Essay
Slavery And Beyond
Acclaimed film stirs images of black-Jewish issues.
T
he raw intensity of the Oscar-
winning movie 12 Years a Slave
brings to mind the role Jews
played on both sides during the Civil
War and how instrumental they were
in the civil rights movement 100 years
later.
The riveting historical drama traces
the story of Solomon Northup, a free
black from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., who
was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in
1841 and sold into slavery. He was one
of the few kidnapped
blacks to regain free-
dom.
Steve McQueen,
the movie's British-
born director, told the
Jewish Journal of Los
Angeles in January that
Northup's 1853 book 12
Steve
Years a Slave reminded
McQueen
him of Holocaust victim
Anne Frank's Dutch
diary. He said both writ-
ers "lived in a regime of
terror" and their books
"were two firsthand
accounts!'
4 .,,-„,i x "' .
"I didn't understand
Anne Frank
why I knew Anne Frank,
Dry Bones
but I didn't know Solomon
Northup," McQueen, an
Amsterdam resident, told the
Journal. "Solomon Northup is
an American hero; all I want-
ed to do was shine a light on
him so people would know
who he was!'
UNCLE SAM
PREVIOUSLY
WE HAD A
PLAN FOR
AFGHANISTAN,
IRAQ, LIBYA,
AND EGYPT
BUT...
AMERICA
HAS A
PLAN FOR
ISRAEL!
\11111(
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Cultivating A Path
Many Jews in both the North
and South owed their liveli-
hoods to the business of slavery
— and, in fact, backed or were
apathetic about slavery until
Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation,
historian Ken Yellis told the
The Jewish Role
Forward on July 11, 2011.
Robert Sklar
Surely, the Jewish impact
Still, with Jews representing
Contrib uting
on the Civil Rights Act of
less
than 1 percent of the U.S.
Edit or
1964 far outweighs the
population in the 1860s, they
Jewish influence on the War
couldn't possibly have left an
Between the States.
indelible impact on Civil War-era America.
Yes, some Jews in the South sold,
They did hone their understanding on
owned and abused slaves. Some indeed
what it meant to be an American, however.
were complicit with what Northern
For example, they extended the reach
historians call "the peculiar institution
of the Jews' Hospital (now Mount Sinai
of slavery." And Jews did fight for the
Hospital) in New York City to all wounded
Confederate cause. The highest-ranking
soldiers and sailors. They also advocated
Jew in the Civil War
on behalf of civil liberties.
was Attorney General
"The Jewish Cult of
Judah Benjamin under
Lincoln, which had
Confederate President
many Old Testament
Jefferson Davis.
overtones — Lincoln
"In the North, mean-
died on the first night
while, Jews divided
of Passover for instance,
over the question of
and the first eulogies
slavery: Some advo-
were delivered from
Jonathan
cated abolition; others
synagogue pulpits
Sarna
Ken Yellis
sought peace above
— would persist for
all else, even if that
decades!' Yellis said.
meant acquiescing
Jews, afforded equal citizenship in
to Southern slavery. America, tended to identify with their
Many Jews simply
Christian neighbors, North or South, on
remained silent,"
the issue of forced servitude as opposed to
wrote Jonathan
taking a position as an ethnic or religious
Sarna, professor of
group — the biblical bondage of their ances-
American Jewish
tors notwithstanding, according to Sarna.
history at Brandeis
University near
Change Of Heart
In modern times, Jews have fought
Boston, in the
Forward, a national for civil rights and racial equality. For
example, Jews helped found the NAACP
Jewish newspaper,
on March 1, 2011.
in 1909, helped small Southern black
colleges grow, chal-
Many more Jews
lenged Mississippi's Jim
fought on the Union
Crow laws, influenced
side. These Jews had
President Abraham
President Lyndon
CAGLECARTOONS.COM
Lincoln's ear not
Johnson's 1960s civil
only in winning
rights agenda, aligned
with Rabbi Abraham
rejection of Ulysses
S. Grant's confound-
Joshua Heschel and Dr.
fsG
Martin Luther King Jr.
ing General Orders
Rabbi Heschel
#11, which expelled
in marching on Selma,
"Jews as a class"
and even died to protest
from his war zone,
segregation. Eventually,
but also in earning
Jews helped diminish
the right to have
black-Jewish barriers
Jewish war chap-
precipitated, in part,
lains serve alongside
by white flight in the
Christian ministers
later decades of the 20th
Dr. King
on the battlefront.
century.
TWELVE YEARS I SLAVE
110MONIKR.THOpi
Surely, the Jewish
impact on the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 far
outweighs the Jewish
influence on the War
Between the States.
Jews continue to elevate black-Jewish
discourse, the first step to effectively
changing racial and ethnic attitudes
over the long haul. This is especially
important amid the defaming claims of
the Nation of Islam and its anti-Jewish
leader, Louis Farrakhan, who on Feb. 23
in Detroit proudly compared himself to
Jew-basher Henry Ford, saying the auto
titan was "a great man who was called an
anti-Semite!'
Farrakhan has ravaged the Jews for
their small part in the trans-Atlantic
slave trade but has conveniently ignored
that the Muslim world helped pioneer
both the Slavic and African slave trades
in the East. Muslim pirates continued to
trade in European slaves into the 19th
century.
How Jews finally stepped up to the
horrific challenge posed by 400 years of
North American slavery came to mind as
I watched 12 Years a Slave unfold.
Metro Detroit remains a largely seg-
regated region. But instead of writing
off the central city, Jews, inspired by
Dan Gilbert and other present and past
business and civic leaders and philan-
thropists, are helping restore some of the
lost luster. Some Jews never left the city;
a trickle of younger Jews are moving in.
And legions of Jewish suburbanites of all
ages and stripes are pitching in to right
the good ship Motor City.
Still, until the public schools, tax base
and neighborhoods rebound, and crime,
blight and joblessness subside, Detroit's
rebirth will be a fragile work in prog-
ress under the cooperative tutelage of
Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, Mayor
Mike Duggan, the City Council and, ulti-
mately, Gov. Rick Snyder.
❑
Jr%
March 13 • 2014
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