Speaker 1: And now watch showing my mic back like that.
Speaker 2: We can strikes from headquarters behind in the If.
Speaker 1: You just tuning in the civic cipher, I'm your host.
Speaker 1: Ramsey's job is rams John, I am q lord.
Speaker 3: You are still hopefully tuned and d are uh And
Speaker 3: we have a special guest on the show with this today,
Speaker 3: Amy Horowitz.
Speaker 1: We're having a ball talking about some things that really
Speaker 1: need to be talked about. And obviously we're going to
Speaker 1: get back to him in just a second, but I
Speaker 1: also want you to stick around for the uh the
Speaker 1: Way Black History Fact. We're going to spend this part
Speaker 1: of the show talking about relationships, particularly the relationship between
Speaker 1: Jewish people and Black people. On this show, we stand
Speaker 1: on the truth that Jewish people are our brothers and
Speaker 1: our sisters, and we feel like it's necessary to have
Speaker 1: a conversation that is intent on healing some of the
Speaker 1: fraying that has taken place over the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: And again, Amy's going to join us for that, and
Speaker 1: then for our way Black History in fact, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the origin story of the NAACP. But first and foremost,
Speaker 1: it's time to discuss ba Ba becoming a better ally
Speaker 1: BABA and Today's BABA is sponsored by Major Threads. For
Speaker 1: the finest in men's sportswear, checkmajorthreads dot com and for
Speaker 1: today's BABA, we're going to be checking out Yahoo News.
Speaker 1: The headline reads how reparations pioneer Evanston, Illinois is rolling
Speaker 1: out payments to black citizens. I'll read a bit. The
Speaker 1: city started dispersing reparations payments to locals in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two in the form of vouchers for housing and since
Speaker 1: and has since expanded to include cash. As talk of
Speaker 1: reparations ripples through the federal and local governments nationwide, Evanston,
Speaker 1: Illinois has become the first city in the United States
Speaker 1: to put money in the hands of black residents affected
Speaker 1: by years of discrimination. Quote. I'm excited to see that
Speaker 1: over one hundred municipalities have followed in their inspiration and
Speaker 1: what's happened in Evanstone. We all look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: more legislation put into law, then into practice, and then dispersed.
Speaker 1: Robin Sue Simmons, the founder and executive director of First
Speaker 1: Repair and chairperson of the city's reparations committee, told Yahoo News. Simmons,
Speaker 1: a former alder woman in Evanstone, which has a sixteen
Speaker 1: percent black population and is located about twelve miles north
Speaker 1: of Chicago, has been a pioneer in bringing reparations to
Speaker 1: one of the black communities affected by the aftermath of
Speaker 1: slavery in the United States. Quote. Most federal policy is
Speaker 1: implemented with a spark in a local community, a grassroots leader.
Speaker 1: Every other area of government we look at hyper locally
Speaker 1: and then it trickles up to our congressional leader, she said.
Speaker 1: But Simmons recalled just having her own city in mind
Speaker 1: when she started out the journey of repairing harm to
Speaker 1: the dwindling number of black residents in the community. Obviously
Speaker 1: there's a lot more huge and a valid reason why
Speaker 1: they undertook this endeavor. So again, Yahoo, you can check
Speaker 1: it out, but we wanted to shout out credit where
Speaker 1: it's due. That is becoming a better ally in our opinion.
Speaker 1: Now it's time to move on.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Amy Listen, I appreciate your input and everything that you
Speaker 1: said in the first half of the show. Feel free
Speaker 1: to dance back and forth with your with the work
Speaker 1: that you do professionally and the UH topic that we
Speaker 1: want to address now. But we feel like again it's
Speaker 1: necessary to have this conversation. A little bit of background
Speaker 1: from me.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: One of my best friends in high school since passed away.
Speaker 1: His name was Ari Block Ari, and so Ari Ami,
Speaker 1: you know we have For those that don't know, we
Speaker 1: had an issue with an email earlier and I instead
Speaker 1: of typing Amy, I typed in Ari, you know. But
Speaker 1: that's uh?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it?
Speaker 1: I believe it might be. But anyway, I learned at
Speaker 1: a young age how beautiful Jewish culture is. I learned
Speaker 1: about the commonalities between Jewish people and black people. And
Speaker 1: I learned that if I wanted to play basketball, if
Speaker 1: I wanted to listen to Bone Thugs and Harmony CDs,
Speaker 1: if I wanted to, you know, go skating, because I
Speaker 1: was a skater. For those that don't know, in high school,
Speaker 1: my Jewish friends were just as likely to engage in
Speaker 1: my favorite activities as anyone else. And fortunately, my high
Speaker 1: school was very, very close to a prominent Jewish community,
Speaker 1: and so there was a decent number of Jewish people there.
Speaker 1: And this is not the experience for a lot of
Speaker 1: people because there are not as many Jewish people as
Speaker 1: there are Christian people globally. It's just not a big thing,
Speaker 1: and yet Jewish people have sort of become like almost
Speaker 1: like a boogieyman in recent years. And I would like
Speaker 1: for you to speak to that first, you know, how
Speaker 1: does that feel? And as someone who is Jewish and
Speaker 1: from a Jewish community, how does that feel? And then
Speaker 1: you know, talk to us. Do you feel like it's
Speaker 1: based in reality? Do you feel it's warranted? You know,
Speaker 1: on and on and then we'll go from there.
Speaker 4: I may have a couple thoughts on the topic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well please, I'd imagine.
Speaker 4: So, so, to me, the apotheosis of Jewish Black relations
Speaker 4: did not come when Jews were marching at Selma. It
Speaker 4: was when I saw the Beastie Boys and run DMC
Speaker 4: at the Greek play together. That was the height of
Speaker 4: Black Jewish relations.
Speaker 1: I'll take it.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: So it's so interesting. Yeah, Anty Semitism is on the rise,
Speaker 4: no question about it. Unlike what most people have said,
Speaker 4: it did not begin its rise in with with Trump
Speaker 4: coming in, although it continued the rise during Trump's reign
Speaker 4: happened maybe five or six years earlier than that happened
Speaker 4: to be during Obama, but had nothing to do with
Speaker 4: Obama's happening. That was who was the president when the
Speaker 4: rise began. Statistically speaking, so any Semitism is interesting. So
Speaker 4: when I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles
Speaker 4: in the eighties, there was a lot of any Semitism.
Speaker 4: My synagogue or my Jewish school was routinely broken into,
Speaker 4: was trashed, was graffiti with with with swastikas. I would
Speaker 4: say at least once or twice a year. It would
Speaker 4: happen to either my synagogue or my school every year.
Speaker 4: I never made the news. It just was a relatively
Speaker 4: common occurrence in Los Angeles and I imagine other cities
Speaker 4: in the country. Otherwise, a kid, your perspective is local.
Speaker 4: It's not global at all. Now. At the time, the
Speaker 4: anti Semitism that was occurring was exclusively from the hard right.
Speaker 4: It was exclusively from skinheads, Neo Nazis. The guys that
Speaker 4: I fought with routinely were always skinheads and white supremacists.
Speaker 4: And then what happened was sometimes in the late eighties
Speaker 4: early nineties, it kind of magically all went away and
Speaker 4: you rarely heard of any Semitism. Again, it didn't really occur,
Speaker 4: and a something did happen, if a synagogue was defaced,
Speaker 4: it made news because it was so rare, and this
Speaker 4: like Goldilocks period when it went away for maybe two decades,
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit less than that, maybe fifteen years,
Speaker 4: And now it's come back, and it's come back in
Speaker 4: a more virulent form because now it's from the It's
Speaker 4: still part of the hard right culture, right the extreme
Speaker 4: right culture, but it's now also become part of the
Speaker 4: extreme left culture. You see it from both ends. Ironically,
Speaker 4: I spent a lot of time in any Semites. I
Speaker 4: speak with a lot of them. Oftentimes I interview them
Speaker 4: and I'm talking from KKK. People were par the nation
Speaker 4: of Islam both sides. And what's interesting is they both
Speaker 4: If you ask them why they like Jews, you often
Speaker 4: hear the same responses. It's really interesting. I've always thought
Speaker 4: politics is not a linear line. I've always believed politics
Speaker 4: is a circle. If you go so far and left,
Speaker 4: so far to the right, you end up coming back
Speaker 4: to the same place. I think history has proven that.
Speaker 4: And uh yeah, you see a lot of the same
Speaker 4: responses when it comes to why don't you like Jews?
Speaker 4: Jews control the media, Jews control economy, control armies, same
Speaker 4: kind of clap track you heard throughout the centuries of
Speaker 4: jew hatred. It's fascinating, but it's more virulent because it's
Speaker 4: now coming from both ends. And that's not a pincer
Speaker 4: move you want to be involved in. And I think
Speaker 4: that my oftentimes Jews tend to be left of center. Right,
Speaker 4: Jews tend to vote Democrat, not dissimilar from black people.
Speaker 4: And it's because and I understand why, right, I vote
Speaker 4: more Republican Democratic, I voted, I've voted. I work for
Speaker 4: a Democrat. But I understand why because Jews look at
Speaker 4: everything through the prism of social justice because of our history,
Speaker 4: which I get right, the the the amount of oppression
Speaker 4: that we have felt over the centuries has made us
Speaker 4: acutely aware of issues around social justice, which, by the way,
Speaker 4: is another reason why Jews were in the forefront of
Speaker 4: the issues for against racism. And I'm trying to help
Speaker 4: black people lift themselves because we understood their history. Well,
Speaker 4: we lived that history in a lot of cases, not
Speaker 4: just in this country but globally, and we had done
Speaker 4: better for ourselves and we wanted to make sure other
Speaker 4: people didn't have to experience what we experienced as much
Speaker 4: as we could. And that's why. And so Democrats, and again,
Speaker 4: if I'm going on too long coming out.
Speaker 1: No, no, it's your floor.
Speaker 4: So Democrats or Jews were always Republican voters because they
Speaker 4: thought the Republican Party after Lincoln was the party of
Speaker 4: social justice for obvious reasons. And then with Franklin Roosevelt
Speaker 4: it switched like a light switch. They all moved Republican
Speaker 4: Democrat have never looked back since then. You know, I
Speaker 4: would say roughly a little bit lower than the black community,
Speaker 4: probably around eighty percent of Jews vote Democrat. And that's why.
Speaker 4: So it is interesting to see any Semitism rear its
Speaker 4: ugly head from both sides, left and right.
Speaker 3: You mentioned earlier that left of center, center, and right
Speaker 3: of center have far more in common than their differences, Ramses,
Speaker 3: and I believe that that is true across political lines,
Speaker 3: across ethnicities, that in general, people have far more in
Speaker 3: common than the things that we highlight to divide ourselves,
Speaker 3: or that the things that have been highlighted for us
Speaker 3: to keep us divided is really how we view it. So,
Speaker 3: you know, thank you for pointing that out, because we
Speaker 3: believe that's something that we believe is true across politics,
Speaker 3: across ideologies, and across ethnicities and you also point out
Speaker 3: the extremes in that circle, and that was a I
Speaker 3: think that was a great mental picture for our audience
Speaker 3: as well. You know, as you keep going so far extreme,
Speaker 3: those extremes end up with just as much in common
Speaker 3: as the rest of us. So in either direction too far,
Speaker 3: you're kind of going the wrong way at a certain point.
Speaker 1: With regards to.
Speaker 3: The most recent rise and anti semitism and that rhetoric
Speaker 3: by some popular or you know, need I say, celebrity
Speaker 3: African Americans, what do you think has led to that
Speaker 3: type of ideology and it being expressed out loud in
Speaker 3: the media over the past year, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: mister West and his deaf Con three and the promoting
Speaker 3: of some anti semitic views and some films on Amazon
Speaker 3: by you know, a professional basketball player. What type of
Speaker 3: things do you think stoked that or led to the
Speaker 3: popularity of a seemingly anti semitic view from a generation
Speaker 3: of black people that we hadn't seen before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's unfortunately it's it goes far wider than that.
Speaker 1: I bet it does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's there's a lot I mean, there's there's a
Speaker 4: lot of names that people often probably don't even know
Speaker 4: ice Cube is an example that comes to mind, who
Speaker 4: said horrifically and semitic things, promoted an Semitic memes, has
Speaker 4: even attacked Black I mean I remember him. He attacked
Speaker 4: Kream dul Jabbar with an a Semitic slur. Oddly enough,
Speaker 4: because last time I checked, Cream wasn't Jewish. I wish
Speaker 4: it was, but but it's not. Nick Cannon, I mean
Speaker 4: big Nick, big big names who are sterling sharp, you know,
Speaker 4: Stephen Jackson. Anyways, I I don't go through the list.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of commonality between between them. And
Speaker 4: I hate to say it, but a lot of it
Speaker 4: comes from the Nation of Islam, I gotta say. And
Speaker 4: I think that the support of the Nation of Islam,
Speaker 4: particularly it's leader Lewis Ferrikhon. You see a commonality among
Speaker 4: all the people who have said these things, who had
Speaker 4: then spoken about Lewis Ferrikhon in a very positive light,
Speaker 4: and they've pup they've parroted much of the words Farakhon
Speaker 4: has used and not in the Holocaust, calling Jews roaches,
Speaker 4: saying Jews are parasites, Jews control all these these these
Speaker 4: are these are oftentimes script from Lewis Farakhon, and I
Speaker 4: think that the other problem is that we've got we've
Speaker 4: let them get away with it. And I always look,
Speaker 4: I always like to say, let's look in the mirror,
Speaker 4: or let's put the shoe on the other foot and
Speaker 4: and and see, because I think that's very clarifying. If you,
Speaker 4: for example, would say, if a white person would say
Speaker 4: those awful things but instead of just changed you for
Speaker 4: black person, that person would rightly be be vilified and
Speaker 4: will probably never work again and or or certainly not
Speaker 4: work for a very long time unless until penance was made.
Speaker 4: But a lot of times these guys aren't made to
Speaker 4: face the same mus Yeah, there might be a couple,
Speaker 4: Oh he's got to apologize or you know, say something.
Speaker 4: The ADL organization, by the way, I don't particularly care for.
Speaker 4: And yeah, they all went through their penance of just
Speaker 4: say hey, sorry if I offended you, or you know,
Speaker 4: I'm learning more about this, but it's not real, let's
Speaker 4: be honest. I hope it was, and I hope some
Speaker 4: of them have learned. But I think a lot of
Speaker 4: it comes from that. You know. What's also interesting, there's
Speaker 4: there's a there's this move to make Jews white people.
Speaker 4: This is something that that this is not a it's
Speaker 4: not a new thing, but it's it's it's it's kind
Speaker 4: of come back to where it was. I remember James Baldwin,
Speaker 4: the great, great, great Black writer, wrote this essay on
Speaker 4: any Semitism, and what he ended up saying was is
Speaker 4: even back then I was written in the sixties. He
Speaker 4: talked about the high levels of any Semitism the black community.
Speaker 4: But what he said was, it's really more is Jewish
Speaker 4: people as a proxy for white people. It's really a
Speaker 4: hatred of white people. But Jewish people just tend to
Speaker 4: they tend to be the grosser at the time in
Speaker 4: Harlem where they tended to be the landlord, and and
Speaker 4: they kind of used as a proxy. And the danger
Speaker 4: of doing that is this, first of all, it's just
Speaker 4: just factually false.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: Jews come in all shape, sizes and colors. In my
Speaker 4: personal family, I have people who are black, not not
Speaker 4: brown black people my family who are dark brown. Personally
Speaker 4: am a person of color. My mother comes from Iron.
Speaker 4: We come of all shape sizes, racial ethnicities. So we're
Speaker 4: clearly not white people necessarily. Some of us are white,
Speaker 4: but not all of us. But the reason why it's
Speaker 4: done I Remember I'm going thinking about Whoope Goldberg on
Speaker 4: the View made this point and I thought it was
Speaker 4: really dangerous where she was talking about the Holocaust and said,
Speaker 4: well it was y'all white people kind of fighting amongst yourselves.
Speaker 4: Now it was offensive in a couple levels. First of all,
Speaker 4: come dismissing the holocausts you all people were fighting esach other.
Speaker 4: And second of all, the fact that she made all
Speaker 4: Jews as white people. And the reason why it's done
Speaker 4: is it's you know, you guys believe the term intersectionality.
Speaker 4: Do you guys know that term? Yes, yes, So it's
Speaker 4: I think it's because of the idea of intersectionality, where
Speaker 4: if because you have the intersectionality is kind of created
Speaker 4: as a first of all, intersectionality something I have a
Speaker 4: lot of issues with, primarily because it's about the connection,
Speaker 4: the connective tissue of victimhood and also based on really
Speaker 4: economic power. So you put white people on the top
Speaker 4: of that pyramid, put black people that say, at the
Speaker 4: bottom of the pyramid, and you say, well, if you
Speaker 4: put Jews of white people, then therefore it's okay if
Speaker 4: we speak polly of them, because they're really part of
Speaker 4: the intersectional oppression that we face.
Speaker 1: So how about this? Yeah, if I'm in of course,
Speaker 1: now there's going to be a lot of people who
Speaker 1: will listen to this and appreciate the insight and appreciate
Speaker 1: how it feels to be a Jewish man experiencing this.
Speaker 1: I will affirm again you are my brother, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate that you came on here. But I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: doing my job if I did not try to ask
Speaker 1: questions that perhaps our listeners who are trying to learn
Speaker 1: more would would ask. And so allow me to play
Speaker 1: devil's advocate, forgive the expression. So for a black person,
Speaker 1: the experience of interacting with an individual who lacks melanin
Speaker 1: is a unique experience. You lack melanin that means white, right, right,
Speaker 1: or a person who's white passing. This is what I'm
Speaker 1: This is what I'm saying, So white or white adjacent, right.
Speaker 1: This is a person that if you know nothing else
Speaker 1: about me, you do know that I'm black. I wear
Speaker 1: it all over my whole body, right, So my experience
Speaker 1: is going to be very different. I cannot hide it.
Speaker 1: My hair grows this way, my skin looks like this.
Speaker 1: This is who I am. You can tell that I'm
Speaker 1: black from across the street a Jewish person. You cannot
Speaker 1: tell that a person is Jewish from across the street.
Speaker 1: In other words, Whoopie Goldberg an example that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: Whoopy Goldberg is a Jewish woman, but you would not
Speaker 1: know that unless she said it to you, or unless
Speaker 1: you observed her worshiping or partaking in Jewish customs. But
Speaker 1: you do know full well to sheose a black woman,
Speaker 1: and that visual in many instances where she lacks power,
Speaker 1: will elicit and approach to her or a response to her,
Speaker 1: some of which could conceivably be negative, and those of
Speaker 1: us in the no refer to that as racism, and
Speaker 1: so anti semitism. Again, my listeners may make this connection,
Speaker 1: and I'm asking for clarification from you. Anti Semitism is
Speaker 1: something that is not by from that vantage point, not as.
Speaker 4: What was that visual.
Speaker 1: It's not as visual, right. In other words, you have
Speaker 1: to invite someone in to know this part about you,
Speaker 1: and then they can choose to discriminate based on that information.
Speaker 1: Whereas people who've already made up their minds about how
Speaker 1: they feel about black people can spot black people out
Speaker 1: of a lineup. I use that term almost intentionally and deliberately,
Speaker 1: so your thoughts on a person who might push back
Speaker 1: and say, well, you know, some of this stuff is
Speaker 1: based in reality at least to some degree.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean look not to say that. Obviously a
Speaker 4: black person and a Jewish white person look very dissimilar
Speaker 4: the old like I would look. It is visual when
Speaker 4: it comes to any Semitism to a certain extent, the
Speaker 4: extent that Jewish people not all the time, but there
Speaker 4: are a lot of Jews on Saturday, I wear a yamica.
Speaker 4: I am very visually Jewish.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure ari war one every day there.
Speaker 4: If you're a Hasidic Jew, you look very visually Jewish.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Now we.
Speaker 4: Can shed that, obviously you cannot. But still there is
Speaker 4: a visual component to it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So for example, when you see Jews being beat up
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn, it's oftentimes the Jews are being almost exclusively
Speaker 4: are the ones who look Jewish and they're Hasidic. They're
Speaker 4: wearing the garb because a person who's attacking them visually
Speaker 4: identified that he wasn't invited to their home and then
Speaker 4: realized they were Jewish, or got to a conversation we
Speaker 4: have to do it. We're punched. They were attacked and
Speaker 4: beaten because they were visually Jewish, so not that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I agree there's a difference, but there's also similarity to.
Speaker 1: It, sure, and I believe that you're right. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more similarities there. And really this conversation is meant
Speaker 1: to do some healing. Another thing I want to point out,
Speaker 1: if I may, is that the Nation of Islam, obviously
Speaker 1: here we have to deal with all different facets of
Speaker 1: black life, and everyone who we believe is marginalized, we
Speaker 1: do our best to share this space with him. So
Speaker 1: this includes our Asian, American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: our lgbt Q I A plus brothers and sisters and
Speaker 1: on and on. You you realize the list. And when
Speaker 1: we do our peek, you do not have the Sikhs on.
Speaker 4: Do not care about the seeks.
Speaker 1: The Sikhs were out there helping us protest in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty with the turbans and everything, and so those are
Speaker 1: our brothers and our sisters as well, and when they
Speaker 1: need us, we will be here for them. But I
Speaker 1: do want to ask you this while, and we just
Speaker 1: have about a minute or so left for you to respond.
Speaker 1: But I recognize that there is a deep rooted history
Speaker 1: between Muslims and Jewish people that exists long before this
Speaker 1: chapter in American history, and in fact, I believe the
Speaker 1: origin might have been in the Middle East somewhere, and
Speaker 1: perhaps there's still some fighting going on there. I mostly
Speaker 1: focus on American issues relative to black people, so I
Speaker 1: wouldn't profess to know much about Middle East policy. However,
Speaker 1: do you believe that the connection between Blacks and Jews
Speaker 1: is made through the nation of Islam and originates in
Speaker 1: the Middle East? In other words, there's there's some lineage there. No, okay,
Speaker 1: so explain.
Speaker 4: It just had No, I don't. I don't think that.
Speaker 4: What you're asking is that if if the the the
Speaker 4: any Semitism coming from the black community originates and stems
Speaker 4: from the conflict in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that more or less? No, No, No, okay, I
Speaker 1: mean I think.
Speaker 4: There's Look, there's there's there's overlap, and certainly when it
Speaker 4: comes to Lewis Ferrikhn there might be some of that,
Speaker 4: although I don't know, to be honest, I don't know
Speaker 4: if his any Semitism is born from his from is
Speaker 4: from his Islam, or just from his bigot tree. I
Speaker 4: don't the truth is. I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 4: In fact, if I ever had a chance to sit
Speaker 4: down with him, and I would, I would love.
Speaker 1: To figure that out.
Speaker 4: I would love to unpack that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Listen, I tell you what, We're gonna leave it right
Speaker 1: here just because we're gonna move on, but we are
Speaker 1: going to manifest We're gonna radiate some positivity in your direction.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you'll get a chance to talk to him, because
Speaker 1: I believe that that's a conversation that we all could
Speaker 1: benefit from, and certainly we would love to know how
Speaker 1: to heal this relationship. But for now, it's time to
Speaker 1: move on to our way, Black History Fact. And so
Speaker 1: today's way Black History Fact is as always sponsored by
Speaker 1: the Black Information Network Daily Podcast, and we are going
Speaker 1: to be talking about a long history American Jews and
Speaker 1: the NAACP. This writing comes from Rabbi Lance J. Sussman, PhD.
Speaker 1: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or
Speaker 1: the NAACP and American Jews have a long shared history.
Speaker 1: The anti Semitic posting by Minister Rodney Muhammad, head of
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, has thrown relations between
Speaker 1: American Jews and African Americans and the NAACP into disarray. First,
Speaker 1: and unequivocally, Minister Mohammed, Well, this is his asking. He
Speaker 1: needs to resign his invoking of anti Semitic Nazi meme.
Speaker 1: It was inexcusable and betrays the mission and goals of
Speaker 1: the NAACP. I would tend to agree with that in
Speaker 1: my opinion, the NAACP at the national level needs to
Speaker 1: secure this resignation and move any doubt as to their
Speaker 1: organization's philosophy moving forward. Second, the NAACP needs who affirm
Speaker 1: its historic mandate of fighting all forms of bigotry and discrimination. Again,
Speaker 1: I agree with that the mission of the NAACP, in
Speaker 1: their own words is to quote secure the political, educational, social,
Speaker 1: economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race based
Speaker 1: discrimination and ensure the health and well being of all persons.
Speaker 1: The American Jewish NAACP cooperation must continue and maintain its
Speaker 1: extraordinary legacy of dialogue and I love that art all right. Fourth,
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Jewish community needs to recognize the size and
Speaker 1: strength and continue and growth of our local African American
Speaker 1: Muslim community, the largest in the United States, and work
Speaker 1: to build bridges between us them and others. I think
Speaker 1: it's important to keep the current controversy and historical perspective,
Speaker 1: as there are forces in both communities which want to
Speaker 1: break down the historic ties between American Jews and African
Speaker 1: Americans and empower anti integrationists and anti a cultural and
Speaker 1: a culture. How would I say a culture, a cultural,
Speaker 1: a culturistionist ideas. I believe that's all I said. Forgive
Speaker 1: me on both sides of the debate. That would be
Speaker 1: a mistake, that would be a tragedy for Americans, Blacks, Jews,
Speaker 1: and American itself. At the same time, we need to
Speaker 1: appreciate there are difference, differences and tensions between Jews and
Speaker 1: Blacks and the United States, and at the same time,
Speaker 1: we can and must work together for the benefit of
Speaker 1: our country. All right, here we go. The NAACP was
Speaker 1: founded in nineteen oh nine in reaction to a terrible
Speaker 1: race riot the year before in Springfield, Illinois. Among the
Speaker 1: original founders of the NAACP were Henry Moskowitz and a
Speaker 1: Romanian Jew who worked as the executive director of the
Speaker 1: Broadway League in New York. Moskowitz was joined in support
Speaker 1: of the NAACP by Rabbi Emil Hirsch, son of Keys
Speaker 1: Rabbi the late Samuel Hirsch, Julius Rosenwald, father of Keyes
Speaker 1: Lessing Rosenwald Jacob Schiff, was the leading Jewish philanthropist of
Speaker 1: the Progressive era and the well respected spring Arm family
Speaker 1: to this day. The spring Arn Medal is one of
Speaker 1: the highest awards given by the NAACP to those who
Speaker 1: best exemplify its goals and values. The young Rabbi Stephen Wise,
Speaker 1: a leading voice of American Zionism prior to World War Two,
Speaker 1: supported the NAACP and via W. E. E. D. Boyd
Speaker 1: the Niagara Movement. Lillian Ward of Settlement House fame also
Speaker 1: supported the newly founded NAACP. But perhaps the most fruitful
Speaker 1: collaboration between the American Jewish community, and in particular the
Speaker 1: reform movement in Judaism and the NAACP, took place in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties. In nineteen sixty two, the Union
Speaker 1: for American Hebrew Congregations UAHC now the Union for Reform
Speaker 1: Judaism RJ, purchased the old Ecuadorian Embassy at twenty twenty
Speaker 1: seven Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, d C. Northwest and launched
Speaker 1: its Religious Action Center there nineteen sixty four, with reform
Speaker 1: NAACP leaders and others huddled around the table. The historic
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act was written. The following year, the same
Speaker 1: coalition produced the Voting Acts Right, the Voting Rights Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty five, which was guided by the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court in twenty thirteen. In other words, the most progressive
Speaker 1: social and civil legislation in American history was born of
Speaker 1: NAACP dh American Jewish cooperation. It is important to note
Speaker 1: that the seed money for the rac was given by
Speaker 1: a reformed jew, Kiv Kaplan, who passed in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1: The s gift was given in nineteen fifty five. Caplan,
Speaker 1: a Bostonian, joined the NAACP at nineteen thirty two at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty eight, was elected to its national
Speaker 1: board in nineteen fifty four, and from nineteen sixty five
Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty five served as president of the NAACP.
Speaker 1: He marched and was jailed with doctor Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Junior on many occasions, including the Edmund Pettis Bridge crossing
Speaker 1: in Selma, Alabama. Curiously, on the back of his business card,
Speaker 1: Kaplan always had the words keep smiling printed. There is
Speaker 1: a saying to the effect that things were never as
Speaker 1: good between blacks and Jews as Jewish liberals would have it,
Speaker 1: nor were they as bad as Black nationalists alleged tensions
Speaker 1: between American Jews and American Blacks are nothing new. As
Speaker 1: a child, again, this is Rabbi Lance J. Sussimon's words.
Speaker 1: As a child, I heard endless coded comments about blacks
Speaker 1: and was aware that Jews were paradoxically part of the
Speaker 1: white flight movement, just as they were largely pro civil rights. Later,
Speaker 1: I learned that Doctor King Representative, Doctor King, Representative John
Speaker 1: Lewis and other African American leaders were hard pressed by
Speaker 1: Black nationalists for their integrationist views. But these tensions are
Speaker 1: secondary to the need for cooperation in pursuit of civil
Speaker 1: equality in the United States. Hopefully, at these difficult times,
Speaker 1: American Jews and leaders of the NAACP will remember our
Speaker 1: joint heritage, our larger common purpose, and together with Kybe
Speaker 1: Kaplan and others, will find a way back to marching
Speaker 1: and smiling together. And it's signed Shabat Shalon Shaloon Rabbi
Speaker 1: Lance J. Sussimon, PhD. So we're almost done, But any
Speaker 1: thoughts on today's way black history fact from you, Amy.
Speaker 4: No I found I found it fascinating. Yeah, I think
Speaker 4: that's uh, this is is what we're talking about, exactly
Speaker 4: what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then go ahead please.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say that that the the Jews were
Speaker 4: were for the reasons I mentioned, were involved from from
Speaker 4: from the get go in the civil rights movement and
Speaker 4: and and to and to their eternal credit, they did that.
Speaker 4: I'm proud of that fact that that legacy. Uh, it
Speaker 4: heartens me every day when I hear you say it
Speaker 4: with the pride that you did, I feel something. I
Speaker 4: get a little emotional.
Speaker 1: Makladia good, good, good, Well, you know, and I do
Speaker 1: want to mention this and I would I love your
Speaker 1: thoughts if you have any c But you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I heard, I heard the comment about the a d L.
Speaker 1: And we have a well let's call it a budding
Speaker 1: relationship with the Anti Defamation League. And so our hope
Speaker 1: is that you know that there are some repairs that
Speaker 1: can take place in the Jewish community as well as
Speaker 1: some repairs that take place in the Black community amongst ourselves,
Speaker 1: and you know, hopefully we'll continue to have conversations like
Speaker 1: this and move the narrative forward. How about that?
Speaker 4: I loved it. Man. Listen. Look, your podcast maybe not
Speaker 4: be the greatest podcast in the country, but for sure
Speaker 4: you guys have the coolest names and all the podcasts
Speaker 4: in all the land.
Speaker 1: We'll take that. We'll take that well. On the heels
Speaker 1: of that, we'd like to thank you all for tuning
Speaker 1: into another episode of Civic Cipher once again. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Rams's job he is, and.
Speaker 3: I am q Ward. Thank you guys again for your support, like, share, comment,
Speaker 3: give us a review. We do this as a labor
Speaker 3: of love, so your support and your sharing of our
Speaker 3: content means more than you could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, once again, I want to thank our special guest
Speaker 1: coming all the way across a couple of bridges to
Speaker 1: have some really interesting and informative conversations with us today,
Speaker 1: Amy Horowitz. We can't thank you enough. For everyone else,
Speaker 1: please do us a favor. Hit the website Civiccipher dot
Speaker 1: com if you have any topics you wanted to cover,
Speaker 1: if you want to make a donation, you want to
Speaker 1: follow us on social media again, it's all civic site.
Speaker 1: Freaking down of this in any previous episode and until
Speaker 1: next week y'all. Peace peace, y'all, y yo.
Speaker 2: We had the li these brothers, a fabulous our lady
Speaker 2: showing you where ROMB traveled this world speak tons from
Speaker 2: sunlight to move busting on stage like Thenna fights the
Speaker 2: b roll my mic back.
Speaker 4: You're like that joner list with journalist too.
Speaker 2: We can strike back all horb borders with orders from
Speaker 2: headquarters behind in the beline sides up and the borders
Speaker 2: with press passing.
Speaker 1: We bring it to you as it happens.
Speaker 2: The streets love mocked on from music and rapping, the
Speaker 2: street compland the slash week expando.
Speaker 4: You're gonna fight the slander with the proper propaganda.
Speaker 1: What's happening? It's not you got any question to ask?
Speaker 4: If the news is just a TV show?
Speaker 2: You're passing And this from a white wartime journalist headlines
Speaker 2: wait God, previs and resist like
Speaker 4: This like what like this like they way the song