N
Brown vs. Board of Edu-
cation case which outlawed
desegregation in public
facilities.
"When we were in the
trenches against a common
enemy, we got along. But
now that the problem is
gone, well, it's like 'I don't
need you anymore,' " Mr.
Holliday said.
Almost every analysis of
black-Jewish relations
points to the civil rights
era of the late '50s and ear-
ly '60s as the apex of the al-
liance. As soon as blacks
demanded a greater
presence in the leadership
of that movement, goes the
story, Jews were forced out,
bitter, confused and,
sometimes, angry.
But some have said that
the black-Jewish alliance
was always tenuous, never
deep, and always roman-
ticized.
"We don't have that
many shared experiences,"
said Norman Naimark, a
Jewish community activist
who participates in a
number of inner-city pro-
grams. Jewish concerns
about anti-Semitism,
Israel, and now Soviet
Jews are not on the agenda
of the black community, he
said.
"There are certain
historical parallels that
can be drawn," said Bill
Nabers, NAACP president.
"In America, you can't
even try to compare (the
two groups' experiences)."
The Jewish-American
experience, several blacks.
said, has nothing to do with
slavery or crack babies.
Jews have never known
the economic slavery of the
plantations, the political
slavery of Jim Crow or the
social slavery of the city
ghetto.
"Jews are an overwhelm-
ing success story," said
Julius Lester, a professor of
Judaic Studies at Univer-
sity of Massachusetts at
Amherst. Professor Lester,
a black convert to Judaism,
said that Jewish assump-
tions about a shared
heritage with blacks are
naive.
Of the economic disparity
between many blacks and
Jews, Professor Lester
said, "American Jews don't
want to look at that."
Jews, meanwhile, corn-
plain that blacks belittle
the importance of the Holo-
caust, rarely assist Jews in
political struggles and do
not acknowledge Jewish
support for many black
mayors across the country.
Yet just as blacks and
Jews come to each other
from practically different
worlds, they share
remarkable similarities.
Two surveys, taken by
public opinion research
centers at the University of
Chicago (1988) and the
University of Michigan
(1986), indicate that blacks
and Jews, of groups broken
down by race and religion,
are closely allied on several
issues.
For instance, Jews and
blacks favored measures
aimed at desegregation.
Jews, more than any group
other than blacks, said
they had no objection to a
dinner guest of the opposite
race.
"Jews are always
fighting the unintended
slights, the perception that
this is a Christian coun-
try," said Mr. Lobenthal of
the ADL. "To a degree,
blacks fall into those same
tracts."
The black-Jewish history
of cooperation can claim
many past success stories:
the battle for civil rights,
the struggles of labor
unions, a coalition on
Capitol Hill and in the
Democratic Party.
Jonathan
Kaufman
writes in Broken Alliance:
The Turbulent Times Bet-
ween Blacks and Jews in
America:
"There was something
very American about the
way blacks and Jews work-
ed together . . . The
greatness of the country
has often come through the
synergy of its parts — the
mixing of various groups,
each bringing different
gifts and perspectives."
For Mr. Kaufman, now
Berlin correspondent for
the Boston Globe, the mere
fact that black-Jewish rela-
tions is an issue belies the
value of the alliance.
"This one really got
under people's skin," he
said in an interview. "Even
to this day, blacks sense
.
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Charles Anderson: "Power needs to be shared."
Photo by G len n Triest
that reliance on other eth-
nic or racial groups is
something to be avoided,
she said.
Dr. Warshay, who lives
in Detroit, said "group self-
interest" will win out in
any coalition.
"Research continues to
show that good intentions
don't count for very much,"
he said. "There's no such
thing as a permanent alli-
ance."
Black leaders, mean-
while, want the dialogue to
become more than talking.
"We have to make the
step forward," Mr. Nabers,
the NAACP president,
said.
Black leaders often call
for a deeper kind of dia-
logue: one carried out in
economic investment in
black communities.
. Charles Anderson,
president of the De-
troit chapter of the
Urban League, said that
when it comes to social
issues — poverty, racism,
education — Jews are
natural allies to the black
community.
When it comes to econ-
omic issues — investment
in the inner cities, hiring
and training blacks — the
Jewish community doesn't
seem as interested, he said.
"There's still work to
do," Mr. Anderson said.
When Jews moved out of
the city, they "helped pull
the plug on some of the
positive things that were
happening."
The problem, several
black and Jewish leaders
say, is worsening.
"In spite of a history of
working together, genera-
tions have come along and
that (cooperative) message
is not coming through. The
problem is probably more
pronounced among
younger blacks and Jews,"
Mr. Anderson said.
Young blacks and young
Jews, raised in the post-
civil rights age, have taken
past alliances for granted,
said Prince Holliday, a
black Lathrup Village
businessman. Mr. Holliday
graduated from a Georgia
high school in 1954, the
year of the landmark
Sam Often traces his interest in civil rights to his own
experiences in a concentration camp.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 25