- [Dr. Kelner] So Jews on the one hand, Jews will enjoy the privileges of Whiteness.

So Ashkenazi Jews will enjoy the privileges of Whiteness, and at the same time, are being targeted with violence by those people who are the most invested in some "White identity".

- [Jerome]} How do you all both handle that personally?

- [Dr. Meyer] This was one of the most interesting things to me about teaching at Fisk for so long.

Was that I think it's very rare for White people, Jewish, non-Jewish White people in America, to be in a room where they're the only one in the room.

- Whiteness is not an identity that I embrace.

I recognize that I benefit from privileges, right?

That being categorized as White confers on me, right?

So I own that, but in terms of the identity that's important to me, it's the Jewish identity, and the notion of Whiteness erases that.

(techno music) - Hello and welcome to another episode of A Slice of the Community.

I'm your host, Jerome Moore.

Today, I'm with Dr. Meyer and Dr. Kelner from Vanderbilt University, well both professors in the Jewish Studies Department at Vanderbilt University for our discussion here around Black and Jewish relations.

Thank you all for being here.

And welcome.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- I just wanna preface it this way.

Me and Dr. Kelner, we had amazing sidebar conversation at the United States and the Holocaust, which is kind of like, the catalyst of this conversation.

With our conversation, it just opened up the whole nother world for me around just Black and Jewish relations.

What does that mean?

What does it look like?

The history, the controversy, the allyship.

So hopefully we can just dive into that and go straight into it.

So I'll start with you, Dr. Meyer.

Racism and antisemitism.

How would you describe both of those?

Being separate and, similar?

- I think in many ways they're very similar.

The impulse for someone who is an anti-Semite or a racist is the same impulse.

To denigrate the other, to promote yourself by putting somebody else down.

That general impulse, I think is the same in all kinds of, of anti-whatever, Movement.

It's obviously in America that the degree has been different.

The way in which African-Americans have been mistreated in America is greater than the degree to which Jews have been mistreated in America.

But the impetus behind that mistreatment, I would say, is the same.

- Okay.

Dr. Kelner?

- Well, when, anti-Semites are attacking Jewish people or Jewish buildings, they're not stopping us for us to ask whether we observe the kosher laws and don't eat pork, or we observe the Sabbath.

You know, it's not based on religious grounds.

They're targeting us because they see us as Jews, whether we identify as Jews or not.

And in that sense, it's, it's something that they're ascribing.

If you go outside of the states and you think about the different ways that Jews have been othered, persecuted, oppressed, there have been contexts in which Jews have been persecuted on religious grounds.

They were the wrong religion.

There have been times and places where they've been persecuted on racial grounds and actually defined as a separate race and murdered because of that.

Obviously, the Holocaust is the classic example of that.

But if we think about anti-Semitism and prejudice, there are ways in which anti-Semitism and racism, there are ways in which, in which anti-Semitism is a form of racism.

There are ways in which it's different from it as well.

And if you think about the ways even that the Jewish community will talk about anti-Semitism, the anti-Defamation League, for example, will talk about the number of anti-Semitic incidents.

We talk about anti-Semitism in terms of something that you can count incident by incident.

We generally don't talk about racism in the States in terms of incidents.

We talked about it as systemic and structural.

And I think that we could pull back and we can talk about systemic structural dimensions to anti-Semitism historically and globally too.

Even though in the states we usually don't.

- Right.

And I wonder if we usually don't, because it's hard for me to say, you all are Jewish.

Right?

It's easy for someone to look at me and say, you're Black.

Right?

So, when someone goes out their way to participate in being a anti-Semitism, they, have to do some digging.

They have to identify to definitely know.

Like, okay, that person is Jewish.

Where on the surface of a person of color being an African- American.

I was just like, okay, I can just be just racist because I can definitely tell.

I wonder how does that play into the experience?

And I'll start with you, Dr. Kelner - Well, Dr. Meyer can speak to, to some of this better than I can about White passing and the like, there are, look, there are ways in which Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews are thought to have stereotypical Jewish looks.

And, and it's interesting when you think about what the Nazis did, they thought that they could spot Jews very clearly, and yet they had to come up with a whole way of categorizing where if one grandparent is Jewish, why?

Because they still, they couldn't tell.

So, Jewishness is not a race, and yet it often gets talked about in terms of distinctive Jewish looks or behavior.

I'm speaking with my hands right now, that's considered sometimes distinctive Jewish behavior.

You know, so these things, they, they blend, but Jews have the ability to, well, we should talk about White passing.

It gets into really, really complex questions about Jews and Whiteness.

And I think that that can actually open, open us up to that.

- For sure.

- Yeah.

My experience with my students at Fisk was that there was no distinction made between White people and Jews.

I had been at Fisk for probably 10 years before I first taught a course in Black-Jewish relations.

And students, several of whom I had already had in classes, were very surprised to learn that I was Jewish.

And at that point in time, I'm talking in the 1990s, early 2,000s, that distinction between Jews and other White people had kind of disappeared.

Whereas in earlier time periods within the African community, there was a distinction made.

I was telling Professor Kelner, the fact that there's a separate slang term Goldberg for Jews than there is for White people, or phrase or whatever, Indicates that there's some difference.

That African-Americans see some difference.

Now whether that's a positive or negative, but they do see, did see, see Jews as different than other White people.

But I don't know that that's the case anymore.

I think most people looking at, at Ashkenazi White Jews see them as White people.

- I never thought that even the term like White Jews, could be kind of (disgusted sound) cringing like, do I want to be associated with Whiteness, you know?

Because of the history of just elite Whites, and what happened when kind of the, the persecution they put on Jews here, even in the United States, right?

Up in the East New York and all those areas.

And so it always, that just fascinated me, like, wow!

You know, even though when I look at the census, like 92% of Jews, you know, classify themselves as White, you know?

And okay, how does that balance then when you walk into a room as a Jew, but you're White.

Everybody else is seeing you as probably White, right?

But in your heart and your mind, it's like, no, I'm not.

But it goes to that at that point too.

Well, is being a Jew a race?

It makes it complex, for someone looking out outside in, but then again you say, well, it's definitely not a race.

- Well, there are Jews in all races.

There, there are Jews in India look like people in India.

They're Jews in China look like people in China.

They're Jews in Africa.

So if you break race categories, the way I learned as a kid, into those three categories, Jews are in all three.

So, it's, yeah, it doesn't work.

- Jewishness is categorized as Whiteness.

Here in the States at this present, at this present moment.

And in different places and different times, it's been categorized differently.

So, if I look at the ship arrival records from my immigrant ancestors who came over, under race and people, it says Hebrew.

This is the US, this is in English in a document that the US government is using.

It's a hundred and some odd years old.

Now, at the same time, Jews in the South we're drinking from fountains that were labeled as White.

So, and so they were categorized by the government for those purposes as White.

So, the Jews relationship to Whiteness, there's ambivalence, but it's not a totally fixed category.

And when you think about the massacre at the Tree of Life's Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

And this is by an a valid White nationalist, White supremacist who targeted Jews, and did not see them as White.

So, Jews on the one hand, Jews will enjoy the privileges of Whiteness.

Ashkenazi Jews, will enjoy the privileges of Whiteness, and at the same time are being targeted with violence by those people who are the most invested in some "white identity".

- How do you all deal with that in everyday life?

Walking into there?

Walking into those rooms?

And what are some of those things that you possibly may feel or don't feel?

Or what maybe are some of those advantages you have or don't have?

- This was one of the, the most interesting things to me about teaching at Fisk for so long.

Was that I think it's very rare for White people, Jewish, non-Jewish White people in America, to be in a room where they're the only one in the room.

And I was in that situation every day for years.

And it, it affects, I come to see how a Black person would feel being the only one in a room.

Being the only White person in the room.

Whether it's White Jewish or not, I don't think again that that distinction carries, makes that much difference.

I'm not a religious person.

I consider being Jewish more like an ethnicity.

But...I think that...

I'm certainly not trying to deny it or anything like that, but I'm not outwardly telling people, Hey, I'm a Jew.

- Whiteness is not an identity that I embrace.

I recognize that I benefit from privileges.

Right?

That being categorized as White confers on me, right?

So, I own that.

But, in terms of the identity But in terms of the identity that's important to me, it's the Jewish identity, and the notion of Whiteness erases that.

And if you think about Jewishness as a, as a form of White passing, the Whiteness is something that renders the Jewishness invisible.

It's part of the assimilation of Jews into the states.

But this is a culture that is important to me to maintain.

And part of having it maintained is not just me identifying with it, but having it recognized by others.

As this is a, this is a distinct culture.

So it's an awkward and an ambivalent position.

And also it's problematic, because I do not want to affirm, I don't believe, and I really think it's dangerous also, to say that Jewishness is a race.

It's in the blood, it's in the biology.

And I have a lot of problems with the DNA testing where people will say, oh, I'm 93% Ashkenazi Jewish.

It's, you know, after the Holocaust, we managed to expunge a racial discourse about Jews from American talking about it.

Jews that's come back in the conversation and it's dangerous and it's problematic.

So how do I, right, As someone who I'm categorized as White, I enjoy the privileges of Whiteness.

I am Jewish.

I identify with the Jewishness, and I want to preserve this.

How do I, in the states, manage to maintain and project an identity, That says that I want.

I want another category.

I want another category.

and the duality is problematic.

- Is that, is that a conversation within the Jewish community?

Like how do you, how do you do that?

How does that happen when I go to fill out, whether it's a job application, right.

I don't see Jewish on there.

I See, you know, African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Latinx, and then the other maybe.

So are you writing in Jewish or are you checking White Caucasian?

- The last census for the race question I checked White.

But for the country of origin question, I wrote Jews.

My mother's parents are both from Romania.

It means absolutely nothing to me to be Romanian.

Because they weren't really Romanian in Romania, they were Jews.

So I, yeah, I, whether the government accepted that as a legitimate answer or not, I don't know.

But that's what I wrote.

- I wanna go into the history a little bit, which you all are more experts than me on, in general.

But I wanna go into that history between just Blacks and Jewish relations, and I want to start with the allyship, Right.

And then kind of work our way to how do we get to the tension, the adversarial things that we kind of see present day?

We know that there was coalition building around the civil rights, around the anti-Nazi movement.

Can you all speak to that a little bit?

And paint that picture for us on how those relations really looked during those times, even though that we know Germany was looking at the Jim Crow, looking at the one-drop of blood rule, and then putting together their own, you know, grandmother, grandfather, their own listing of what classes.

Why a person as Jewish in Germany?

Can you break that down?

- So the history of allyship goes back, actually before the war in some degrees.

Jews, for example, were co-founders of the NAACP.

Jews had been working with African-American for African -American causes before the war.

But I think the war really kind of brought home to both groups, the way in which, the extent to which anti-Semitism racism, the extent to which it can proceed.

And so I think African-Americans and Jewish-Americans both were brought sort of to understand the need to work together to prevent that from happening.

And so from the mid-fifties or so on, we have what is generally seen to be this grand alliance between the Black community and the Jewish community.

Where you have so many Jewish students, for example, during the Mississippi summer freedom summer.

You have so many Jews marching at Selma.

Rabbi Heschel, most notably, but lots of Jews.

Jews working on Supreme Court cases on Brown V Board, for example.

So there was a great deal of allyship.

Generally seen as being a kind of, because of mutual self-interest.

The two groups were both fighting for the same things, and so they could help each other out.

By the late 60s, it seems as though they're not fighting for the same things anymore.

And so they start turning against each other.

The affirmative action cases in the early 70s is one of the big breaks.

The six day war in Israel, oddly enough, created a big break within the two communities.

And so from that point on, from the late 60s on, it was seen to be this kind of dissolving relationship.

- And so do you think that assimilation of Whiteness played a part into that?

- I think so.

I think so.

James Baldwin has a famous essay called Negroes, or anti-White, anti-Semitic, excuse me, because they're anti-White.

And his argument is that when we criticize Jewish people, it's because they're acting White.

And that we expected something.

This is one of the great causes of tension between the two communities.

Baldwin says, we expected something different from Jews than we expected from White people.

And so when we didn't get it, it created bitterness, and animosity, and anger.

That expressed it comes out as anti-Semitism.

Because we expected, and the same thing is true in reverse, we expected these people had been in a similar situation.

They would have empathy, we could work together.

And when that doesn't happen, then it creates more animosity than it would be if you weren't expecting anything in the first place.

- And the two communities have expectations of each other.

Both have self understandings that look back to histories of oppression, look back to histories of slavery.

And the key difference though is that for the Black community, that history is here in this country.

And for Jews, it's much longer, you know, before, but it's somewhere else.

And so even though there is this point of connection, there's a key difference.

And in some ways, it's the inability of the two communities to recognize the difference within the similarity, that causes the splits.

Because we imagine more similarity than there is, then we discover that there's not, then there's disappointment.

- Right, right.

And so, like, being honest about that with each other, I think it's one of the keys, is one of the keys to managing that, and building a healthy alliance.

- We talk about these expectations and I think this is important because even if you just go online right now, you type in, you know, Black-Jewish relations conflicts or whatever, a lot of times even my own personal experience, it's always either Black people talking about it, or Black people talking about it.

Like I rarely see a Jewish people, as a community, let's say scholars maybe.

But I rarely see Jewish people calling that out in an adversarial way or blaming that I see from the Black American community, from my perspective.

- I wonder how much we're all locked in our own media bubbles, and you're seeing stuff that's going on.

You're, you're seeing a Black conversation.

I'm seeing a Jewish conversation.

Oh, right.

And I don't know if it's ever the twain shall meet.

How do we break out of our own echo chambers to see what are the conversations that other communities are having?

So this type of conversation is Great.

We can do that.

Right.

- Exactly.

What, so what are some of those conversations, I guess, that are happening that you did y'all a part of?

Or that you all see?

- So I think in the Jewish community, there is a lamenting, there is a nostalgia for I think what's imagined to be a golden day of a Black-Jewish alliance.

And a lamenting for, its for its passing.

I think that's a common trope in Jewish conversations about Black-Jewish relations, and senses, on the, on the Jewish side in terms of expectations, a sense of upset when there are, when Jews experience anti-Semitism from the Black community, a sense of upset.

- Okay.

- We would expect it from those with White privilege, right.

But, Blacks know what it's like to be discriminated against, Why, why would there be prejudice in the Black community?

Because, so it's, that sense of expectation, and lament, and I will say probably less introspection as to a sense more of a sensitivity to having been wrong than to having wronged.

Right.

And that's where the actual dialogue is beneficial because Oh, well these things go in both directions.

- I think from the Black community's perspective, we see our duties, especially during the civil rights, is propelling all minorities.

Right.

We, we've done something that have the attitude.

If it wasn't for the leap that we took, where would other minorities be?

What would they have?

And then we see like, well, all these other minorities get this White privilege that we don't get at all, and so where is our support from that angle?

And I think that's what also brings tension in.

And I want to go to these stereotypes and generalizations that I know I was brought up on, on the Jewish community as far as like wealth, media controlling, even the NAACP, right?

I've heard that being used as like, well, the Jews control the Blacks because they funded the NAACP.

Even that is contentious within the Black community for whatever reason.

But that's the lens that I was even brought up under when we're talking about the Jewish community.

Right.

And I guess that's, you know, anti-Semitism that I was hearing.

Right.

But as I had told Dr. Kelner at on our side conversation, if for example, if Kanye West, Ye, was to say, you know, White man control media, everybody... Oh yeah, that's, that's, that's accurate.

You know, a White man control Hollywood.

Oh, okay.

It's accurate.

But when you put on the Jewish title, into it, it changes the conversation.

- What are, what are y'all thoughts on that?

- Some of it, is a question of what you mean by controlling, right?

Do Jews disproportionately own major Hollywood studios, and major record companies, et cetera, et cetera.

Sure.

But does that mean that they have complete control?

I would argue not.

There's a history of Jews having difficulty getting representation on television, particularly.

Even up through like Seinfeld.

He had a hard time getting that show on tv.

Cuz cuz the, the network said, well, people in Iowa aren't gonna get it.

It's too New York, right?

- New York.

Is code for Jewish.

Right.

- Oh, oh, I didn't know that.

- Oh.

Yeah.

New York is code.

- That's why I went like this.

(signs of quotation marks) - Wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

And obviously it was a big hit.

So you, if the Jews control the media, why does this Jew have a problem getting a show on TV?

Right.

So, I have a problem with the word control.

- Okay.

what... go ahead.

- It looks as though we should go back, back, back deeper In time.

Because these things that these are tropes that are prevalent now.

These are things that you heard growing up.

These are things that I heard growing up as these are anti-Semitic stereotypes.

So, you'll know them when you hear them, but they have a history.

They didn't start when we were kids.

They start a long time.

They didn't start in the states.

You know, and this is where I had said earlier, we don't talk about anti-Semitism in systemic structural terms.

But if you go historically, you could, and you can think about how for, you know, the past 1500 years, or so, the western world's basically divided between two religious civilizational empires.

You have Christendom and you have Islam.

And in both cases, Jews are a minority in both of these, halves of the world.

And in both instances, the dominant religious group decided that they had the right to decide what privileges Jews should or shouldn't have.

And not rights, just privileges.

So... among the, yeah now modern period where Jews in the States and in other places have succeeded economically, politically, and the like.

this notion of how can this group that has been historically oppressed, historically marginalized, historically did not have the right to say, these are our rights.

Only could ask for privileges.

How is it that this group has succeeded?

And so a whole host of conspiracy theories sprung up around it.

Jewish control.

At the heart of it is this notion that whatever type of success Jews have had, be it political, be it economic, it is, ill-gotten it's nefarious.

They don't deserve it.

- In this current moment, especially like 21st century.

Right.

How do we, you know, especially in this time of like racial reckoning, how do we build?

What social responsibility did we have as a Black man and as Jewish man to come together and have these conversations, but what actions, what type of workable lists can we put together and do it collectively with both our communities to get at racism, anti-Semitism, better understanding each other's point of views when it comes to these things?

- I don't think it's surprising against two professors that will say education.

People need to learn.

People need to learn about other communities.

People need to understand why certain things are the way they are in those communities.

I learned as much teaching at Fisk as the Fisk kids.

I hope they learned something from me, but I know I learned things from them.

But it's that it's exposure, it's being open and willing to understand where the other preview, you don't have to agree with them.

But you can understand why they're saying what they're saying.

I think that kind of of community interaction is really important.

- I think empathy is key.

And I think I I said before about we're in our echo chambers and our media bubbles.

It makes it really difficult to cultivate empathy, and there's a severe deficit of that in society generally, right now, and that's self-work.

I think we, we have to work on that, but if we're only working on empathy, it's, it's hard to work on empathy when you're doing it alone.

Right.

and that's why communities need to be coming together.

I think it's really important also to go into each other's spaces.

To actually experience what it is like to be in Black community.

In Jewish community.

You'll learn things by seeing, and being there that, that the dialogue alone, you may understand here, you will not understand here.

- See, I want to give you all a chance to just hit on anything else around Black and Jewish relations.

- There is so much in common that unites the communities, and we, and we forget that at our own peril.

- One of the things I wanna leave with my students is I ask them all the time, when two minority groups fight against each other, who wins?

And they all say the majority.

So that I think secures it, right?

And it's not just Blacks and Jews, it's all kinds of minority groups.

but it is in the best interest of the power structure to keep those groups fighting against each other.

It's the best interest of those groups to work together.

To fight the power structure, but it's hard.

- Well, look, I wanna thank both of y'all for coming here and being available to talk about this, you know, very current controversial topic around these two groups, but also necessary I think for community here.

And hopefully we struck some cords and people to be invited or do the inviting to each of our communities and talk more about this, and again, do the work.

Do the action because we have that history of coalition allyship, and working to a greater cause.

So thank you both.

- [both responded] Thank you.

- And thank you all at home for watching another episode of a Slice of the Community.

See y'all later.