1.7 Black Friendship and Black Antisemitism
There was a time when there was great friendship between Jews and Blacks. That was the time of Martin Luther King.
Martin Luther King was pro-Israel and a friend of the Jews and many Jews stood with him against racism against black people. The picture below shows Jews supporting Dr. King.
The following two paragraphs are from an article called A Brief History of Jews and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
From 1910 to 1940, more than 2,000 primary and secondary schools and 20 Black colleges (including Howard, Dillard and Fisk universities) were established in whole or in part by contributions from Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. At the height of the so-called "Rosenwald schools," nearly 40 percent of Black people in the south were educated at one of these institutions.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Jewish activists represented a disproportionate number of white people involved in the struggle. Jews made up half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Leaders of the Reform Movement were arrested with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 after a challenge to racial segregation in public accommodations. Most famously, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma.
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In the photo above Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. links arms with other civil rights leaders. The man with the white beard is Rabbi Heschel. They marched from Selma Alabama to the state capitol of Montgomery Alabama. They were marching for voter registration rights for blacks. |
Rabbi Heschel had another cause as well, freedom for the Jews of the Soviet Union. Jews were oppressed in the Soviet Union and not allowed to leave. Reverend King and Rabbi Heschel supported each other's causes, as demonstrated at a conference in November 1963, when they spoke at the United Synagogue of America's Golden Jubilee Convention in New York. Dr. King said about his commitment to fighting the oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We cannot ignore the plight of our brothers and sisters, who happened to be Jews in Soviet Russia.”
The video below shows Martin Luther King saying that antisemitism is evil and unjust.
Here Martin Luther King says that Israel has a right to exist and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.
In 1963 there was a massive protest in Washington, called the March on Washington for freedom and equal opportunities for black people.
Rabbi Joachim Prinz was one of the organizers of and speakers at the March. Part of the speech Rabbi Prinz gave at the March on Washington is embedded below. He spoke out against silence in the face of evil.
His speech was followed by the most famous speech Martin Luther King ever gave his "I have a dream speech". I have included a different speech below in which Reverend King also spoke out against silence in the face of evil.
Unfortunately the world of today is no longer the world of Martin Luther King. Many blacks have forgotten the Jews who were active in the civil rights movement. Although Martin Luther King day is a national holiday many people disagree with his teachings of non-violence, and of friendship toward Jews and equality. Many blacks and white leftists believe that that intimidating conservative whites with violence is the way to get what they want. Many choose to ignore Martin Luther King's dream of a time when people will judge others by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. They believe that whites should be discriminated against in order to achieve equity.
Victor Davis Hansen wrote an article called The new new antisemitism. In it he wrote that in the current day:
It has been difficult to find any major black leader who has not trafficked in antisemitism...
There have been a lot of violent anti-semitic acts against Jews in America many by black people and by Muslims both black and white.
Many people who are against Israel and against the Zionist belief that Israel should exist, say they're not against Jews, they're just against Israel. Martin Luther King said “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking antisemitism.” There is a lot of antisemitism in the black community and the Palestinian Arabs take advantage of that. They spread propaganda that the American police tactics are cruel to blacks and that the American police learned those tactics from the Israelis.
Ibram Kendi who lectures people to be anti-racist accused Israel of "crimes against humanity" for building a fence between itself and Gaza. He did this after Hamas terrorists from Gaza broke down that fence and murdered over 1400 Israelis.
There were protests on campuses throughout the United States against Israel after Israel went after the Hamas terrorists. Unavoidably some Gazan civilians were killed. Hamas says over 35,000 people were killed and their allegations have been repeated by people who should know better than to trust them. Israel which bends over backwards to avoid killing civilians is accused of committing genocide by Arab propagandists and the people who believe them. Here is a black person who was involved and perhaps a leader of the Columbia protests saying that Zionists don't deserve to live because they support genocide. This person may be the one calling for a human chain to keep Zionists out of the encampment protestors set up.
Summer Lee, is a Democratic congresswoman.
She is anti-Israel and AIPAC criticized her for that. She responded by saying AIPAC was racist for criticizing her and that "AIPAC is an existential threat to the Black community and its right to self [determination].” Accusing anyone who criticizes you of being racist is a common tactic of the left though saying they are an existential threat to the black community is a new low.
In December 2014, leaders of the emerging Black Lives Matter movement, including co-founder Patrisse Cullors, were recruited by Ahmad Abuznaid, a Palestinian activist and co-founder of a BLM-affiliated group, to join a trip to "Palestine" with the stated goal of forging connections between the African-American leadership of the movement in the US and Palestinian activists. Here is a picture of a BLM group who went on such a trip.
The cofounder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors now calls Israel an imperialist project. During a speech at Harvard law school she said that if we don't end Israel we're doomed. That absurd statement is very similar to the statement of Summer Lee about AIPAC being an existential threat. It tells black people that if they don't destroy Israel that will be the end of them. It incites black people to hate Israel and Jews.
Are Patrisse Cullors and Summer Lee anti-semitic? What will happen to the lives of the Jews living in Israel if Israel is ended? Seems to me that Jewish lives don't matter to Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors or to Congresswoman Summer Lee. Do they know that Jews fought for black civil rights? Does they know about Jewish donations to black colleges and schools? Do they know that Israel made great efforts to save the black Jews of Ethiopia or that the real imperialist project is of the Muslims who want to destroy Israel? Do they care? Do they care about black lives? I'm not sure that Patrisse cares about black lives because instead of giving money to poor black people she spent donations on lots of expensive houses. According to Ann Brown 10.6 billion dollars was given to BLM but people don't know where the money went after that. Could BLM leaders have pocketed all that money instead of helping their fellow blacks? Do BLM leaders care more about money than their fellow blacks? Could Jews who donated money care more about black people than money?
Why aren't Patricia Cullors and Summer Lee concerned with Palestinian racism against blacks? Today there are five countries in which Arabs and Muslims enslave blacks. I think Patrisse sees Muslims as useful allies against the U.S. government which she hates.
Many blacks view Jews as whites and so see them as oppressors even though there are many black Jews. Here is one black Jew who is outraged at BLM, says they are hypocrites and that they don't care about blacks. She said: “If Martin Luther King was alive, he would be ashamed of what organizations such as BLM have become: Jew-haters and terrorism supporters.” She is former Miss Israel Yityish Aynaw.
Thomas Sowell is a great black thinker who is not anti-semitic. He was once asked why there is so much antisemitism in the black community toward Jews. His answer which you can see on the antisemitism lesson of this web site, was jealousy of Jewish success in America.
On October 7, 2023, the Hamas terrorist organization launched one of the most barbaric attacks in history against the Jews of Israel. BLM's response? A Black Lives Matter-affiliated organization called Black Lives Matter at School published a pro-Palestinian toolkit for schoolkids, to teach American children about the virtues of Hamas terrorists and the evils of Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy. Black people tend to believe Arab propaganda that the Palestinians are oppressed by Israel. Their is a page on this web site debunking that belief. Trevor Noah said the October 7 attacks were like the American Revolution. Ta-Nehisi Coates said he probably would have attacked Israel on October 7 if he had grown up in Gaza. Elica Bon, an Iranian, explained in a video that they can't be that ignorant and that this stems from bad motives.
Should we generalize that all blacks are anti-Semitic? Of course not. Just as blacks should not generalize negative beliefs about all Jews we should not generalize about all blacks either. In fact there are black African Jews and there are black people who are friends with Jews and the most famous of them all, Martin Luther King was a great friend of Jews. He even said that:
“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.”
Leo Terrell is a black man who is the head of DOJ antisemitism task force who is fighting anti-semitism.
Mayor Eric Adams of New York said in October 2025: "“The Jewish community marched with us, from Selma to the Senate. As antisemitism spreads like a cancer across our city and our country, we must do the same for our Jewish brothers and sisters as they did for us.” In the video below he thanks the Jewish community for their support for black rights and for him.
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Patrisse Cullors says Israel is racist. If Israel is so racist why did Israel save African Jews from persecution in Ethiopia?
Click Here For the Lesson on the Rescue of the Black Jews of Ethiopia
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