- 10 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:01Viewers like you make this program possible.
00:03Support your local PBS station.
00:15By the end of the 20th century,
00:18relations between black and Jewish Americans
00:20had grown deeply complicated.
00:23Nothing has separated the Jewish and the black community
00:26more than affirmative action.
00:28Andrew Young secretly has a meeting with members of the PLO.
00:32The issue right now is not Jews and blacks.
00:36The issue really is the Middle East.
00:38Black men storm through the street
00:40to kill a innocent young man.
00:42The alliance that once sprang from shared oppression
00:45had been tested by politics,
00:48by foreign conflicts,
00:49and by the passage of time.
00:52Tensions began simmering last night.
00:54If you want any more evidence
00:56that racism and antisemitism are linked,
00:58think about Charlottesville.
00:59You will not replace us!
01:02We must not allow the relationship
01:05between Jews and African Americans to suffer.
01:08During this time, blacks and Jews
01:10have been pulled together and pushed apart.
01:13The alleged gunman's social media
01:15filled with hate against Jews.
01:18Immigrants.
01:18We're at a moment where
01:20all sorts of malevolent forces are at work.
01:24Still, I think the story of that relationship
01:27has something to teach us
01:29about difference, about division,
01:32and about the hard work of coalition building.
01:47When Dr. King referred to himself as a drum major,
01:50with his death, the drums are louder still.
01:54We do not yet know whether they are summons to battle
01:57or to the meeting of reconciliation and peace.
02:01That choice, it seems to me, is largely up to us.
02:091968 would see widespread student protests
02:13and massive social upheaval.
02:17Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy
02:20would be assassinated within a few short months of each other.
02:26That was also the year I graduated from high school
02:29in Piedmont, West Virginia.
02:32And after a year at the local junior college,
02:35in the fall of 1969,
02:38I would transfer into the sophomore class at Yale
02:41as one among the largest number of black students
02:44ever to matriculate at the university,
02:48reflecting Yale's effort to diversify its student body.
02:53During the Kennedy, and especially the Johnson administrations,
02:56there was a heady rush of legislation
02:58to expiate for 300 years of what came to be known
03:01as racism and sexism.
03:04Affirmative action dismantled a racist quota.
03:08There always was a specified number of black people,
03:11and so affirmative action blew that up.
03:15The class of 66 at Yale had six black guys to graduate.
03:18The class that hit campus in September of 69,
03:22three years later, had 96 black kids.
03:25The largest presence of black people
03:27in the history of Yale.
03:29I was one of them.
03:30The university says it will have a new program
03:33to guarantee minority admissions.
03:35Affirmative action, designed to benefit women
03:39as well as people of color,
03:41would come to be a defining issue of my generation.
03:45Some institutions initially sought to increase racial diversity
03:49equality through quotas, a policy that became a bone of contention
03:54between blacks and Jews.
03:57Jewish organizations long committed to the civil rights struggle
04:00found themselves aligned with conservatives
04:03in opposition to racial quotas in college admissions.
04:08Whether you discriminate in favor of somebody
04:10or against somebody, it eventually means the same thing.
04:13You're working against that concept of a society of equals,
04:16all being treated equally.
04:18Just a generation earlier, quotas had been used
04:22to cap the number of Jewish students on campus.
04:25And in the eyes of many Jews,
04:27any quota system threatened to erase their hard-won gains.
04:34What some people call affirmative action,
04:36others call reverse discrimination.
04:40Increasing the number of black students through quotas
04:43would, by definition, reduce the number of white students,
04:48including Jews.
04:50Nothing has separated the Jewish and the black community more
04:54in the last generation than this issue of affirmative action.
05:00For much of the 20th century, black and Jewish Americans
05:04had stood shoulder to shoulder on many social and political issues.
05:10That seemed to be changing as the fight over racial quotas escalated.
05:16But when affirmative action shifted from strict quotas to diversity goals,
05:22Jewish opinion also changed.
05:25With quotas off the table, many Jewish organizations aligned with defenders
05:31of affirmative action in cases before the Supreme Court.
05:36Differences between the two groups on issues like racial quotas
05:40would soon move beyond college campuses into politics more broadly
05:46and ultimately onto the world stage.
05:52Traditionally, Israel was seen by Jewish people
05:56as a safe haven from persecution and a core part of their identity.
06:02But to some black activists,
06:04Israel increasingly was viewed as a colonial power.
06:09The normative practice among American Jews from the 1960s on
06:15became one of very deep connection with the State of Israel.
06:19Precisely when Israel became more and more criticized
06:22by many people within the American black community.
06:25We are moral messengers and we believe and support
06:29the human rights of all Palestinians,
06:32including the right to be self-determinant.
06:36As the 70s progressed,
06:39the Palestinian cause began to gain traction globally.
06:42In 1975, the United Nations,
06:47over the objections of many Western countries,
06:50including the United States,
06:52passed a resolution declaring Zionism to be a form of racism.
06:58Yes, United Republic of Tanzania.
07:00Yes, United States.
07:01No.
07:02The project resolution is adopted.
07:05The 1975 resolution had widespread support
07:09and it really shocked the Jewish world.
07:12This resolution, based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance,
07:17is devoid of any moral or legal value.
07:20The Zionism as Racism resolution led to the consolidation
07:25of a new coalition of non-Western actors,
07:28arrayed against Western powers,
07:30who considered Israel to be part of the Western camp.
07:34That coalition sought to bring an end
07:38to all remaining forms of colonialism in the world.
07:41They saw Zionism as a particularly live form of colonialism.
07:47At the same time, Jews, especially in the United States,
07:51came to regard that equation of Zionism and Racism
07:55or Zionism as colonialism as the new anti-Semitism.
08:06As the opponents dug in,
08:08many veterans of the civil rights struggle,
08:11well aware of the critical role the Black-Jewish alliance
08:14had played in its success,
08:17refused to abandon their Jewish allies.
08:22And in November 1975,
08:25they took out a full-page ad in the New York Times
08:28to reaffirm their commitment to Israel.
08:31BASIC, the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee,
08:36was formed by a bunch of the old guard civil rights leaders.
08:41As SNCC and these other groups
08:44become more and more anti-Israel,
08:48questioning whether Israel should exist at all.
08:51They would make the two people who were Jewish
08:56who helped found the NAACP racist.
09:00They would make thousands of Jews
09:03who gave Martin Luther King over $2 million racist.
09:10Shame upon them.
09:13These other Black leaders say,
09:14no, no, that's not how we feel about Israel.
09:17The Black community is with you.
09:19We stand for Israel.
09:21Stay with us.
09:23These leaders were determined to emphasize
09:26the importance of keeping the alliance intact.
09:29And while support for Israel in the Black community remained strong,
09:34the efforts of some Black leaders
09:37to engage in the politics of the Middle East
09:40would strain that alliance
09:43as violent acts of terrorism
09:45carried out in the name of the Palestinian cause
09:48began to reshape the political climate.
09:51The Israeli sportsmen were taken hostage in their living quarters
09:54in the Olympic Village in Munich.
09:56Some were murdered on the spot.
09:59Palestinian guerrillas who have seized an Italian cruise ship
10:02are now demanding that Egypt give them time on radio and television
10:05to broadcast their demands.
10:06If they don't get that, they say,
10:07they will begin killing the passengers.
10:09The Palestinian Liberation Organization, or the PLO,
10:13was the main group that people identify as commandeering
10:19the Palestinian issues.
10:21Yasser Arafat becomes this archetype of the PLO.
10:26I have come bearing an olive branch
10:29and a freedom fighter's gun.
10:33Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.
10:38Arafat had always presented themselves as a freedom fighter.
10:42But in the context of the U.S., Arafat was the terrorist.
10:47The American Jewish community regarded Yasser Arafat
10:50as someone with whom one could not enter into
10:54any legitimate form of political discourse.
10:58Martin Luther King's chief lieutenant
11:00and basic signatory Andrew Young,
11:04now ambassador to the United Nations,
11:06found himself caught in a black Jewish quagmire.
11:11President Carter led the prolonged applause for the swearing in
11:15of Andrew Young.
11:16As the first African American ambassador to the United Nations,
11:21Young was an important historical symbol to the black community.
11:25This is one of the highest offices that a person can hold.
11:28And the fact that Carter would appoint him as the kind of symbol of America,
11:33the United Nations, meant something.
11:36Hoping to forestall the introduction of a U.N. resolution about Palestinian statehood,
11:43Ambassador Young engaged in an unauthorized meeting with the PLO's U.N. Observer.
11:49Andy, who had been on the front lines of civil rights struggles across the South,
11:55believed that the only way to bring about an effect of change
11:58was through dialogue and communication and conversation.
12:02Andrew Young secretly has a meeting with members of the PLO,
12:06because he's trying to find out ways to kind of broker a peace.
12:09To be in conversations with the PLO,
12:12it was taboo for any American politician.
12:16And so he did it quietly.
12:18Word of this leaks and the Jewish community erupts in outrage.
12:24After less than two years on the job, Ambassador Young was forced to resign
12:30because of the tempest that arose from his clandestine meeting with PLO leadership.
12:36The black community and the Jewish community have traditionally worked together,
12:42will continue to work together, in spite of differences.
12:46The issue right now is not Jews and blacks.
12:49The issue really is the Middle East.
12:54Even though it was President Jimmy Carter,
12:56who had reluctantly demanded Young's resignation,
13:00some black activists claimed that his hasty exit
13:04had been orchestrated by powerful Jewish elites.
13:09Andrew Young is forced to resign, and blacks are very angry.
13:14And this is not just a street reaction.
13:16These are the people who speak for the center of black life and black politics.
13:22And here they are feeling that Jews essentially have driven Andy Young out of office.
13:30Many of us felt that that was a bridge too far to go after the first black UN ambassador,
13:37who clearly had a record of working for reconciliation with everybody.
13:42Isn't that what diplomats are supposed to do?
13:44Is meet with both sides and see if they can find some common ground?
13:49Isn't that what Dr. King did?
13:51That was one of the rifts in the black and Jewish community.
13:56In the weeks that followed, a second diplomatic controversy,
14:01involving another prominent black leader,
14:04would sow more seeds of mistrust between blacks and Jews.
14:08We're concerned about the plight of Palestinian people.
14:12Each of us know the history of terror in this region too well.
14:18September of 1979, the Reverend Jesse Jackson met with the PLO.
14:23Jesse was looking at the PLO as an integral part of a human rights solution
14:29to what was going on in Israel and Palestine.
14:33And he meets with Yasser Arafat, the head of the PLO, and he hugs him.
14:39I remember the photo. I remember how it violated a sense of propriety and legitimacy for a major American religious
14:49and political figure
14:50to grant credibility to a person who was deemed, in the American Jewish imagination,
14:55to be nothing other than a terrorist and, in fact, the chief terrorist.
15:00That picture of him embracing Arafat goes viral.
15:04And Jews are very suspicious of him.
15:06And many blacks are suspicious of him too, frankly.
15:11Jackson lost some Jewish support for his actions, but not all.
15:15Many liberal Jews committed to social justice at home
15:18continue to support him as his political star continued to rise.
15:23I announce to you this day my decision to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for the presidency of
15:34the United States of America.
15:35Just four years later, Jackson announced his bid for the presidency.
15:42As the charismatic leader of a multiracial coalition,
15:46Jackson positioned himself as the champion of the oppressed.
15:52The Rainbow Coalition was a very savvy way of reaching beyond black and brown people
15:59and getting white liberals and progressives on his side.
16:04And I would include a great deal of progressive Jews.
16:10But during his 1984 campaign, he made some off-color remarks to a black journalist,
16:17which would harm his coalition and cripple his candidacy.
16:21Milton Coleman, who was a black reporter for The Post,
16:25was talking to Jesse Jackson after a campaign event.
16:28And Jackson said to him, let's talk black talk.
16:32Which Jackson took to mean off the record.
16:35In the conversation, Jackson said, all the Hymes want to talk about is Israel.
16:40When I go to Hymetown, that's all they want to talk about.
16:43Hymetown being New York.
16:44And all hell breaks loose.
16:46Hey, Jesse, you anti-Semite!
16:49Get out of our way!
16:52Jackson and the Jews has become an issue in this campaign.
16:55We just don't want to see Jackson come in there.
16:58The press seized upon this, and it really endangered Jesse Jackson's campaign
17:05at a moment where it has been really building up steam.
17:10For many Jews, this is confirmation that Jackson is anti-Semitic,
17:15and he's fanning these flames.
17:17It was not in the spirit of meanness, but an off-color remark having no bearing on religion or politics.
17:24However innocent and unintended, it was insensitive and wrong.
17:28At the Democratic Convention, he tries to make amends,
17:33but it's something that he'll never be able to live down or to get rid of.
17:38When he said the Hymetown remark, obviously an anti-Semitic slur,
17:44that becomes another controversial moment that Jackson has to apologize for
17:49and that Saturday Night Live memorably lampoons.
17:55And this is a very special message to all you chosen people out there.
18:15While Jackson would make another bid for the presidency in 1988, the damage had been done.
18:22For many Jews, it seemed like the boundaries had shifted,
18:26as open expressions of anti-Jewish hostility increasingly appeared to be fair game.
18:34This feeling only hardened when one black leader decided to make hate
18:39part of his appeal to the wider black community.
18:43We have to follow our self-interest even if our self-interest causes us to be at variance
18:50with the interests of the Jewish community.
18:53And, unlike Jackson, he was completely unapologetic about his attacks on Jews.
19:00Here the Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler.
19:08Well, that's a good name.
19:11Hitler was a very great man.
19:15Louis Farrakhan's blatantly anti-Semitic views
19:18were widely attacked in the mainstream media.
19:22But that was only one source of his platform.
19:26As a leader of the Nation of Islam, a 20th century faith tradition
19:31that uses Islamic idioms to advance black nationalist ideals,
19:37Farrakhan directed his message to a growing number of young black males
19:42individuals who felt increasingly dispossessed.
19:45And if we start darting the black community with businesses,
19:49challenging ourselves to be better than we are,
19:53white folk instead of driving by using the N-word,
19:57they'll say, look, look at them.
20:02While we knew Farrakhan was problematic,
20:06you have to understand the dire conditions that black people were in.
20:11There was so much that Farrakhan was doing that was tangible
20:17for black people alongside a nation that was actually often doing the opposite.
20:25God is blessing me to raise up a nation of black people
20:29who are considered spiritually, politically, and economically dead.
20:33While his platform of black pride and economic self-reliance
20:39resonated with some segments of the black community,
20:43Farrakhan also used his broad reach to spread dangerous falsehoods.
20:49I was in a class one day and a student was talking about slaveholders in the South
20:54and he turned to one of the Jewish kids and he said,
20:59yeah, one of your ancestors, Joseph.
21:02I was shocked, you know, and I realized that he was basing this slur on misinformation.
21:09And that was this crazy book called The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.
21:14In the South, 75% of Jews own slaves, while 36% of the Gentiles own slaves.
21:26Published by the Historical Research Department of the Nation of Islam,
21:31this three-volume work claimed to expose the long-hidden secret
21:36of the pivotal role Jews had played in the transatlantic slave trade.
21:43Farrakhan argued, with much fanfare, that all along it had been the Jews who were responsible
21:50for the original sin of slavery, the source of so much black misery.
21:57Are Jewish people in America responsible for the plight of black people?
22:01Well, unfortunately, sir, it's come to light that the Jewish people were significantly involved in the slave trade.
22:07It was just total rubbish. Somebody had to speak up, so I did.
22:11My motivation was simple. I wanted to set the historical record straight.
22:17Jewish involvement was not at all the driving force in the history of the slave trade.
22:23And to suggest otherwise was an attempt to scapegoat Jews
22:28and exacerbate tensions that could undermine the historic alliance between blacks and Jews.
22:35It received a lot of attention, a lot of hatred, death threats.
22:41You know, why'd you do it, brother?
22:45Them Jews paying you, you know?
22:47I'm a scholar. It was important to say that it was false, because it was false.
22:54Jews saw in Farrakhan a real danger.
22:57He put a match to this kind of underground feeling that blacks and Jews had
23:04and that they could not really trust each other.
23:10Economic and cultural tensions between blacks and Jews
23:13always had the potential of surfacing in communities where they were living side by side.
23:20And in the summer of 1991, in one Brooklyn, New York neighborhood,
23:27those very tensions exploded with fatal consequences.
23:32What is unique about Brooklyn is somewhat unique to New York in that it holds this inherent contradiction.
23:39It's a very diverse borough and it's deeply segregated.
23:46So while these people live among one another, they don't really live with each other.
23:54And in Crown Heights in particular, there is a sort of hyper-extended version of that.
24:03The black and Jewish populations of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, were a unique mix.
24:08Black residents were mostly immigrants from the Caribbean, rather than migrants from the American South.
24:15While their Hasidic neighbors were part of an Orthodox Jewish community known for its uniquely conservative interpretation of Jewish law.
24:24Their black hats and long black coats were signs of difference, as indelible as the black skin of their neighbors.
24:33Hasidic Jews had never been part of the civil rights movement.
24:36They had never been part of Jewish liberalism.
24:38They were a very insular community.
24:40They were literally living cheek by jowl with a working-class black community that saw these Jews expanding
24:46because the Hasidic Jews wanted to live together.
24:50There is inequality which is rampant in housing, in access to places of public accommodation, in social services.
24:57And because of the way that these communities are constructed, these obstacles were seen in black and Jewish terms.
25:05It is, the Jews are the haves, the blacks are the have-nots.
25:10In Crown Heights, the Lubavitcher faction of the Jewish community maintained their own private schools, ambulances, and security patrols.
25:20Their black neighbors, however, were reliant on public resources, often lacking by comparison.
25:29Resentments over these disparities would boil over after one tragic incident.
25:37Black residents are demanding justice after a motorist, a Hasidic man, ran a red light, jumped a curb, and hit
25:44two black children, killing one and critically injuring the other.
25:47The violence erupted shortly after a Jewish-owned ambulance whisked away the Jewish driver.
25:54The issue is that there must be justice if you ever want real peace.
25:58We lost a seven-year-old kid. Who was the driver, and how does he end up going on the
26:03curb?
26:04They would never produce the driver.
26:07Throwing rocks, carrying bats, and overturning police cars, an angry crowd roamed through the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.
26:14Rioting breaks out, and an Australian exchange student who's Jewish is walking along, a group of blacks set upon him,
26:23and kill him.
26:24To kill an innocent young man on the street, to burn cars of innocent people.
26:30For many Jewish residents, the beatings, the violence, resembled what their ancestors had faced in Eastern Europe.
26:40And immediately taps into that longer history of oppression.
26:45New York Mayor David Dinkins came to calm the crowd, but could do little about it.
26:49We've got to increase the peace.
26:51David Dinkins, who was the black mayor of New York at the time, who had been elected with Jewish support,
26:56couldn't figure out what to do.
26:58Police in New York City are hoping to prevent a fourth day of trouble.
27:02Many criticized Dinkins for not kind of cracking down enough.
27:07And as a result, the riot was a real stain on the first black mayor of New York City's legacy.
27:14Once the violence was quelled, sadly, neither side would feel that justice had been served, leaving open wounds to fester.
27:25In the Crown Heights aftermath, black and Jewish residents seemed unable and unwilling to hear one another.
27:34Just when it felt like the situation was hopeless, one courageous artist decided to plunge into an arena where others
27:44feared to tread.
27:49Anna DeVere Smith interviewed blacks and Jews.
27:54Sometimes I think it's no justice because the Jewish people, they are very high up.
28:03In 1992, playwright and actor Anna DeVere Smith interviewed over 100 people from every side of the Crown Heights conflict
28:16and brilliantly performed their words verbatim.
28:20I understood a function of art was to break down divisions among people, not only by listening to them, but
28:30then by becoming them.
28:32My brother was the only victim who paid for being Jewish with his life.
28:40What in the world drew you to the events of Crown Heights? Were you trying to bring the communities together?
28:48I wasn't trying to bring the community together. I was trying to give the community an opportunity to talk about
28:53why they weren't together.
28:54Do you think that being aware of the specificity of our experiences, our commonalities, can serve as a basis for
29:02coalition politics between blacks and Jews?
29:06I'm not interested in commonality. I'm interested in particularness. I'm more interested in the tragic separation.
29:14The thing that offers me is a desire to know about that which is very different than me.
29:20It's always dangerous to compare like one group suffering from, you know, the Jews have a lot that we've suffered.
29:27I mean, the trauma of the Holocaust is still very much with us. And I mean, there was a unique
29:32horror to slavery.
29:34It's a very different thing.
29:37Like Anna, Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning writer Tony Kushner seeks to explore America's cultural diversity and celebrate its differences.
29:50Raised in the American South, Kushner's semi-autobiographical musical, Caroline or Change, tells the story of a black maid working
30:01for a Jewish family in Lake Charles, Louisiana, during the civil rights movement.
30:08The woman who worked for my family as a maid, Maude Lee Davis, who is the Caroline or Change, is
30:16based on her. It's dedicated to her.
30:18Was focusing on these two families, one black, one Jewish, meant to be a metaphor for the larger relationship between
30:27blacks and Jews in the United States?
30:30Well, I don't know if it was a metaphor. I mean, it was my first lived experience of this incredibly
30:37complicated relationship.
30:39I mean, the black Jewish relationship has suffered a lot in the last 30 or 40 years.
30:46It suggests in so many ways how hard and complicated the things that have torn us apart as communities are
30:56and how complicated the process of bringing them back together is going to be.
31:03After Crown Heights, the black Jewish relationship here at home seemed to have reached a low point.
31:11But half a world away, another drama was playing out, one that offered a promise of renewal.
31:19Israel has more than 15,000 brand new immigrants tonight. They're the black Jews of Ethiopia.
31:24Just a day and a half ago, they were caught in that country's escalating civil war.
31:28They fled because of famine and there was another wave of oppression of Jews in Ethiopia.
31:36Many of them were trying to escape. It's a powerful story of perseverance and of faith.
31:44After centuries of persecution, with civil war and famine ravaging the country, Jews in Ethiopia were offered a means of
31:54escape.
31:55In a covert operation that would unfold between 1984 and 1991, Israel would provide a safe haven.
32:07There's a kind of groundswell of political momentum that leads to the famous airlifts.
32:16The first airlifts were organized in 1984. 12,000 people were flown to safety in a secret Israeli operation codenamed
32:24Moses.
32:25When the airlift started, the group is referred to as the better Israel and they're seen as Jews within an
32:31Ethiopian context.
32:33At the same time, the rabbis in Israel insist that they go through a conversion ceremony, even though they are
32:40Jewish.
32:41Because they're not Jewish in the European sense of the word. They have different practices.
32:46Although the Torah was at the heart of Jewish life in Ethiopia, centuries of isolation marked by adherence to their
32:54own ancient religious traditions meant that holidays like Hanukkah were unfamiliar to them until they reached Israel.
33:03So it wasn't that people said they weren't Jews. The better Israel were seen as Eastern, backwards, primitive.
33:13And so they had a need to go through a formal conversion.
33:19Now for many, particularly the elders of the better Israel, this was an offense.
33:26You have this Israeli embrace of, we are all children of Israel, and at the same time, racism.
33:34And that also helps bring the issue of black Jews everywhere in the world.
33:40Suddenly people are talking about these black Jews who've been airlifted by the thousands into Israel.
33:46And they become catapulted into the spotlight as the quintessential representation of black Jews in the world.
33:56I believe that with our story, we can strengthen the relationship between the Jews and the blacks in America.
34:05The rise of visibility and the rise in the numbers of Jews of color have created really interesting questions about
34:13what it means to be Jewish in the United States.
34:16In a way, it's holding up a mirror about the Jewish experience and how Jewish identity has become merged over
34:23many decades with being white.
34:25I don't consider myself white. And when I once told our class that, they laughed in my face. You laughed
34:31in my face. I did.
34:33Many white American Jews are absolutely stunned to learn that there are so many Jews of color.
34:39There's an assumption that all Jews are white, that all Jews are powerful. And we're not examining the ways in
34:45which black Jews deal with their own double consciousness.
34:49It was kind of like this watershed moment for interracial kids. I felt like it was a recognition that you
34:59can be biracial, but also that if you are black and white, being Jewish means something kind of different. And
35:08I really appreciated that.
35:11Five, four, three, two, one. Happy New Year!
35:16As the 20th century drew to a close, being black and Jewish no longer had to be considered an either
35:26or proposition. In fact, for the first time in American history, the 2000 census allowed people to choose more than
35:36one ethnic or racial identity.
35:38It seems fitting then that when a new generation black leader emerged, his own multiracial background would both challenge and
35:49broaden the view of what was possible.
35:53I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America.
36:01Barack Obama!
36:03Barack Obama's arrival on the national political scene appeared destined.
36:08Obama!
36:09When Barack Obama decides to run, it's completely perfect.
36:14Obama!
36:15He is a candidate that all unite around. He is totally pro-Jewish. He runs ads in Hebrew. He declares
36:25the black Jewish alliances alive.
36:28We must not allow the relationship between Jews and African Americans to suffer. This is a bond that must be
36:36strengthened.
36:37Obama not only understood the importance of the historical alliance between blacks and Jews, but he frequently referenced the Old
36:45Testament exodus story in campaign stump speeches.
36:50I stand on the shoulders of giants. I thank the Moses generation. Yes. Yes.
36:59We got to remember now that Joshua still had a job to do.
37:05By accepting the torch from the old guard elders of the movement, whom he called the Moses generation, Obama sounded
37:14a hopeful note by declaring himself the leader of the Joshua generation, the broad-based coalition that had worked to
37:22get him elected.
37:23We're going to leave it. We're going to leave it to the Joshua generation to make sure it happens. There
37:29are still some battles that need to be fought, some rivers that need to be crossed.
37:35There's this hunger for this kind of throwback to coalition politics and alliance politics where you'd have this leader, you
37:45know, this kind of transformational black leader who could see because of that shared experience and who could then drive
37:52an agenda that would be beneficial to all.
37:59Perhaps the fairytale was that you could move on and resuscitate this without dealing with the deep insecurity, anxiety and
38:09wounds that had been left by earlier unresolved fractures.
38:14This is an ABC News special report.
38:17One of the deadliest attacks on a place of worship in United States history.
38:2221-year-old Dylann Roof opened fire in one of the most famous black churches in the South.
38:28Mother Emanuel is, in fact, more than a church. This is a place of worship that was founded by African
38:36Americans seeking liberty.
38:39The shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in June 2015 was a wake-up call to anyone who thought electing
38:46a black president meant that the concept of race and anti-black racism were things of the past.
38:53The election of Barack Obama immediately exposes how deeply ingrained white supremacy is in the fabric of American society and
39:03culture.
39:03And although the massacre at Mother Emanuel was aimed at black worshipers, rising ethnic hatred would prove to be colorblind.
39:13If you look at the manifesto of the shooter, he wasn't just reeling against black people. He was also talking
39:20about Jews.
39:22I found in my own experience that most people that are anti-Semites are also racist.
39:30The Charleston shooters' words were part of a larger pattern, a resurgence of white nationalism, targeting both blacks and Jews,
39:41reminding them that they faced a common enemy.
39:46Hate.
39:49In the years that followed, the pace of these attacks accelerated as racism and anti-Semitism were amplified by the
39:58social media echo chamber.
40:01And nowhere was that more apparent than in Charlottesville, Virginia.
40:06Tensions began simmering last night, when white nationalists carried torches in the city, eerily reminiscent of Nazi Party propaganda events
40:14in the 20s and 30s.
40:16If you want any more evidence that racism and anti-Semitism are linked, think about Charlottesville.
40:22What were those people chanting?
40:27Jews shall not replace us.
40:31Saturday's rally was sponsored by white nationalists who showed up in force.
40:36When you see Charlottesville, their march had said Jews will not replace us.
40:40And they were defending the statue of a Confederate general to enslave us.
40:47Charlottesville had sounded an alarm, and no one could have anticipated the horror to come.
40:56Just a year later, a gunman stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack
41:05in the history of the United States.
41:08They came together to worship and were brutally murdered.
41:12The alleged gunman's social media filled with hate against Jews, immigrants.
41:17In the end, eleven worshipers from three different congregations were killed, all because of their faith.
41:26In the wake of the Tree of Life shooting, Black and Jewish faith leaders and their congregants linked arms in
41:33mourning and in solidarity.
41:36We shall overcome someday.
41:47Of course, I really welcome my dear brother and my friend, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers and his congregation, Tree of Life.
41:58Rabbi Myers lost seven members of his own synagogue in the massacre.
42:04I reached out, asked for the rabbi, just say, hey, I'm here, man, and I care.
42:10If it helps him to know that someone cares, that someone's thinking about what he must be going through.
42:19For far too long, we've had a vast silent majority in America.
42:25We need that silent majority to become vocal, to say, this is not okay.
42:29This is enough is enough.
42:33After years of strain, the Black-Jewish alliance, frayed but resilient, began to regain momentum, united against the growing wave
42:45of hate.
42:50Then came October 7th, 2023.
42:55Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and brutally murdered more than 1,000 Israeli Jews and took more than 250 hostages.
43:08Jews were absolutely horrified.
43:11This is not just two sides fighting.
43:13This is Israel facing a group that wants it annihilated.
43:19The terrible, brutal massacre by Hamas occurs on October 7th, and the set of responses, either justifying or calling attention
43:29to the loss of life on both sides, was met with anger and resentment on the part of many Jews.
43:38I must confess that I myself would have wished that more of my friends and allies on the left would
43:45have been able to condemn what occurred on October 7th as a kind of searing of the human soul.
43:54I think if you go back and look at social media comments, there was condemnation of Hamas.
44:06But fast forward 6, 12, 18 days later, in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza and the devastation, the sentiment had
44:17changed.
44:19After October 7th, whatever strides forward the black Jewish coalition had built became very shaky because now the sympathy in
44:34the United States was with the Palestinians.
44:39The horrendous attack on October 7th, with the callous murders and taking the hostages that accompanied it, was followed by
44:48a brutal war that brought widespread devastation and a tremendous loss of life in Gaza, setting in motion a passionate
44:57and bitter debate.
45:00And nowhere was the atmosphere more charged than on college campuses.
45:10The protest movement begins in the fall of 2023, and it creates very deep battle lines, which seem to be
45:17unbridgeable.
45:20What you have in campus after campus is a standoff between the pro-Palestinian group, which is made up of
45:27Jews and non-Jews, and the pro-Israel group.
45:34For a lot of the students that I've talked to, black and Jewish students, the distinction between punishing Hamas and
45:42punishing Palestinians has led to divides on college campuses.
45:48The political climate on campus was fraught. The number of pro-Palestinian black students rose sharply, while Jewish students themselves
45:59often seemed bitterly divided between those who strongly defended Israel's retaliatory war against Hamas and those who vehemently condemned it.
46:10Many of the pro-Palestinian protests are filled with people who are from many different racial groups, including a number
46:17of Jewish Americans.
46:19And I think our inability to talk about the complexity of even that sort of division has created far more
46:25discord.
46:26As the war continued, online misinformation and deep differences of opinion often made conversations volatile, even impossible.
46:39Sometimes dividing families, straining friendships, and more broadly, pulling the Jewish and black communities even further apart.
46:50The United States over the last decade has become increasingly politically polarized.
46:55And it's become harder and harder to have difficult conversations about pretty much any subject.
47:00And we've really seen in the last year then a profound difference between the way the Israel-Palestine issue is
47:07talked about on campus and the way it was discussed in previous years.
47:11From the river to the sea!
47:13At UCLA, a small number of us gathered and said,
47:18How can we make clear that we value all human life?
47:23That it's necessary to condemn what occurred on October 7th, and it's necessary to condemn this massive assault by Israel.
47:31A number of us continued to try to find ways to at least be able to hold conversations across this
47:38divide.
47:39It was clear that something needed to be done.
47:44David Myers leads an initiative at UCLA called Dialogue Across Difference, which, as the name suggests, promotes open discourse and
47:57debate, training students how to engage in honest, if difficult, conversations.
48:06I came to see, even before October 7th, that something was not right in our culture at the university.
48:14We were in silos in which we felt very comfortable.
48:19We had lost the muscle to engage one another.
48:22When the opportunity came along to get involved in the Dialogue Across Difference initiative, I jumped at the chance.
48:29So it's been over a year since the protests took place here at UCLA.
48:33What was that experience like, personally?
48:36I remember the protests being a very scary time for everyone.
48:41Campus became divided, and a lot of friendships were broken.
48:46Mikey, as an Israeli, did you want revenge? Did that occur to you?
48:51100% no. That's not where my heart was at. I felt a lot of anger. Not revenge, though.
48:59What I was thinking is, we're grieving right now.
49:02The same time the assault on Gaza began, it was a very complicated time.
49:08When the encampment didn't happen and everything just kind of blew up on campus, Dialogue Across Difference was the first
49:16space that I actually had to talk about what had happened.
49:20Has it been affected?
49:21I think the initiative is really important to bring people that are on different parts of the identity and the
49:29political spectrum, bring them in the same space.
49:31The role of dialogue is to create a framework to have a conversation, to say, let's get to know each
49:38other and actually spend that time asking, what do you think?
49:41Or what do you feel? Those conversations have to be built intentionally.
49:45Are there lessons that you've learned from your experience that could be upscale to other situations?
49:51Like, for instance, the relationship between Blacks and Jews, do you think?
49:54Yes, and not just Blacks and Jews, but also, I'm Latino, and so I think there's a great many communities
50:02that can be aided by having your pain acknowledged and seen.
50:07And I think that's a really important first step.
50:10You sound like my couple therapist.
50:12You're welcome.
50:15Black people and Jewish people have always been looking for spaces for representation.
50:21If we are able to come together and have discussions and understand that our struggles are intertwined, I think we
50:29can make progress together in that way.
50:32Blacks and Jews can agree that there are other issues, apart from Israel-Palestine, that bring us together.
50:39There are other shared interests that really draw deep from the complicated and interwoven histories of both those peoples.
50:53As I always say of myself, I'm a situational pessimist and a congenital optimist.
50:58So today's bad, but tomorrow's going to be a better day.
51:00I love that.
51:03Across this series, we've revisited stories of triumph and heartbreak, alliances forged and tested.
51:13Blacks and Jews, two peoples shaped by exile and resilience, know what it means to be cast out and what
51:24it takes to build beauty from pain.
51:26At our best, we've stood shoulder to shoulder in marches and protests, in courtrooms and classrooms, in churches and synagogues.
51:39Not just for ourselves, but for each other.
51:44History reminds us that freedom is fragile, democracy a work in progress, and that no one is safe until everyone
51:54is safe.
51:54In the end, it's about finding common ground and imagining a future neither of us can build alone.
52:31If someone is safe about organizing, this will be valued and present
Comments