Blacks and Jews in America

The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the complex history of Jewish American and African American relations in the United States. Our inquiry will begin by exploring the historical roots of each group’s discreet experiences in this country. Then we will focus on how they have coalesced sometimes in friendship, sometimes in antagonism, in the past century. Some of the questions we seek to explore are: Do there exist similarities between Blacks and Jews that account for the gravitational pull they exert upon one another? Are there differences between them that explain the unique texture of their interaction? How are both related to mainstream White Anglo-Saxon culture in the United States? How do issues of gender and sexual orientation refract the nature of their interaction?