Can Obama reunite Blacks, Jews?
Nicole Neroulias/Religion News Service
Issue date: 8/3/08 Section: Divine Intervention
NEW YORK -- Rabbi Marc Schneier has spent decades trying to revive the Black-Jewish alliance of the 1960s, when African-American ministers and bearded rabbis marched together for civil rights.
Some Jewish voters have expressed doubts about Democratic presidential hopeful and Illinois senator Barack Obama, citing both his Muslim relatives and his personal history with his fiery former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
What's more, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., perhaps the nation's best-known Jewish politician, is supporting Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.
But where some view Obama as having a "Jewish problem," Schneier -- founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and author of "Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Jewish Community" -- spots an answer to his prayers.
"I see Barack Obama as representing a new generation that can right the Wrights and can really educate and sensitize them to the importance of embracing Martin Luther King's Jewish legacy," he said.
"No segment of American society provided as much and as consistent support to Dr. King and to the African-American community as the Jewish community."
Since Jews and Blacks both voted overwhelmingly Democratic in recent elections, few seriously doubt that they won't do the same in 2008. But some, like Schneier, say a Black candidate presents a rare opportunity for a frayed relationship to be renewed and revived.
It was a bond forged in a shared sense of persecution. In 1964, two of the three civil rights workers who were murdered in Mississippi, Andrew Goodwin and Michael Schwerner, were Jews; the third, James Chaney, was Black.
But that golden age of Black-Jewish cooperation gave way to troubled times, including controversies over Israel selling arms to apartheid-era South Africa, the 1991 Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, and anti-Semitic remarks made by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Honorable Louis Farrakhan and other Black leaders.
Some Jewish voters have expressed doubts about Democratic presidential hopeful and Illinois senator Barack Obama, citing both his Muslim relatives and his personal history with his fiery former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
What's more, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., perhaps the nation's best-known Jewish politician, is supporting Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain.
But where some view Obama as having a "Jewish problem," Schneier -- founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and author of "Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Jewish Community" -- spots an answer to his prayers.
"I see Barack Obama as representing a new generation that can right the Wrights and can really educate and sensitize them to the importance of embracing Martin Luther King's Jewish legacy," he said.
"No segment of American society provided as much and as consistent support to Dr. King and to the African-American community as the Jewish community."
Since Jews and Blacks both voted overwhelmingly Democratic in recent elections, few seriously doubt that they won't do the same in 2008. But some, like Schneier, say a Black candidate presents a rare opportunity for a frayed relationship to be renewed and revived.
It was a bond forged in a shared sense of persecution. In 1964, two of the three civil rights workers who were murdered in Mississippi, Andrew Goodwin and Michael Schwerner, were Jews; the third, James Chaney, was Black.
But that golden age of Black-Jewish cooperation gave way to troubled times, including controversies over Israel selling arms to apartheid-era South Africa, the 1991 Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, and anti-Semitic remarks made by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Honorable Louis Farrakhan and other Black leaders.
Viewing Comments 1 - 10 of 17
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bmuhammad
posted 8/05/08 @ 1:52 PM EST
To get a right answer, one must ask the right question.
A more appropriate question is will the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)allow Obama to reunite Blacks and Jews? If there is Divine intervention than perhaps the ingredients of honesty, justice and accountability will be driving forces of the debate toward reuniting. (Continued…)
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