" i· .. 'Commentary t
, ~~ The Bl~fk "Revolution & the Jewish Question I
Earl Raab
BOUT A HALF-CENTURY AGO, Louis same distinction has been made between "objec A Marshall" the eminent constitution tive" and "subjective" anti-Semitism, "concrete" al lawyer who was' also president of the American and "abstract" anti-Semitism, and the real Jew Jewish Committee, said fIrmly: "We do not recog and the mythical Jew as target. But by whatever nize the existence of a Jewish Question in the names, and whatever the relationship between the United States." That distasteful phrase, "The two kinds of anti.5emitism, Jews know the differ Jewish Question," evoked the European model: ence. Not getting a particular job is one thing. A !S pogrom is another. ) the political uses of anti-Semitism. Marshall made ,n the statement precisely because he saw that the Political anti-Semitism did not become serious Jewish Question in the political sense was coming in America until about 1920. In that year the 'alive in the United States. It did, and preoccupied staid Christian Science MonitO)· carried a lead ed the domestic Jewish consciousness for the next itorial entitled "The' Jewish Peril." A few years , quarter of a century. later, a book called The International Jew: The For the past quarter of a century, there has' World's Foremost Problem had a run of half a been no serious trace of political anti-Semitism in million copies. The articles in that book-"The America. Any suggestion today that "it could hap Scope of Jewish Dictatorship in America," "Rule pen here," has had an antique flavor and would of Jewish Kehilla Grips New York," and "How be widely branded as phobic, paranoid, and even the Jewish Song Trust Makes You Sing"-and amusing. There is the old joke about three men many others of a similar bent had already re who were asked to write an essay about the ele-, ceived wide distribution in Henry Ford's national phant. The Englishman wrote on "The Elephant newspaper. And Henry Ford, it must be recalled, and the British Empire," the Frenchman on "The was not a Los Angeles mail-order crackpot. In :,1\' " Elephant 'and Love-Making," the Jew on "The 1923, at the height of his anti-Semitic fulmina ;,1 Elephantand the Jewish Question." But we have tions, Collier's reported that he led all other pos ,j learned a great deal about the Jewish Question, sible candidates, including the incumbent Presi :;l and if the subject of the essay were ''''estern de dent, in its national Presidential preference poll. ~ mocracy instead of el~phants, the joke would no Other straw polls' agreed. William Randolph longer be a joke. The potential for political anti Hearst annQunced that he was prepared to back Semitism, aside from its special interest to Jews, Ford for that office. The KKK during the same turns out to be a particularly useful vantage point period had a membership which blanketed at It least a quarter of all white Protestant families in es from which to. examine the state of the general cy society. And responsible people are again having America. And at one point in the 1930's, someone In to deny nervously that there 'is a Jewish Question identifIed about 150 organizations whose primary ns in America. The American Jewish community's business was the promotion of political anti-Sem 'st concern with its own security may be coming full itism. Father Coughlin, who reprinted the Pro circle. tocols of the Elders of Zion in his national news From the end of ''''orld War I to the beginning paper, had a regular radio audience of millions. of World War II, the American jew's defense To these seemingly mass assignations with anti efforts were increasingly keyed to political anti Semitism, the organized Jewish community re Semitism, as distinct from garden-variety discrim sponded with a program based on the image-of ination. Political anti-Semitism may be defIned as the-Jew theory of anti-Semitism. At the national the attemptl~o establish the corporate Jew as a B'nai B'rith convention in 1930, Sigmund Living generalized public menace, the implicat,ion being ston said that the necessity was "to educate the that some official public remedy is called for. The great mass in the truth concerning the Jew and to demolish the foibles and fIctions that now are y EARL RAAB is executive director of the Jewish Community part of the mental picture of the Jew in the pub ReI.alions Council of San Francisco. He has taught at the UnIversity of California and San Francisco State College, lic mind." The Jewish community mounted what and has written widely on issues of intergroup relations. must certainly have been one of the most prolific
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24/COMMENTARY JANUARY 1969·
mass educational programs of all time. Yet anti from the Civil Rights Revolution to the Negro Semitic activity and popular support of avowed Revolution. The shift should have been quite pre anti·Semites were at their height when summarily dictable. Equal opportunity is not equal achieve cut off by America's bitter embroilment with the ment, except for those who are equally equipped world's arch anti-Semite. to compete. An' enclave population now existed A few short years later, America seemed to whose cultural and educational "equipment" had emerge from the war as a nation in which the been comprehensively' stunted for generations. Jewish Question was miraculously dead. Ameri The American society, moreover, had deliberately can Jews, of course, felt that the war had been created this enclave population_ For the impov fought-and won-around the Jewish Question. erished and uneducated immigrants to America Maybe they believed thatlother Americans felt the equal opportunity had been enough, because same way. Maybe they believed that other Ameri other societies had depressed them. In their cans were responding en masse to the revelations minds, America owed them no more than an op of the Holocaust. In any case, political anti-Sem portunity, and the gradualist road to parity itism seemed stripped of any respectability; in which all emerging groups have traveled. But deed, anti-Semitism became one of the cardinal America owed the Negroes more than opportu political sins. The nation was even able to sustain nity. The battle-cry of the Negro Revolution was a major red-baiting demagogue who carried Cohn not opportunity, but parity in the economy as and Schine on his hip and flirted with anti-Sem well as in the society, starting with an instant end itism not at all. Israel was established. Stalin died. to poverty. Toward that goal, the demands were American Jews settled down to a new security. not just for equal treatment, but for compensa tory treatment on a kind of reparations basis. T THE SAME TIME something else was For the Negro community, this stage was a log A happening in the country. The Jew ical extension of the Civil Rights Revolution. ish Question was apparently being supplanted by But for the organized Jewish community some the Negro Question. And the defensive energies adjustment was required. The apparatus <;>f the and apparatus of the Jewish community moved Jewish community committed itself to the cam from one to the other. At least, that is the way it paign against poverty, and throwing the slogans turned out. A surface theory relating to Jewish se about equal-opportunity-under-the-Iaw into the attic, began to look for a role in that campaign. 1 curity ratiomilized the move: Equal opportunity for one means equal opportunity for all. But no one ex Consideration of Je~vish security became even '1 amined this dubious axiom very closely. America . more remote_ I seemed to be approaching a state of perfectibility: There were only a few years of war-against-pov The nation's great flaw, slavery, was being brought erty .innocence before the third stage set in. It to account; democracy was marching to fulfillment, quickly became apparent that the billion·dollar and the Jewish community obviously belonged anti-poverty programs were not suddenly going on such a march, whatever the reasons. Several to turn history on its head; and with that realiza motivational streams in Jewish life merged at this tion, the Negro Revolution began to be overlaid point, as they never had before: the instinct for by the Black Revolution. Since New Deal days, at self· preservation; the religious ethic, invoking the least, Americans have subscribed to the social en prophetic tradition; and the political program gineering fallacy: Any problem can be solved if liberalism-for which so many Jews had devel only we devise enough programs and spend oped a special secular affinity. On this level, the enough money_ The fallout of the massive anti Jewish community found itself with a coherent poverty programs of the early 1960's created a and organic position. salaried black bureaucracy in the ghettos and un Of course, this preeminent concern with civil doubtedly helped a number of individuals up the rights swiftly and inevitably became a predom ladder-but finally these programs were more ef inant concern with the needs and aspirations of fective in raising expectations than mass stand the Negro community. After the FEPC principle ards of living_ The goal of instant parity seemed had been established in the North, the laws that more desirable and further away than ever. were passed and the court cases that were pressed Against the background of such frustrations, and had less and less direct application to the security other frustrations provided by society, there has of the Jews. The Jewish Question became more developed a new kind of reactive pattern in the and more remote. But the Jewish community re black community, and in the white community . mained deeply and comfortably involved. as well. It is as a result of these new patterns that However, after little more than a 'decade, this the Jewish Question makes an abrupt re-entry on first stage in postwar developments, the Civil the American scene. Not a matter of searching Rights Revolution, began to change character. for anti-Semites under the bed, this perception that The second stage reflected the shift from the goal the Jewish Question is back comes from what we of equal opportunity to the goal of equal achieve have, since Louis Marshall's time, learned ment, from civil rights to the war against poverty, about the nature of anti-Semitism and about the THE BLACK REVOLUTION &: THE JEWISH QUESTION/25
TO re- nature of the conditions under which it flourishes. acts because they were engaged in tormenting ac .'e- tiv.ity. They were not cruel out of anti-Semitism, ~d The "Vulnerability" of the Population but anti-Semitic out of cruelty. During the 1930's ed anti-Semitism was generally understood to be a ld THERE ARE THREE obvious conditions that coin tool of repressive politics, but it was also thought 15. cide to produce a period of political anti that the use of this tool was possible only be ly Semitism: the kind of political and social insta cause a large mass of people were anti-Semitic in v bility which makes anti-Semitism useful; a politi the first place, held unusually negative attitudes ::a cal leader who is willing to use it; a mass pop toward Jews and had become ideologically com ,e ulation that is willing to embrace it. mitted to these attitudes. Bilt the behavior of this ir It is the belief in an "unwilling" American juvenile gang gives us a different analytical per- - ,> population, in the obsolescence of anti-Semitism spective: Willing to engage in a certain type of .y as a cultural form in America, which gives Jews behavior, they did not reject anti-Semitism as an It their greatest sense of security. Yet it is this belief instrument. 1- itself which is obsolete. ,5 To begin with, one does not have to be an anti T IS POSSIBLE, of course, to say that if s Semite in order to engage in or support anti I there were no historical or cultural :l Semitic behavior. This proposition contradicts reservoir of differential feelings and images about e the "image of the Jew" theory of anti-Semitism. Jews, anti-Semitism could never be used as an in ,- It contradicts the tendency to reify anti-Semitism, strument. But that is something like saying that • to conceive of it as a little mental package tucked if my grandmother had wheels, she would be a l away in a corner of the brain, waiting for the cable car. First of all, it is not very likely that one " proper stimulus to bring it, full-blown, to life. of the most stubborn cultural conventions of About six years ago, a Jewish couple in San ''''estern civilization for well over a thousand Francisco was terrorized for over a year by a years will erode very quickly, even though a pro juvenile gang. The incident was described across cess of erosion may already have started. The the country as a shocking case of anti-Semitism. French Revolution· did not succeed in obliterat There were insulting phone calls every night be ing the cultural continuum of anti-Semitism, but tween midnight and dawn. The couple ran their only invested it with new secular forms. The Rus business fiom their home and could not have an sian Revolution did not eliminate anti-Semitism, unlisted number. Anti-Semitic slogans and swas and neither did a dramatic fresh start in a New tikas were painted on their home. Garbage was World. This generationally-transmitted reservoir left at their door. The torments were constant of cultural anti-Semitism is, again, not best con and cruel, and the middle-aged couple lived a ceived of as a mass of little dark corners in the " year of hysterical fear. Finally the police caught minds of individuals, but rather as a common i a handful of teenage ringleaders. The investiga reservoir of beliefs built almost ineradicably into tion of these young men, their background, fam Ollr literature, into our language, into our most ily, psychology, was thorough. No particular general cultural myths. All of us, Jews as well as "anti-Semitic" history was discovered. The fami non-Jews, have some taproots into that common lies were bewildered and provided no clues. reservoii-. It is fur'ther sustained by real-world con There were no anti-Semitic organizations, insig ditions which will not disappear swiftly: Jews as nia, pamphlets, or cartoons found hidden in the marginal, minority, visible, alien-in the Dias woodpile. The group had exhibited no special pora, and perhaps even in the Middle East. anti-Semitic -proclivities. But what about the reported drop in the level The story of their year-long sport was further of this reservoir of familiar negative stereotypes revealing. It had started casually with anonymous (or "Folk Anti-Semitism," as they are collectively phone calls being made rather widely and at ran called)? Charles Stember has demonstrated what dom. The game proved to be most fun with this is apparently a spectacular decline in the holding couple because they responded with lively anger of such stereotypes between the 1930's and the and fear. The game became increasingly intense. ]960's, as evidenced by poll data.· The findings But for maliy mo~ths these teenagers did not in are valuable, but as Stember points out, they re vest their tricks or insults with any suggestion of quire some independent evaluation of their ac anti-Semitism. Only well into the year did they tual meaning: "[Our findings] do not always discover that anti-Jewish comments added new tell us whether [anti-Semitism] has changed in life to the sport, drew even more heated and prevalence or only in overtness." The reservoir fearful responses. It was then that they began to may indeed have dropped somewhat, but how concentrate on anti-Semitic references. much of this reflects the fact that anti-Jewish In short, the evidence indicates that these stereotypes may be less fashionable, or less salient young men did not engage in tormenting activity to express at this time? because they possessed some quality called anti Semitism. Rather, they committed anti-Semitic • See Jews in the Mind of America, Basic Books, 1966. r 26/COMMENTARY JANUARY 1969 -- After all, these attitude 'changes did not take Iy and overtly anti-Semitic. Yet the surveys found' I . place over a thirty-year period. They dropped little difference in anti-Semitic beliefs between his i rather suddenly-after, not during, the war. The followers and the rest of the American popula American people ,,'ere asked by one poll or tion. A recent comparison between a group of another in every year from 1937 on whether they right-wing letter-writers and a sample of the na thought anti-Jewish feeling was increasing in the tional population found minuscule differences in country. About a quarter of the people thought gross levels of folk anti-Semitism (Jews have so in 1937. The figure rose steadily until 1946, faults, are shady, are shrewd and tricky), but sig when over half of the people thought anti nificant differences between them when the Semitism was increasing. In 1950, a poll recorded questions took on political dimensions (Jews are that only _16 per cent thought so. The American Communists, have too much power, are stirring people certainly didn't seem to undergo any ideo lip the Negroes). logical revulsion against anti-Semitism because of However, it is not just that there is no auto their war against Hitler. In 1940, asked what matic correspondence between folk anti-Semitism grou ps are a menace to America, 17 per cent and political anti-Semitism. The point is greater named the Jews; by 19'16 the figure had risen to than that: Given our common cultural back 22 per cent, and by 1950 it had dropped to,5 per ground, there is· not necessarily much of a rela cent. Stember suggests that in these recent years tionship between anti-Semitism of any kind, and the Jews have been less in the consciousness of support of an anti-Semitic movement. Only 20 America, either unfavorably or favorably. To per cent of Coughlin's supporters said they would stret!=h the imagery, this may speak of a quiescent back a campaign against Jews; but the other 80 rather than an emptying reservoir. per cent were in fact openly backing a campaign One of the difficulties in measuring the total against Jews in their support of Coughlin. For level of such feelings at any given time may be them anti-Semitism was apparently not a salient the change in their forms of expression. One study reason for supporting Coughlin, but they were found that postwar college graduates had appar willing to support him for other reasons, and his ently divested themselves to a considerable degree anti-Semitism did not, bother them. Similarly, of the tradi tional and unsophisticated Shylock many observers of the German scene before 1933 image of the Jew. But these college graduates reported that the Nazis were supported by large were just as likely as others to believe that Jews numbers who were not anti-Semitic. And today? were "clannish" and "aggressive." Or again, ac Asked in a recent poll whether they would sup cording to Stember, "the belief that Jewish busi port or oppose a congressional candidate who nessmen are dishonest has become markedly less was running on an anti-Jewish platform, one current during the past 20 or 25 years. It has third of the American population said that they largely been replaced by the notion that they are would neither support nor oppose him for that merely shrewd or tricky." He goes on to say: reason; his anti-Jewish program would be a mat "Even this less extreme image is less widespread ter of indifference to them. In this way it is pos than the belief in Jewish dishonesty once was, sible to be anti-Semitic without' being an anti although only a minority of the population re Semite-at least any more of an anti-Semite than ject it outright." anyone else. The last clause is perhaps all that counts for Thus as far as the "vulnerability" of the popu any reappraisal of the potential of political anti lation is concerned, the key is not the level of .j Semitism. 'Whether the reservoir of folk anti· anti-Semitic beliefs, but the level of resistance to Semitism has dropped in fact or only in appear political anti-Semitism. The question is not ance, it is still immense. 'Whether it is a matter of whether people dislike Jews more or less, but Jewish aggressiveness, Jewish clannishness, Jewish whether they are against the violation of demo shrewdness, or whatever, the great majority of cratic rights for Jews-or anyone else. I Americans still hold to some pattern of differen There is much evidence to suggest that the tiating, and negative, stereotypes about Jews. And American public's level of commitment to the , there is scarcely an American who does not know abstract principles of democratic procedure is what these stereotypes are, even if he does not not reassuringly high. The democratic commit 'profess to hold them. Th~ instrument i~ the:e, ment in America consists more of loyalty to in readily available in our culture. The JuvellIle stitutions; groups, and systems which support gang in San Francisco had no difficulty plucking democratic procedure, than of an internalized set it out when they had use for it, although the level of beliefs. When that loyalty is shaken, so is the of their folk anti-Semitism had previously been democratic commitment. no greater than that of other Americans. The work of Philip Converse and others in dicates that integrated belief systems are probably HERE IS A PARALLEL in political restricted to the "talented tenth" of the Ameri T anti·Semitism. Father Coughlin's can population, and disappear rapidly as we movement, after a certain point. became explicit- move down the educational ladder. Among the
, .... .~.. i I 1 , ~ ·i~::'_-''''::, THE BLACK REVOLUTION & THE JEWISH QUESTION/27 ys found mass of people, no comprehensive ideology, good "Extremism" and the Jewish Question ween his or bad, is operative. 'Political ideas ·do not exist popnb_ in any large scheme of consistency or even of "EXTREJ\USl\r" IS A CRUDELY descriptive term for rouI compatibility. The "why" of their 'connection, a movement which advocates or engages in un the __ _ one to the other, is missing. The nature of politi democratic behavior. Extremist movements are, ~nces in cal thinking is geared to the concrete rather than in fact, movements of disaffection. They are cre 'S have to the abstract. Converse points out that this con ated by and addressed to people who as a group but sig dition is not "limited to a thin and disoriented feel that they have just lost or are about to lose ~n the bottom layer of the lurnpenproletaTiat [but is] their grasp 011 something important to them; or ~ws are immediately relevant in understanding the bulk those who feel that something important they ;tirring of mass politic,al behavior." have never had but want is just outside their grasp. In both cases, there is attached to this sense auto HIS PAINFUL SITUATION explains why of substantive deprivation, a sense of power dep nitism the sophisticated concepts of the rivation. This felt deprivation, accompanied by Teater T democratic process ·cannot stand much of a strain. major social dislocation, and sharply shifting ex back It also explains how so many people could support pectations, succeeds in breaking up many tradi rela tional loyalties. ·Without an attachment to the I-and COlighlin's anti-Semitic platforms without them selves being anti-Semites. In the light of his find traditional system, and withollt an extended ide Iy 20 ology, the COllllllon democratic commitment is rould ings, and discussing the Nazis, Converse writes: "Under comparable stresses, it is likely that large subject to undemocratic subversion. , ~r 80 None of these conditions predestines the emer laign numbers of citizens in any society (and partiCll lar! y those without any long-term affective ties to gence of political anti-Semitism; they are just the For risk factors, the conditions under which political lient more traditional parties) would gladly support ad !toe promises of change without any great con anti-Semitism is more likely to appear. The final ,"'ere cern about ideological implications." ingredient is a political movement which actually his takes this road. As we have seen, modern political [rly, To say that the large public does not consist of ideologues is not to say that it is feckless or fool anti-Semitism does not rise from a grass-roots de 933 mand, nor do most supporters of mass anti-Semit .rge ish. The American public demonstrably has' a ic movelllents seem to care much one way or an ay? strong sense of its own basic democratic rights, . and has no reluctance to assert itself with respect other. Howc\'cr, thOllgh its followers are not I up to those rights. This is the strong popular spine necessarily ideological, a deviant and radical po 'ho litical movement is. Concomitantly, its leaders, ne on the body of our republic. It serves us· well in I and especially its "intellectuals," are ideologues, ley most situations. But the application of abstract and transfer their own integrated belief systems lat and ideological democratic principles to the ma·t ter of balancing these rights under stress calls for to the movemen t. it The internal logic of these belief systems typi )s conceptual skills, historical perspective, and wide cally requires a conspiracy theory, with all its j based integTated belief systems which are very far moralistic, absolutist trappings. If the opposition n from being prevalent in this country. Thus, the bulk of the data indicates that massive numbers is only wrong, if the "mess" we are in is only the result of mistakes; then a remedy can be found I- of Americans who presumably have a ritual at within the, traditional political structure. But if f tachment to the· conc·ept of free speech and would the opposition is evil, and the "mess" a result of ) reject any gross attemp'ts to subvert it, do not un evil deliberately and conspiratorially done, both t derstand or care much about the fine points of that concept when the crunch comes, when hard- a sharp deviation from the political structure and , core dissenters intrude upon their sensibilities. a repressive closing down of the democratic mar The American people would reject any gross at ketplace are morally legitimized. tempt to subvert religious freedom, but almost Again, people may not be primarily attracted half of them say that if a man doesn't believe in to a political movement because of its conspiracy God, he should not be allowed to run· for public theory, but many have no intellectual barriers to i office. And a majority of. them, while jealous of such ideas .. , About a quarter of our national pop .l due process, would -rather throwaway the book lllation, in sample, recent! y agreed with the clas ., and resort to the whip when dealing with sex sic formulation: l\J uch of our lives is controlled j criminals. by 'plots hatched in secret places. The percentage In short, American democratic institutions have agreeing grows as the educational level drops. flourished because some people understood them, And a conspiracy theory does serve an expressive and the rest of the people were loyal to them. purpose for people caught in frustration. This loyalty is based on an inertia of investment Conspiracy theories are basically abstract in in the country, the system, and the traditional po nature. The conspirators', in order to serve the litical structure. At times mass dislocations of purpose, must be largely distant, hidden, face such loyalty have occurred, usually spinning off les, kabbalistic: The Elders of Zion, the Krem new and "extremist" political movements. lin, the "Vall Street Bankers. But since most minds 28jCOMMENTARY JANUARY 1969
are geared to the concrete, it becomes helpful to instrumental, built around a simple desire 'to get connect these abstractions to a visible body of into the chrome-plated American system. But to people. The development of a conspiracy theory be effective a mass movement does not need to adds yet another risk factor for political anti be, and never has been, a "majority" of any pop Semitism. There is a mountain of literature pre ulation. Color and population concentration, in scribing the mythical Jew as the ideal target for this' case, provide a built-in system of affiliation a well-turned conspiracy theory. and communication which can substitute for more . But the initial point is this: in the light of the formal organization. And within that system, last half-century of experience and research, it is there is stirring a genuine movement of .disaffec~ appropriate to say that the Jewish Question is al tion, still disjointed, but with certain common ex ready being raised again in America. In a malaria pressive and extremist currents that are swelling, prone country, the ·malaria question would be especially among the young. said to exist if the familiar breeding swamps were The theme of the first postwar stage in race re merely building up .. Political anti-Semitism, the lations was equal opportunity. Out of the prog Jewish Question, does not relate in the short ress and frustrations of that stage came the theme range to folk anti-Semitism, nor to the prevalent of the next: anti-poverty. Out of the progress and state of any set of images or feelings toward Jews. frustrations of that stage came the third: Black In America, the Jewish Question is substantially Positiveness. And on the edge of Black Positive the same as the Question of the Democratic Soci ness has emerged the phenomenon of Black Ex-' ety. Mendele Mocher Seforim wrote: "The Jew pressivism. ish Question-that's the wide. canal which drains A sharp distinction has to be drawn between' all the impurities, all the dirt and mud and sew Black Expressivism .and l3lack Positiveness. I~ has age of man's soul." The release of democratic re become a standard anti-poverty theorem that Ne straints, the substitution of jungle for law, of con groes have to be given control of their own boot spiracy theory for reason, of confrontation for ne straps if they are going to be asked to lift them. '. gotiation, of hyperbole for politics, of repression In order to join the American parade, the Negro for social progress-that is the Jewish Question, as community has to find its own identity, and it has come to have special meaning for modern shake itself loose from the degradation and self society. These are the issues around which. the degradation of the past. This is Black Positive only effective' fight against political anti-Semitism ness, power, pride, dignity, as preface to econom can take place. They are alive again today, and ic integration. In addition, an obvious piece of therefore the Jewish Question is coming to life political realism had to come to the fore: The again. black community was not going to be able to take I ·1 a serious part in American pluralism until it es The Black Revolution and tablished its own political strength and instru the Jewish Question ments. It had to shake loose from the coalitions· long enough to do that. The corollary is that the political society would not otherwise respond to 0]\1 ONE SIDE, there is growing a mass movement the needs of the Negro community. This.is Black of disaffection among the black population: a vol Positiveness, and Black Power as preface to polit atile constituency with a well-justified sense of ical integration. general deprivation, and of specific power depri vation, characterized by low levels of education, HERE IS ANOTHER face to Black Positive systematic belief, and commitment to abstract T ness, more symbolic and less clearly .~ democratic principles. "Mass movement" usually instrumental, but still related to an ultimate denotes some formal cohesion: A structu~e and a goal: The black man should feel wholly like I formal system of affiliation, which people can a man. The road to that. goal in America has' al join or around which fellow-travelers can gather; ways been through the achievement of an instru or, alternately, a charismatic leadership with mental position in the economy and the polity. whom a following can identify. As yet the black But America had made a point of depressing the 1 mass movement of disaffection possesses neither. status of the Negro, in itself-and the black com- . Indeed, while black people are, of course, dis munity now became interested in elevating that ·i ,I tressed, dissatisfied, and have' the bitter knowl status in itself-especially since the instrumental edge that they are relatively deprived, most of access to status was obviously not going to be in 1 1 them have not yet been jarred loose from tradi stant. This involved a subtle shift in emphasis. .'. I tional loyalties to the political party structure or Thus, the demand that black history be taught in the system in general. At least so the polls, as well as the schools was grounded in solid instrumental the recent voting patterns and the repeated fail theory: It has educational utility, not only for the' ures to organize in the ghetto areas, indicate. Also, white student, but for the black student, whose all the objective indices testify that the aspirations sense of confidence and self-worth is related to of the great bulk of black people are primarily motivation and ~chievement. But in the last few
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Ie desire to get ,"cars the burden of this demand shifted from are more often frightened, angry, personally des system. But to ;,'C\l.disposed educators and liberals to the young perate young people for whom the schools and ~s not need t ., r 0 I lack people themselves. Educational theory most other social institutions are irrelevant y o. -- pop_ cem ;:sidc, they wanted the symbolic fullness ?f their prisons. n, in idelltity established here and now, for Its own In some cases, what was once personally ex . of
not teach black children. At the last national se.ntiment in important political centers.) There convention of the Arab students in America, WIll, of course, be· an intensification of the Stokely Carmichael, the main speaker, admitted upward-mobility conflict that is already becom that he had once been "for the Jews" but had ing a visible part of the Negro-Jewish complex. reformed. (As one Jewish teacher plaintively told the New Of course, many middle-class blacks are horri~ York Times: "We don't deny their equality, but fied by all this. But on the community level, they shouldn't get it by pulling down others who where the pressure is, they are likely to say that have just come up.") More generally, the political it would not do for them to attack such mani structure in these cities is going to be under con festations, because it would seem to be an attack siderable strain. There is the possibility of a clas on the militant movement itself (this reaction sic marriage, a manipulative symbiosis, between throws another light on the ability of a movement the privileged class and the dis-privileged mass to be anti-Semitic without a corps of anti-.Semites). in this case a WASP class and a black mass-in They are likely to say that these manifestations these cities: the kind of symbiosis which existed are "only symbolic," without understanding that in the 1920's between respectable Republican symbolic anti-Semitism is the most frightening leaders and the KKK, and which permitted a kind. Or they might explain that these attitudes temper of repression and bigotry to flotirish. are not widely reflected in the black community The anti-Semitic ideology developing in the black which is, to complete the circle, irrelevant. movement would be eminently suited to such purposes. Some have suggested that the edges of UT HOW DANGEROUS, finally, is the this possibility are actually peeking out in New B anti-Semitic ideology being devel York City. Certainly, whatever the outcome, this oped by this growing black movement? If the face of the black expressive movement is there movement is destined to be relatively powerless, for the Jewish community to contemplate with should it be a source of major concern? More justified concern. particularly, if this movement is pitted so directly against the white majority in the country, does .. that not render its anti-Semitism still less dan The White Backlash and gerous? Such questions ignore the fact that this. the Jewish Question movement has already succeeded in reintroduc ing political anti-Semitism as a fashionable item Ol' COURSE, ON THE OTHER SIDE, there is a white in the American public arena-with what conse population which exhibits, from its own vantage quences no one can yet telL It would, moreover, point, the same dangerous characteristics: a vol be a repeti tion of old mistakes to think that if a atility, with broken loyalties; a sense of general black movement uses political anti-Semitism,. deprivation and of power deprivation; relatively anti-Semitism must therefore be rejected by anti low levels of education, s·ystematic belief, and lt black whites. One propaganda effort during commitment to abstract democratic principles t -World War II was designed to reduce anti a population, in short, both extremist and ex Semitism among Americans by linking Nazism pressive in tendency. This is the more traditional and anti-Semitism, and then attacking Nazism. backlash pattern, which has produced America's An evaluation reported that the campaign in: major anti-Semitic movements of the past. creased hostility toward Nazism without reducing These movements were involved in preserving hostility toward Jews. And we have seen that the something which seemed about to be lost. When American public fought bitterly against Hitler sllccessful, they were typically' a strange marriage during the war, without apparently altering its between members of the upper and lower eco attitudes toward Jews. nomic strata who were protecting different inter However, there is another, more problematical ests together. Economic concerns were often pres area of concern that might be anticipated if the ent, but the decisive bond was a set of symbolic expressive black movement continues to grow. issues. The critical element of the mass support The black community is on the verge of a major was some kind of status deprivation and aliena political breakthrough. A good number of cities tion: a disappearing way of life, a vanishing are soon destined to be numerically controlled power, a diminishing position of group prestige, or heavily dominated by their Negro populations. a scrambling of expectations, a heart-sinking These are the cities in or around which most change of social scenery, a lost sense of belong American Jews live, and in whi.::h their business ingness. In the 1920's, the backlash of tniditional and public lives are largely conducted. If the rural Protestantism, losing its hegemony in the expressive black movement, with attendant poli- nation, provided this element. The census of 1920 . tical anti-Semitism, continues to grow, its effect reported that for the first time in American his on Jewish lives will be incalculable. (Incalculable tory urban dwellers were in the majority. The also might be the effect on American foreign pol cities were taking over the nation; new kinds of icy in the Middle East of a prevailing inti-Israel people were taking ov.~r the cities; the small-town
-----_._------THE BLACK REVOLUTION Be THE JEWISH QUESTION/31 I enters.) There dweller, whether staying behind or ,coming to the when he came to town, voted instrumentally I 'ation of tl I Ie bi~ city, was apt to feet. in the ~ack-waters. KKK when they went, hand on pocketbook, into the ,r~ady becozn_ leader Hiram W. Evans complainecllhat the "Nor bootns. 1 vlsh :Jlex dic American toelay is a stranger in a large part Of course, Wallace has shown no evidence of ! told Nel~ of the land his father gave him." In the 1930's, raising the Jewish Question, but some parallels equality, but the depression·bound people' who supported have been drawn between him and Huey Long. [} others WIIO Coughlin were not only interested in some aspects' Huey Long never raised the Jewish Question ei tlIe political of social change, but also threatened by other ther, although it was not that unrespectable in ~ under con aspects of social change. Coughlin, in the classic his time to do so. But Huey Long never quite :ty of a c1as- mode of fascism, wanted to create a revolution made the transition from Louisiana demagogue .is, between within the symbolic bounds of a traditional way to national ideologue before he was killed. And eged znass- I of life. In both decades there were massive dislo· among his top staff people was Gerald L. K. :k mass-in cations, large sections of the population being Smith, one of the nation's most committed ideo ich existed LOrn a way from their traditional political loyal logical anti-Semites. Coughlin's full belief system, tepublican ties and therefore frOIll ritualistic democratic his conspiracy theory, his political anti-Semitism, ~nnitted a con'straints to which 'they had no deep ideological emerged fully only midway in his career, after bit I flourislI. commitment. ter disappointments. What might have developed the black in the Long movement, with Smith at his elbow, to such EARE NOW FACED with more massive is of course incalculable. It is a matter of record edges of W dislocations than we have exper that George ''''allace similarly had in the back in New ienced since the 1930's, and perhaps since the Civil ground of his campaign last year speech writers, ~me, this ''''ar. Just as the.re once was a nativist (Protestant) advisers, and organizers who have openly engaged is tlIere backlash against the emergence of immigrant in political anti-Semitism. This did not make tte with (Catholic and Jewish) economic advancement, cui George "Vallace an anti-Semite, nor destine him 'tural imperialism, and political power in the cities, to be one, but it made a number of Jews uneasy. so we now have a white backlash against similar And, Wallace aside, it is only reasonable for the , Negro advances in the cities. The breakdown of uneasiness to accumulate as the risk factors do. "law and order" that is attendant upon such, History often finds its own man. Even Coughlin periods is itself a status-shaking, power-dwind has begun to publish a magazine again, after ling experience. Policemen have consistently white twenty-six years of silence. lnta, been the most conspicuous vocational presence in every major backlash movement in American a vc The Jewish Community and !neral history. It is not that they differ all that much lively psychologically or otherwise from the rest of the, the Jewish Question non·elite American population, but that they are and )les- on the front lines of the conflict. Many white BETWEEN THOSE TWO FORCES, between those two citizens ·fed that they are getting short shrift in harbingers of the Jewish Question, lies an increas ex· :Jnal schools, law enforcement, and city hall generally ingly bewildered and fragmented Jewish commu ica's because of black power. Certainly, they don't ap nity. A few short years ago, there was a kind of prove of the concept of "compensatory" treat coalescence of religious, political, and defense im ment for blacks. And ,they can expressively wrap pulses among the' Jewish leaders, who were mg len around tl;is issue all of their angry feelings about massed on the civil-rights front, with their con 1ge the frustrating decline of American status in a stituency trailing securely and benignly behind. :0- new world, and the apparently losing battle of Today, a different situation is suggested by recur !r the citizen against bureaucracy and taxes. rent vignettes such as one described in a recent The Birch Society, more Liberty League than ~s JTA news dispatch, dateline New York: Coughlin, has never seriously attempted to ex ic The rabbi of the East Midwood Jewish Center 't ploit the white backlash, or to get in touch with mass America at all. McCarthyism was a kind of in Brooklyn sharply rebuked a crowd who booed and jeered Mayor John V. Lindsay this false pregnancy, althoug'h serving fleetingly to re week as the mayor attempted to address an veal the paten tial for undemocratic repression audience in the temple on the dispute between which lies in a large niass of the American public: the teacher's union and the largely Negro George Wallace was, at least for a time, the Pied Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district. ... The P,iper of repression, tuned into the large and mayor was shouted down when he said that ideologically soft underbelly of white America. both sides in the dispute were guilty of "acts of His low November vote outside the South was vigilantism." Rabbi Harry Halpern took the comparable to the low vote that Coughlin's can microphone and declared, "As Jews you have didate Lemke received at a time when Coughlin's no right to be in this synagogue acting the way you are acting. Is this the exemplification of the movement was booming. Many blue-collar people Jewish faith?" Shouts of "yes, yes" were the an Who had given their genuine expressive approval swer. Some members of the audience belonged to to Wallace when the pollsters came around, or the congregation, and others were members of
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.... 0' ~. I .. 32/COMMENTARY JANUARY 1969 th~ community at large which is white, middle might be no interests apart from the interests ~\ class, and predominantly Jewish. of the mass of people, however cloudy such a l In the same dispatch, the JTA reported that "the concept mi~ht be. An equa!ly . a~cepted but opposite behef was that the mdlvldual, a sol· L national body of Conservative Jewish Congrega I itary wayfarer in life and politics, could govern I tions expressed concern this week that recent himself without belonging to any cohesive I statements by some Jewish groups and individuals groups. The two beliefs might be simultane ! have tended to equate the entire Negro commu ously held, for they are psychologically, if not nity with anti-Semitic slurs voiced by a few black politically, consistent. In the. individua!ism and militants.... The board also urged Jews 'not to utilitarianism of Bcnthamlsm, all mterests react to limited extremism with our own ex break down_ Little thought goes to the mass tremism: .. authoritarianism or majoritarianism that was the inevitable denouement. -Whereas the mass In the conglomerate, the Jews of America seem public had never before been seriously regarded to be in a new ambivalent position. No one in as the active agent in legislative processes, the his right mind has ever called the Jewish commu People was now sculpted into a massive mono nity monolithic. But with all its formlessness, the lithic interest group_ Jewish community has in recent memory always Official segments of the Jewish community seemed had a prevailing public stance-in the parlors as to embrace precisely this concept when the Gold well as in the agency offices-with respect to cer en Age set in after World War II. Negroes were tain kinds of issues: the Birch Society, fair em to pursue a just society not primarily as Negroes, ployment practices laws, fair housing laws. T?~ay which they merely happened to be, but as Ameri it is symptomatically difficult to find a prevallmg cans along ."with fellow-Americans. Jews were ·to public stance with respect to such· current issues pursue a just society not primarily as Jews, ·which as police review boards, neighborhood-controlled they happened to be, but as Americans along schools, Black Student Unions. with fellow-Americans. And so forth: A salvation It would be a misreading of the situation to army of Americans with identical moral concerns suggest that all the Jewish community needs is to was marching together. The language was not pull up its moral socks. The J~wish involv~ment all that clear, of course. Jews were told that "civil with the plight of black Amenca cannot SImply rights" was good for them, which indeed it was. be seen as the religious or liberal imperative for But it was told in passing, as a corollary to the social justice. There is, more clearly than ever be main image of all-Americans-marching-morally I fore, the legitimate and independent J.ewish im together. The image became ina-easingly fuzzy as perative for self-survival. Of course,. thIS self-~ur , the f950's yielded to the 1960's, and many Jews vival, given the nature of the JewIsh QuestIOn, suffered traumatic shock when the Negroes de \ could be seen validly-if somewhat remotely-as tached themselves from the marching army and identical with the survival of the democratic so said, "Wait a minute, we've got a different interest cial order. And this period may be another peril here, a different drummer and a different pace." OLIS episode in that recurrent dilemma o~ mode~n There was the religious language also: The pro society: The problem of separately pursumg SOCIal phetic traditions and the Jewish moral imperatives (economic) justice and a democratic ~ocial order were invoked. The Christian clergy invoked their without despoiling either. Western hIstory has a own, as did, no less fiercely, the humanist liberals .. long record of failures in that quest, and, not sur But there has always been a certain uneasy ring· prisingly, the Jewish Question has more often of truth in the pejorative use of the term "do than not been in attendance_ gooder:' 1£ a do-gooder is someone who is primar ily and exclusively motivated by moral concerns UT THERE ARE more concrete implica in the political arena, he is more often than not tions. The Black Revolution is spur B a mischief maker. Politics is not identical with ring the Jewish community-and America-into a morality, which does not mean that politics need renewed understanding of pluralistic politics. The be immoral. To be sure, politics at its best is the fresh Jewish stirrings are not primarily a backlas~ negotiation of conflicting group interests within reaction, although there is some of that. There IS the constraint of rules which are morally based. most significantly a turning inward; in a real But the distinction between morality.as a political sense, a regrouping. There is a new tendency to constraint, and morality as a central engine of po ask seriously a question which has only been litical action, is a crucial distinction. To put it asked jokingly for a number of decades: "Is it another way. the do-gooder is tbe evangelist who. good for the Jews?" . . . . knows what is best for everybody. When the Ne Alfred de Grazia has well deSCrIbed the spmt of groes, seizing their own identity, said: "It is only the age of rationalistic mass democracy which ~as we who really know what is best for us," they set in motion by the Enlightenment, and which brought everyone up short, and they brought the came to a certain rhetorical fruition in America: Jews back for yet another look at their own Beginning in the ~ineteenth century there group identity in Amedca.
J-, ------~_'_;;;_;;;,I,;---· ...~· .. ",;,.··n·.;:~·.-· \"'~ ~"-1'"""_"':""_'_'~~%~"_'--' THE BLACK REVOLUTION &: THE JEWISH QUESTION/!IlJ .. • • \>
Ie interests In 1927, in the middle of the debate as to sense that they are being left out. As Irving M. ldy such a I"helher Jewish Welfare Federations should Levine has said: "Our rightful transfixion on Ne epteri Lit merge with general Community Chests, Morris D. groes has developed into a 'no-wiI1' policy, hard ual, 1_ Waldman told a national conference: "I am con ening the lines of polarization between white and lId g_, -..1 strained to' believe that the existence of separate black into a reality that could blow the country . cohesive Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic Federations ... apart. To change this white reaction, some of the lmultane_ is not going to retard brotherhood. Because I am brilliance which articulated Negro demands will ly, if not !ism and thoroughly convinced that if the universal broth have to be similarly developed to speak to and lnterests erhood will ever come, it will not come in the for lower-class America." :he mass form of a fraternity of individuals, but as a broth hat Was erhood of groups.... The group will-to-live is at BUT THERE are other items which may more he mass least as strong as the individual will-to-live ...." poignantly illustrate the temper of a new agenda. egarded For example, there is a liberal movement toward :ses, the HE JEWISH COMMUNITY'S independent the public-funded privatization of the public . ~ ~ mono- T group will-to-live is being reasserted school system, starting with neighborhood control in response to the reemergence of the Jewish and ending with any group of parents-or an in seemed Question in America-as well as in Eastern Eu stitution of their choice-being able to set up a e Gold_ rope and in the Middle East. Less and less, as one school to which their children can go at public es were consequence, will the public affairs agenda of the expense. The consequences of such a develop 'egroes, Jewish community be the same as that of the ment, with its potential for racial, ethnic, and Ameri black community. This is not a matter of with religious separatism, may call for independent 'ere to drawing support from those generic items on the evaluation by the Jewish community. In most which black. agenda which must be on the common cities new ethnic and racial competition for vari along American agenda and in which the Jewish com ous public boards and posts is developing. Even (ation munity has a strong derivative stake-most nota tually, the Jewish community may be required to Icerns bly, the rapid reduction of ghetto poverty. There act more politically as a community if it is to hold i not may, however, develop sharper differences as to its own in such competition. The point is not the 'civil the point at which the rate of reduction is to be abandonment of universal values, but the devel was. increased "at any cost" or "by any means whatso opment of a more self-conscious focus of group tIle ever." The maintenance of a democratic rule of interest. ally law is essential to .Jewish survival. Nor is it just a The Jewish Question is alive again because the y as defense against extremism which will finally pro American political structure and its traditional ews tect that social order. If the Jewish community coalitions are in naked transition. The common de has in the past had a special concern with greater democratic commitment trembles within both the lnd participation by the ghetto population in civic white and black populations. New kinds of polit 'est affairs, as a nleans of strengthening the democrat ical configurations are in the ma'king. The pa:.\ e." ic fiber, it "mus,t also now have a special concern quarter century turns out not to have been, :i) 1'0- with greater participation by the white lower-mid some envisioned, the passageway to some termi 'es dle-class population still in and around our cities. nal American Dream. It has been the staging ir These are people of the "common democratic ground for some as yet indistinct future Ameri s. .commitment" who are not horned and leprous can design. The Jews, somehow in trouble again, g bigots, but who have troubles of their own, a dig need to make 'their own particular sighting on nity of their own to maintain, and a growing that future.
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