Why did American Jews march for Black equality?

Rabbi Abraham Heschel presenting Judaism and World Peace award to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Photo via the Library of Congress.

Throughout this series, we’ve heard historians say that the way Americans think about race is changing, as evidenced by the unprecedented numbers of Americans marching after George Floyd’s death. And along with this surge in action are critical conversations about what it means to be an ally, and what it means to “perform” allyship.

UnTextbooked producer Daniel Ardity noticed what he thought to be a lot of empty support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020--particularly when his Instagram feed was full of black squares one day in June. It made him wonder how he and other non-Black allies could meaningfully contribute to the movement without just adding to the noise.

These questions reminded him of a lecture he’d heard about the Black-Jewish alliance during the Civil Rights Movement. Daniel is Jewish himself, and was inspired by the activism of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and his contemporaries. For many American Jews, supporting Black liberation was an expression of tikkun olam, Hebrew for “heal the world”. According to historian Cheryl Greenberg, author of Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century, support for the Civil Rights Movement was integral to the American Jewish identity. She says this was, at least in part, because both groups are vulnerable to white supremacist violence.

On this episode of UnTextbooked, Daniel interviews Cheryl Greenberg about how the Black-Jewish alliance evolved, and how it was effective even when it was not perfectly harmonious.