Blacks in the Jewish mind

by Seth Forman

Since the 1960s, a period which saw a flourishing of Black-Jewish alliances, the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been a contentious one. While others have attempted to explain or repair the schism, Seth Forman here sets out to determine what Jewish thinking on the subject of Black Americans reveals about Jewish identity in the United States. 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? Blacks in the Jewish Mind is the first study on race relations to examine the unusual efforts of one white group to attach itself to the enormity of the Black experiences - sometimes, to its own cultural detriment.