Luke Ford

There are plenty of Orthodox Jews who are black and fit in with their communities. They lead lives observant of Torah. Their skin color is not a big issue to most of their co-religionists. All the obligations that a Jew has for his fellow Jew he owes to his fellow black Jew while the whitest goy is still a goy.

And then there’s this particular blinged-up black guy I know who walks into shul on a Shabbos. It’s 11:45 a.m., services are almost over. He wraps his head in a tallis (prayer shawl), closes his eyes, pretends to pray, does five bows and then takes a couple of steps back (you are supposed to take three steps back and then three steps forward before starting the prayer and then there are two bows at the first part of the prayer), and I’ve known the guy for years and I like him, but he does every Jewish ritual wrong and he shows no interest in doing things right and he pays no attention to all attempts to correct him. After years of this, he’s not picking up on social cues. He’s just unbelievably obtuse. He’s completely oblivious to Orthodox customs. He won’t listen to anyone who attempts to help him fit in. He wears a tallis on Friday night (you are only supposed to wear them in the morning). He takes home prayer shawls and books from the shul and I’ve never seen him return them. On Shabbos morning when he walks in and pretends to pray like everyone else, he does everything wrong.

He will talk for minutes on end about what the Bible says but Judaism is not a biblical religion and we don’t operate according to the Bible. I’ve seen lots of people, Jews and non-Jews, walk into shul and not have a clue about what to do, but I’ve never seen anyone come to the shul for years and not pick up a clue. And so how is this guy treated? He’s embraced. People enjoy him. He helps out. But we don’t think he’s Jewish.

This guy believes he’s Jewish but we have no reason to believe he is. We don’t think his mother is Jewish. And almost every Orthodox shul I know in Los Angeles will welcome this guy and so what if he doesn’t want to learn anything about doing things right, doing things the Jewish way, he won’t be called to the Torah, but he’s part of the crowd and we all hug him and enjoy him. I wonder what percentage of Orthodox shuls would boot him? Or a guy who came in with a shiksa girlfriend?

I think this guy exemplifies the relationship between Jews and non-Jewish blacks. On the level of reality, Jews and blacks are as dissimilar as two groups can be in America. Yet next to Israel, support for the black cause is probably the second most deeply felt belief among Jews, far exceeding their faith in God. Generally speaking, American Jews have warm feelings for blacks, much more so than the average white (certainly of the whites I knew prior to converting to Judaism) and yet in person walking down the street at night, Jews I’ve known display much more visceral fear of blacks and desire to get away from them than the whites I knew growing up (most of these whites would’ve felt guilty displaying fear of blacks but most of the Jews I know would not feel this guilt).

Jews were major players in the civil rights campaign of the 1960s. Jews loved voting for Barack Obama twice for president. Jew lawyers love defending blacks accused of heinous crimes and castigating whites for racism.

On page 979 of the book What It Takes, it’s explicitly about the 1988 presidential campaign but many of the themes are generically true of American life: “New York was the ugliest primary, a roiling suspend of particulate fears and hatreds… Blacks and Jews hated each other (and Jews felt bad about that), the blacks hated Mayor Koch (who thought he spoke for Jews), the Latins resented Koreans, Koreans feared the blacks…”

Political science professor Robert Weissberg has translated Ebonics at various trials. As a convert to Judaism, I’d say that in the video above he captures accurately many Jewish attitudes towards blacks that I have witnessed.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Jews funded education for 20-40% of black children in the South. Jews established and funded the NAACP.

“A Rosenwald School was the name informally applied to over five thousand schools, shops, and teachers’ homes in the United States which were built primarily for the education of African-Americans in the early 20th century. The need arose from the chronic underfunding of public education for African-American children in the South, who were required to attend segregated schools. Julius Rosenwald, an American clothier who became part-owner and president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, was the founder of The Rosenwald Fund, through which he contributed seed money for many of the schools and other philanthropic causes. To promote collaboration between white and black citizens, Rosenwald required communities to commit public funds to the schools, as well as to contribute additional cash donations. Millions of dollars were raised by African-American rural communities across the South to fund better education for their children.”

Dr. Weissberg says in the video above:

“I went to Booker T. Washington Junior High School. I speak fluent…ebonics. I am board-certified fluent in it. Like Jared Taylor, I have translated at various trials.”

“How do you gets Jews away from the left on our [conservative] side?”

“Jews have a lot of brain power. They’re very energetic. They have a lot of money. And if they were on our side, not their side, it would make a huge difference for us.”

“What explains the historical infatuation between blacks and Jews? I call it a co-dependency relationship.”

“We all know the tremendous support Jews have given the black cause.”

“Black anti-semitism is worse than you think… What’s interesting and depressing is how popular this is among black leaders… If you are a black leader and you are going to appeal to the bro’s in the hood, there is nothing that outshines rabid anti-semitism for proving one’s commitment to the brothers.”

* “There are Jewish social service providers who like the idea of blacks as permanent justifications for their jobs.”

* “Jews have believed in a strong central state because only a strong central state could protect them. However, objective conditions have changed. Jews and blacks occupy antithetical positions in politics. It has become zero sum. There is no longer any justification for Jews supporting the black cause. Clearly affirmative action has become harmful for Jews. Much more so Asians… The black assault on Jewish life.

“If you looked around our cultural landscape and tried to find two groups with different values that venerate different things, who worship at different altars, it is hard to find two groups more different than blacks and Jews. Jews are obsessed with education, blacks destroy it. If you’ve gone to school in the inner city, you know that not only do they hate the idea of learning, but they assault their teachers and physically destroy their schools.”

* “When blacks move into a neighborhood, the first people out are Jews. Jews did not invent white flight but we perfected it. As far as intermarriage and social exchange, there’s almost zero. They just don’t mix. Jews are not into crime. The sorts of things that blacks specialize in — muggings, assaults, rapes — are not a Jewish predilection.”

* “How Jews really relate to blacks is something Jews hardly talk about except when they are amongst themselves. When Jews get together in a safe place and talk about blacks, they will use the term ‘schvartze.’ When you go to Leo Rosten’s Joys of Yiddish, he’s very careful in what he says. With ‘schvartze’, he becomes tight-lipped. A black person, a negro. That does not begin to depict what the term means among Jews. There may be a degree of affection, as in, ‘I hear Mrs. Schwartz got a new schvartze.’

“It is not necessarily a negative word. It’s not the same thing as nigger. If you inserted the word ‘nigger’ to receive some lexiconic variety, Jews would be genuinely offended. There can even be a degree of affection in schvartze. As in, ‘Ahh, I heard Mrs. Schwartz got a new schvartze. Oh, how nice.'”

“When you use the term ‘schvartze’, it always implies cognitive inferiority. The mental picture of a stupid black embedded in the term schvartze is true even with pro-civil rights [liberal] Jews… Adding the phrase ‘dumb schvartze’ is superflous, reserved only used for the most egregious stupidity. Invisible baggage likewise includes gullibility, emotional excitability, and a weakness for here-and-now conspicuous consumption. Violence, especially inter-personal, alcohol-induced mayhem, is also associated with schvartze. The image that comes to the mind with Jews when you say ‘schvartze’ is a simple-minded, impulsive, easily seduced by trinkets [creature]. This is extremely close to the traditional Southern image of blacks, almost identical to what many Southerners would privately say about blacks… This is continually reinforced by daily experience, such as in integrated public schools.

“We had a procession of cleaning ladies [in New York]. Growing up, I honestly believed that all black people come from a thing called The Agency. We’d hire black cleaning ladies and invariably they’d steal and drink the liquor and my mother would come back and say, ‘I’m calling up The Agency and getting another.’ Very few Jews of my generation had any other contact. We had a procession of handymen and cleaning people come to my house.”

“Even Jews who are pro-black carry around with them that more basic underlying view.”

“It was always believed that any Jew can ultimately out-smart any schvartze except save being confronted by a demented gunman. Despite immense cultural chasms, Jews held themselves as innately capable of finessing blacks thanks to their superior wits, verbal talent, and a mastery of black psychology. The unmatched success of Jewish ghetto merchants and Jewish civil rights leadership positions proclaim this truth. Even today Jews may secretly brag about their success in beguiling blacks in contentious interpersonal relationships. People sometimes ask me, ‘What did you do when they showed up as a demonstration to your office?’ This happened to me one time. A bunch of angry young blacks came to my office… I said, ‘I just relied on the wisdom of my ancestors. I gave them a little rope-a-dope. I moved around. I said this, I said that. Within half an hour, they were fine. I sold one a suit and several new jewelry and they were happy. They got a deal from Mr. Weissberg.'”

“Where personal manipulation might fail, the storehouse of survival tactics sufficed exceedingly well. Black pathologies were bearable, especially since most black mayhem was self-inflicted. Jews might even profit from these disorders as merchants or nanny state therapists. Threatened Jews can flee deteriorating neighborhoods, enroll their children in private schools, hire security guards, co-opt black leaders financially, or otherwise escape.”

“Jews see no conflict between righteously defending black criminals as political prisoners and living in fortress-style buildings.”

“On the one hand, Jews dread blacks physically. When Jews see blacks walking down the street, they feel tremendous fear. Yet they dutifully pay the danegeld (extortion money).”

“For most Jews, it is the white goyim who pose the most threat. Contrary fact-based argument fall on deaf ears. Like the schvartzes, the Chinese [and Japanese] are never called goyim.”

“Blacks are incapable of such well-organized horror unless directed by nefarious whites… A full-scale pogrom is beyond their capacity. Can you imagine blacks systemically rounding up thousands of Jews or even keeping tabs on Jewish neighborhoods? Assess enemies by capabilities, not intentions… The schvartze pose minimal risk. They’re too stupid.”