is a film solely about Jews and
anti-Semitism: it focuses, mainly,
on the struggles of being black
in America and the fight for
black liberation. (Laura Harrier’s
Patrice is particularly amazing.)
However, what impressed me
about the film — and something
I was not expecting — was the
acknowledgment of anti-Semitism
at the heart of white supremacy.
During a particularly tense scene,
a Klan member threatens to check
Flip to see if he is circumcised, the
fear is palpable. I sunk down in my
seat, nervous Flip was about to be
discovered as a member of the tribe
(even though many non-Jews are
circumcised) and prayed everything
was going to be OK.
Flip later explains to Ron
that he used to be just “another
white kid.” He didn’t have a bar
mitzvah. He didn’t think about
his Jewishness. But now his
Jewishness is something he can’t
ignore — he can’t stop thinking
about his heritage, the rituals and
everything. And as he’s confronted
with the bigotry of the Klan, their
disdain for black people and Jews,
devil ever played.” Jews threaten
whiteness, so goes the ideology,
because they look white but they
actually aren’t.
Anti-Semitism and anti-
blackness go hand in hand for
white supremacists; ignoring
one for the other is wrong.
BlacKkKlansman understood this.
It reminded its audience, time
and time again, that as much as
the Klan had a disdain for black
Americans, their hatred for Jews is
also there.
In an essay for Vulture,
Abraham Riesman writes
“BlacKkKlansman is one of the
most profound and moving
meditations on Jewish identity,
responsibility and survival in
recent cinema.”
He continues, “Resistance
against white supremacy may
not always feel like a distinctly
personal concern if you’re a white
Jew because you don’t have the
same casual hatred breathing
down your neck every single
day that a person of color does.
That’s what makes Flip’s path so
compelling. He is reminded that
Anti-semitism and anti-blackness go
hand in hand for white supremacists;
ignoring one for the other is wrong.
BlacKkKlansman understood this.
he feels self-conscious of his own
Jewishness. As his vulnerability
grows, so does his own pride in his
Jewish identity.
After I left the movie theater,
I kept thinking about an essay I
read last summer by Erik K. Ward
about the role anti-Semitism plays
in white supremacist ideology
(aptly titled “Skin in the Game”).
According to Ward, anti-Semitism
forms the “theoretical core” of the
emergence of white nationalist
ideology in the 1960s and 1970s.
This can be traced through the
alt-right movement today; Ward
argues that “anti-Semitism is not
a sideshow to racism” and should
not be perceived as such within
the white supremacist movement.
White supremacists view Jews
as a separate race, and their
“position as white folks in the U.S.
represents the greatest trick the
he is under threat, even if it’s a less
obvious or enormous threat than
those faced by more marginalized
groups.”
Nowhere was this more clear
in recent history than when
the neo-Nazis marched in
Charlottesville, Va., in August
2017. BlacKkKlansman, fittingly,
ends with footage from that
weekend. As they carried tiki
torches and chanted “Jews will
not replace us,” it was not difficult
to draw the line from the film we
just watched to the resurgence of
the alt-right with the election of
Trump.
BlacKkKlansman should
be required viewing — especially
near the anniversary of
Charlottesville. •
For more on BlacKkKlansman, see
Celebrity Jews on page 50.
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August 23 • 2018
49