Author | Historical Research Department of NOI |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publisher | The Final Call |
Publication date | 1991 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 334 pp |
ISBN | 0-9636877-0-0 |
LC Class | E185 |
Part of a series on |
Antisemitism |
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Category |
The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews is a three-volume work of pseudo-scholarship, [7] published by the Nation of Islam. The first volume, which was released in 1991, asserts that Jews dominated the Atlantic slave trade. [8] The Secret Relationship has been widely criticized for being antisemitic and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade. [9] [10] [11] [12] The American Historical Association issued a statement condemning claims that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade, [12] and other historians such as Wim Klooster and Seymour Drescher concluded that the role of Jews in the overall Atlantic slave trade was in fact minimal. [13] [14]
The book uses selective citations in order to exaggerate the role of Jews. [11] [15] [16]
The book's thesis has been labeled an antisemitic canard by historians, including Saul S. Friedman, who contends that Jews had a minimal role in the New World slave trade. [10] Henry Louis Gates, Jr., head of the department of Afro-American studies at Harvard University, called the book "the Bible of new antisemitism" and added that "the book massively misinterprets the historical record, largely through a process of cunningly selective quotations of often reputable sources". [11] Other black academics came forward to condemn the book. [17] Eugene Genovese, an American historian and expert on slavery, wrote that the book "rivals The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in fantasy and gross distortion. The absurdity of its pretenses to scholarship are outweighed by its sheer viciousness. It must be taken with deadly seriousness as a transparent attempt to foment antisemitism, irrationality, and hatred, and to subvert intellectual discourse and common decency on our campuses." [18]
Wim Klooster noted that in "no period did Jews play a leading role as financiers, shipowners, or factors in the Transatlantic or Caribbean slave trades. They possessed far fewer slaves than non-Jews in every British and Spanish territory in North America, South America and the Caribbean. Even when Jews in a handful of places owned slaves in proportions slightly above their representation among a town's families, such cases do not come close to corroborating the assertions of The Secret Relationship." [13]
The book was criticized for being antisemitic and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade. Common criticisms were that the book used selective quotes, made "crude use of statistics," [9] and was purposefully trying to exaggerate the role of Jews. [15] Historian Ralph A. Austen criticized the book, saying that the "distortions are produced almost entirely by selective citation rather than explicit falsehood ... more frequently there are innuendos imbedded in the accounts of Jewish involvement in the slave trade," [19] and "[w]hile we should not ignore the antisemitism of The Secret Relationship..., we must recognize the legitimacy of the stated aim of examining fully and directly even the most uncomfortable elements in our [Black and Jewish] common past." [20]
In 1995, the American Historical Association (AHA) issued a statement condemning "any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade." [21]
The publication of The Secret Relationship spurred retorts published specifically to refute the thesis of The Secret Relationship:
Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt called the book the "African American-oriented version" of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . [29]
Legal historian Paul Finkelman states that the central thesis of the book is "ludicrous and considered absurd by all serious scholars." [30]
Historian Glenn C. Altschuler and Robert Summers called The Secret Relationship a "compendium of conspiracy theories." [31]
Classics scholar Mary Lefkowitz called the book "hate literature" and wrote: "The authors of The Secret Relationship continually misquote Jewish sources, taking quotations out of context, or citing as support works that actually say the opposite of what they are claiming. They make a number of claims that are impossible to substantiate, such as that Jews (rather than Arabs) dominated the transatlantic slave trade; that they were the dominant slave traders and holders in the South; that they raped black women; that they infected Native Americans with smallpox...The known facts about the slave trade give a completely different picture of the level of Jewish participation." [32]
Seymour Drescher who analyzed the role of Jews in the overall Atlantic slave trade concluded that it was "minimal," and only identified certain regions (such as Brazil and the Caribbean) where the participation was "significant." [14]
Volume Two of The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews was published in 2010, with the subtitle "How Jews Gained Control of the Black American Economy". [33] According to the Anti-Defamation League, Volume Two blames Jews for "promoting a myth of black racial inferiority and makes a range of conspiratorial accusations about Jewish involvement in the slave trade and in the cotton, textiles, and banking industries". [34]
Titled simply The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Volume 3, the third installment was published in 2016. [35] As summarized by the ADL, the work claims the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the subjugation of Black people during the early 20th century not only enriched but also was orchestrated by Jewish businessmen of the time. Further, the responsibility of the lynching of Leo Frank was also the work of Jews. [36]
pseudo- scholarly works such as The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews...
The culmination of the Nation of Islam's misguided and preposterous camping of anti-Semitism was the Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews (1991), an incendiary work of pseudo-scholarship...
The NOI's anti-Semitic pseudo-scholarship codified Farrakhan's long-held belief in a Jewish world conspiracy...
In the NOI's pseudo-scholarly study, The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews
He calls attention to a canard circulated in a pseudo-scholary work called 'The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.'
This reality leads, I believe, not only to the strange pseudoscholarship represented within The Secret Relationship...
Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Though antisemitism is overwhelmingly perpetrated by non-Jews, it may occasionally be perpetrated by Jews in a phenomenon known as auto-antisemitism. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by anti-Judaism, though the concept itself is distinct from antisemitism.
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African Americans. While describing itself as Islamic, its religious tenets, while phrased in Islamic terminology, differ considerably from mainstream African-American Islamic traditions. Scholars of religion characterize it as a new religious movement. It operates as a centralized and hierarchical organization.
Louis Farrakhan is an American religious leader who heads the Nation of Islam (NOI), a black nationalist organization. Farrakhan is notable for his leadership of the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, D.C. and for his rhetoric that has been widely denounced as antisemitic and racist.
A number of organizations and academics consider the Nation of Islam (NOI) to be antisemitic. The NOI has engaged in Holocaust denial, and exaggerates the role of Jews in the African slave trade; mainstream historians, such as Saul S. Friedman, have said Jews had a negligible role. The NOI has repeatedly rejected charges made against it as false and politically motivated.
The history of antisemitism, defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, goes back many centuries, with antisemitism being called "the longest hatred". Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of antisemitism:
Religious antisemitism is aversion to or discrimination against Jews as a whole, based on religious doctrines of supersession that expect or demand the disappearance of Judaism and the conversion of Jews, and portray their political enemies in Jewish terms. This form of antisemitism has frequently served as the basis for false claims and religious antisemitic tropes against Judaism. Sometimes, it is called theological antisemitism.
Tony Martin was a Trinidad and Tobago-born scholar of Africana Studies. From 1973 to 2007 he worked at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and over the course of his career published more than ten books and a range of scholarly articles.
This is a list of topics related to racism:
Antisemitic tropes or antisemitic canards are "sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since the Middle Ages, such reports have been a recurring motif of broader antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Jewish views on slavery are varied both religiously and historically. Judaism's ancient and medieval religious texts contain numerous laws governing the ownership and treatment of slaves. Texts that contain such regulations include the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the 12th-century Mishneh Torah by rabbi Maimonides, and the 16th-century Shulchan Aruch by rabbi Yosef Karo. The regulations changed over time. The Hebrew Bible contained two sets of laws, one for Canaanite slaves, and a more lenient set of laws for Hebrew slaves. From the time of the Pentateuch, the laws designated for Canaanites were applied to all non-Hebrew slaves. The Talmud's slavery laws, which were established in the second through the fifth centuries CE, contain a single set of rules for all slaves, although there are a few exceptions where Hebrew slaves are treated differently from non-Hebrew slaves. The laws include punishment for slave owners that mistreat their slaves. In the modern era, when the abolitionist movement sought to outlaw slavery, some supporters of slavery used the laws to provide religious justification for the practice of slavery.
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Aaron Lopez (1731–1782), born Duarte Lopez, was a merchant, slave trader, and philanthropist in colonial Rhode Island. Through his varied commercial ventures, he became the wealthiest person in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1761 and 1762, Lopez unsuccessfully sued the Rhode Island colonial government for citizenship.
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Saul S. Friedman was an American historian.
Jews and the American Slave Trade is a 1998 book by American historian Saul S. Friedman published by the Transaction Publishers. It focuses on the Jewish involvement in the American slave trade and is a polemical rebuttal against the 1991 work The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews. It has also been described as contributing to the contemporary debates related to African American–Jewish relations.
Jews, Slaves and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight is a 1998 book by Eli Faber. It focuses on Jewish involvement in the American slave trade and was a polemical rebuttal against the Nation of Islam's 1991 book The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.
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