how, “after the Fair Employment Practices Act had passed, the human rights groups around the Congress’ JPRC began lobbying for a fair accommodations practices law. And Dresden became the focus for the struggle. So outrageous was the anti-Black behaviour of many of the town’s businesses, that a huge lobby led by the Jewish Labour Committee was mounted to compel the government to introduce legislation preventing discrimination in housing and service. And in March of 1954, the [Leslie] Frost government introduced just such a bill in the Ontario legislature.”
The close relationship between Black and Jewish activists during the Civil Rights era waned in subsequent years for various reasons. Despite that, there were notable Jewish activist exceptions who did great work that positively impacted Black Canadians. The progressive powerhouse Lewis family – father Stephen Lewis, son Avi Lewis and Avi’s wife, Naomi Klein, have been doing great social justice work for decades. From Stephen Lewis’ 1992 report on race relations in Ontario, to his work in Africa as the U.N. envoy on HIV/AIDS, to Naomi’s Klein’s work on “disaster capitalism” to Avi and Naomi’s work on climate change, the Lewis family has been at the forefront of highlighting issues affecting Black Canadians and other marginalized groups.
The global Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s murder and the pandemic have brought Black and Jewish activists together again, this time to address the rise in hate crimes against both groups.
Ottawa’s United for All is a multi-faith coalition of 44 organizations representing 150+ partners committed to overcoming hate-based violence, racism, and extremism in East Ontario. Before his death in 2021, former Canadian Jewish Congress President and Kind Canada founder Rabbi Reuven Bulka was one of United for All’s main proponents.
Although Black and Jewish social justice activists have always had to contend with those who want to maintain the status quo – including members of their own communities – their collaboration has, and continues to, lead to change and a better world for all.