Gaskin: Blacks, Jews must learn from past to move forward together

There is no need to wait until Black History Month to see Emmy award-winning Ilana Trachtman’s documentary, “Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round” which recently won Best Documentary Feature at the DC Black Film Festival. The movie will be screened on Nov. 12 at the West Newton Cinema as part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival.

The war in Gaza has split the historic Black/Jewish alliance. Some Black/Jewish groups have stopped taking joint civil rights tours in the South and Holy Land Tours. The last can be attributed to the war. But the first has to do with distancing from Jews/Israel and Gaza. I think this is unfortunate and I have had one synagogue reach out to me to ask what they thought they could do.

The film “Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round” reminds us what Black/Jewish collaboration looks like, where “regular” citizens heed the impulse for activism, refusing to accept an unjust status quo. The film gets its title from a line in the Langston Hughes poem, “Merry-Go-Round,” published in 1942. There is an interesting backstory not told in the film about a protest by Howard University students in 1960. The owners of the Glen Echo segregated park in Maryland were Jewish, being protested by other Jews. And those who supported the owners were Nazis! This is considered the first public counter-protest by the American Nazi Party (and 17 years before Skokie.) The Black support was not monolithic. There were members of the local African American community who resented the students as outsiders barging in, and others who felt it was wrong to take on amusement park discrimination, before issues such as housing and employment.

Perhaps seeing this movie will inspire planning activities for Black History Month. For Black History Month, I recommend viewing one or more of the following movies: Dr. Shari Rogers’ “Shared Legacies,” Aviva Kempner’s “Rosenwald” and Rachel Eskin Fisher and Rachel Nierenberg Pasternak’s “Joachim Prinz: I Shall Not Be Silent.”

Wouldn’t it be great if a church and synagogue could watch these movies together and discuss them as we try to figure out how we move forward together? Blacks and Jews need to learn about each other’s history and find ways to work together amidst the current misgivings. As we watch a convergence of white supremacist and alt-right groups, we must realize, if they can storm the nation’s capitol, then no Jew or Black, no church or synagogue is safe. Even those who can afford armed protection. Either we hang together, or we hang separately.

The shared history of Blacks and Jews in America and the connection between racism and antisemitism are unknown to too many. And because we don’t know, we repeat it. We repeat the claim that Jews played a prominent role in the American slave trade, which has been proven to be untrue. Or make other antisemitic remarks or fail to be outraged against those that make them as captured in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 2020 op-ed in the Hollywood Reporter, “Where Is the Outrage Over Anti-Semitism in Sports and Hollywood?”

Because we don’t know our history, we keep making the same antisemitic mistakes. I remember when the Rev. Jesse Jackson got Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement when Jackson was running for president, which he believed would give him an additional 500,000 votes. I’m sure that endorsement cost him more than 500,000 Jewish votes. Or when Tamika Mallory, co-founder of the Women’s March made a similar “mistake” calling Farrakhan the greatest of all time. When I heard that I had to wonder, “What was the criteria?” To be honest, while I could admire things about Malcolm X or the Nation of Islam’s work in prisons with Black men, or the Fruit of Islam patrolling Black neighborhoods, I was indifferent to Louis Farrakhan. I was tone-deaf to and didn’t appreciate his antisemitic comments because they didn’t involve me. But I’ve grown.

In 2016, the Movement for Black Lives took a position on Israel which was largely viewed as antisemitic and antizionist. If it was a mistake made from ignorance, then why would it take four years to remove the position from their platform?

On the other hand, I was surprised by the Jewish response to my post, “Why Jews should wave the Black Lives Matter banner.” The majority of responses felt they had no obligation to help Black people in general and regarding police reform in particular. They felt until Blacks did more to reduce Black-on-Black crime, particularly homicide, they didn’t need to act, because the problems were of their own making. Only a tiny amount of Black homicides are due to racist white cops compared to Black gang members. If Blacks don’t act like Black Lives Matter, they argued, then why should they (Jews) support them? Or that they couldn’t help Blacks who were rioting and looting and had even attacked Jewish stores and synagogues. Or that Jews have helped Blacks in the past and either Blacks aren’t helping Jews now or have betrayed them by supporting Black Lives Matter, which they see as anti-Israel and antiSemitic.

This points to the fact that we have real work to do, and it must be done with a sense of urgency.

Antisemitism in America is growing, not declining. I have felt for years too many of us were following Neville Chamberlain’s strategy of “appeasement” and it’s leading to similar results. Now more than ever, we need to find ways to work together. Let’s make that our goal for Black History Month.

Ed Gaskin is Executive Director of Greater Grove Hall Main Streets and founder of Sunday Celebrations.