Copyright by Janice Wendi Fernheimer 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Janice Wendi Fernheimer certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Rhetoric of Black Jewish Identity Construction in America and Israel: 1964- 1972 Committee: ____________________________________ Linda Ferreira-Buckley, Co-Supervisor ____________________________________ Patricia Roberts-Miller, Co-Supervisor ____________________________________ Evan Carton ____________________________________ Michael Bernard-Donals ____________________________________ Shelley Fisher Fishkin The Rhetoric of Black Jewish Identity Construction in America and Israel: 1964- 1972 by Janice Wendi Fernheimer, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Gradate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2006 For Aunt Dolores, who couldn’t be here on earth to see me through, but whose spirit dances through me. For the whole mishpucha, there is now a “docta” in the house. Mom, Dad, Diane, Michele, Bubbie, Aunt Nyna, Uncle Kenny, Aunt Joyce, Uncle Ronnie, Evan and Stefani, your unbounded love, support, and encouragement have made this and all my accomplishments possible. Acknowledgments Thank you to the National Foundation for Research in Jewish Culture and Ms. Marilyn Cohen for awarding me the Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in Jewish Studies. Without this generous support, I could not have completed the research or writing of this project. I would like to thank Linda Ferreira-Buckley and Patricia (Trish) Roberts-Miller for their patience, insight, feedback and encouragement. Their support and guidance has been greatly appreciated, and their critical feedback has helped me continue to rethink and deepen my approach to this project. I am grateful to have had wonderful co-directors who worked as an exceptional team and who treated me as a colleague. Thank you also to Evan Carton with whom I have worked closely since 2000, when he directed my M.A. His clear vision for the big picture has helped me to revise the overall shape and scope of the project. Thank you to Michael Bernard-Donals and Shelley Fisher Fishkin for their feedback from a distance, and also for their presence (both actual and virtual) at the defense. Thank you to Wayne Lesser for granting permission to allow my research in Israel to continue and also for stepping in at the last minute. Thank you to Rosa Eberly for inspiring me to officially come over to Rhetoric and supporting me all along the way. A special thank you to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Andre and Stephen in particular, for helping me locate the materials I needed and for making the seemingly endless photocopies I requested. Thank you to Rabbi Hailu Paris, Marlaine Glicksman, Yaakov Gladstone, Sybil (Kaufman) Kaplan, Rabbi Trainin, and v Jody Benjamin for providing additional materials and valuable historical context. Without their interviews and added insight, many of my critical readings would not be possible. Thank you to Daniel Hoffman and Jorge Portilla for putting up with my presence in their Harlem apartment as I returned time and again to do research. Thank you to Jill Goldenziel, Michael Pine, Rick Miller and the rest of the NYC crew for keeping me well entertained in the “city.” I would especially like to thank my wonderful colleagues and dear friends here in Austin. Eliana Schonberg, Alba Newman, Erin Boade, Catherine Bacon, Donna Hobbes, Cathryn Meyer, and Veronica House not only challenged me intellectually, but also supported me as a friend. The many shared meals, walks, swims, and the mutual support and encouragement transmitted through them made the writing process more possible and less lonely. My dear friends Rachel Frank and Jodi Bart provided dancing and delightful company when necessary, and I am very grateful. Thank you also to the Austin salsa scene---Jorge, Daniel, Augustin, Vicente, Gonzalo, Manuel, Victor, and the gang. From Miguel’s to the Oasis to Copa to Light Bar, y’all helped me dance my academic woes away and gave me a reason to make it through the long weeks of writing. Thanks for your joyful energy and willingness to fill my dance card! Hamon Todah to the Austin Shabbos Bunch—Danny, Marcos, Ilyse, Alex, Rachel, Lauren, David, and the rest of you who came, cooked, and ate over the years. They made Friday nights a haven. Thanks also to Casa de Luz, Tina, Lisa and the “macrobots” crowd. You kept me well fed literally, spiritually, and energetically. Without the aid of vegan brownies, I might never have finished. Thank you to Colleen Basler and Beth vi Moose for enabling me to sit for more than twenty minutes at a time. Thank you to Donna and Phil Schmidt for opening your home and family to me. Passover Seders without accordion accompaniment will no longer suffice. Many thanks to my wonderful colleagues and peers scattered around the world. Your continued e-mails, international calls, and general cheerleading helped give me strength to power forward and keep smiling. A special thanks to Nadav and Emil for their ability to keep me laughing and prevent me from entirely loosing my marbles when it came down to the wire. Thank you to Shlomi for making sure I didn’t loose faith that peace might be possible. Thank you to Mike Giurlando who can no longer leave actual notes on my computer, but whose weekly “check-ins” were greatly appreciated. Thanks to Shannon Carey Lyons for always having faith in me. Thanks to Lauren Schmidt Ross for providing love and warmth in Austin and also from California. Thank you also to my Spring 309L students for being generous with their kindness and reminding me why I chose this career. Most importantly, thank you to my family: Mom, Dad, Diane, Michele, Bubbie, Aunt Nyna, Uncle Kenny, Uncle Ronnie, Aunt Joyce, Evan, Stefani, Debbie, Jerry, and Aunt Helen for your love, support, perspective, and encouragement. You always believed I could to it, and you were right. vii The Rhetoric of Black Jewish Identity Construction in America and Israel: 1964- 1972 Publication No. ______________________ Janice Wendi Fernheimer, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisors: Linda Ferreira-Buckley and Patricia Roberts-Miller Throughout its history, the Western rhetorical tradition has promised an alternative to violence or, as I.A. Richards puts it, a way to reduce “misunderstanding.” The presumption is that understanding, listening, and analyzing lead to conflict mediation, resolution, and thus less violence. My dissertation questions how well rhetorical theory delivers on these promises. Employing primary archival documents (letters, memos, proposals) housed at the Schomburg Center in New York and interviews with Hebrew Israelites in Dimona, Israel, my project demonstrates how a variety of rhetorical theories help to explain, but not resolve, conflicting claims to Jewish identity in New York and Israel in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These misunderstandings involve a number of inexorable conditions: those of race, identity, and the desire for multiple groups of people to claim the same status—“authentic” Jewishness and citizenship in Israel. Though several Black Jewish communities had been in close contact with white Jewish communities in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia throughout the early part of the twentieth century, Hatzaad Harishon (H.H.)—a non-profit organization founded by viii white, liberal Jews to promote unity among Jews of all races in Manhattan–was the first organization formed specifically to foster interaction and unity among the black and white Jewish communities. Hatzaad Harishon emphasized “klal Yisrael” and identification with the modern nation-state of Israel to facilitate improved relations between the races. Focusing on Black Jews, their interactions with other Jews, and the resulting conflicts over legitimate identity, I show how theories lauded as contemporary rhetoric’s most promising—those of Kenneth Burke, Wayne Booth, and Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrects-Tyteca—do not help us mediate competing claims when no clear means for authentication or legitimization exists, and when identity is precisely the issue at stake. My close, rhetorical analysis of primary materials challenges traditional assumptions about black-Jewish relations; Burke’s theories of identification and the dialectic of constitutions; Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s theory of antinomy, and Booth’s “listening rhetoric.” Each chapter explicates letters, memos, proposals, and other documents; analyzes an episode of conflict in Hatzaad Harishon’s short-lived history, 1964-1972; and illustrates the troubling questions such misunderstandings present for contemporary rhetorical theories. ix Table of Contents Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………v Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….viii Prologue…………………………………………………………………………………...1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..6 Chapter One: Nineteenth Century “isms” and the Questions of Black and Jewish Difference: Nationalism, Israelitism, Lost Tribism, Zionism, and Ethiopianism………..26 Chapter Two: Burkean Identification and Hatzaad Harishon’s First Steps at Jewish Reconstitution………………………………………………………………………...….61 Chapter Three: Black and Jewish in 1971 New York: Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s Universal Audience, Epideictic, and Dissociation in the Negotiation of Identity Conflict……………...………………………………………………………………….114 Chapter Four: