Blacks in the Jewish Mind - A Crisis of Liberalism (Hardcover)

"Bold and uncompromising. Cleverly, he turns a lot of revisionist race history on its head."
-- "Patterns of Prejudice"

"Insight, authority and scrupulousness are among the virtues of Seth Forman's account of the interaction of two conspicuous minorities in the postwar era. In its clarity and its wisdom, "Blacks in the Jewish Mind" constitutes a marvelous advance over previous scholarship; and in showing how frequently Jews misunderstood their own communal interests, this book offers a challenge to the present even as the past is illuminated."
"--Stephen Whitfield, Brandeis University"

Since the 1960s the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been a contentious one. While others have attempted to explain or repair the break-up of the Jewish alliance on civil rights, Seth Forman here sets out to determine what Jewish thinking on the subject of Black Americans reveals about Jewish identity in the U.S. Why did American Jews get involved in Black causes in the first place? What did they have to gain from it? And what does that tell us about American Jews?

In an extremely provocative analysis, Forman argues that the commitment of American Jews to liberalism, and their historic definition of themselves as victims, has caused them to behave in ways that were defined as good for Blacks, but which in essence were contrary to Jewish interests. They have not been able to dissociate their needs--religious, spiritual, communal, political--from those of African Americans, and have therefore acted in ways whichhave threatened their own cultural vitality.

Avoiding the focus on Black victimization and white racism that often infuses work on Blacks and Jews, Forman emphasizes the complexities inherent in one distinct white ethnic group's involvement in America's racial dilemma.

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