Kanye West is a Jew-hater. Although he’s a black man, he openly supports white-supremacy and Nazism. On the one hand, West has suffered consequences because of hate. He has lost endorsement deals and huge companies like Adidas (eventually) stopped working with him. But what’s the wider context of his recent tirade about Jews, and how should the Jewish community respond?
There’s a problem with Jew-hate in parts of the black American community. That’s not to say that every black American hates Jews, nor is it to erase the many black Jews that exist in the intersection of these identities. However, in spite of historic allyship and closeness between these two communities, we’re seeing the rise of an anti-Jewish movement within parts of the black American community.
Spurred on by the Nation of Islam – a black American supremacist organisation – and Louis Farrakhan, who has described Jews as “termites” and has blamed Jews for the slave trade, notions of Jewish power and privilege have been circulated in sections of the black American community. Following criticism of Farrakhan’s Jew-hate in 2018, Nuri Muhammad, a disciple of Farrakhan wrote, “These same Jews that are attacking the minister are the blood relatives of the slave-ship owners.”
These modern anti-Jewish black American ideologies didn’t emerge specifically in the black American community, they are iterations of anti-Jewish ideas that have been circulating for thousands of years. But like so many other manifestations of Jew-hate, they have been repackaged to suit a specific narrative. In this context, to help explain the persecution suffered by black Americans.
The idea of the Jewish bogeyman isn’t unique. The Jew is the Boggart, the mythical creature from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling, that takes the shape of whatever the person looking at it fears most. This is why Jews can represent whatever the person targeting us wants us to. And in black American supremacist ideology, like the Nations of Islam, the Jew is white. In fact, Jews are the apex white predators responsible alone for all the ills of the world. This notion is seen broadly across the left, but it has proven to be particularly seductive in certain black American spaces.
Additionally, the American Black Hebrew Israelite narrative that they are the real Jews is rooted in Christian supersession. This is the notion that Christians replaced Jews as G-d’s chosen people. Not every American who identifies as a Black Hebrew Israelite shares these perspectives, but those who do seem to be growing, both in number and in confidence. On 21 November, hundreds of Americans who identify as Black Hebrew Israelites marched in New York chanting, “We are the real Jews!” Their warped belief is that they are the true descendants of the ancient Israelites, and modern Jews are European colonisers and usurpers. Now, where have we heard that before? This hate isn’t simply expressed in rhetoric either. In December 2019, David Nathaniel Anderson (along with another assailant), who adhered to extremist American Black Hebrew ideology, committed a mass shooting at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey.
Discussing this isn’t anti-black. Discussing this doesn’t mean Jews aren’t allied to the black American community. Discussing this doesn’t erase the real oppression suffered by black people in America, historically and in a contemporary setting.
Jews have to defend ourselves regardless of where the hate we face emanates. We can have empathy for other minority and marginalised communities, but that certainly doesn’t mean we stay silent when faced with hate. Belonging to an oppressed people doesn’t inoculate you against hate.
Kanye West may have lost his endorsement deals, but the damage has been done both in terms of spreading specific manifestations of black American Jew-hate as well as threatening relations between the black and Jewish communities in the United States. West has double the number of followers on Twitter than there are Jews in the world. When someone of his stature uses their enormous platform to demonise the world’s most continually persecuted minority group, then we should be worried. He is contributing to the normalisation of Jew-hate. He is giving permission to others who share his feelings to proclaim them proudly. Kyrie Irving shared a link to a film titled Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America which features Holocaust denial and the accusation that Jews financed the slave trade a week after West first threatened to go “Death Con Three on Jews”.
Jews must discuss this. As Jews, we must defend ourselves. Jews must understand the historical and contemporary context of our experience. West isn’t on an anti-Jewish hate train because he has mental-health difficulties. That’s extraordinarily ableist. West has been on a tirade against Jews because it seems as if he has bought into lies about Jews that have specifically circulated in his community as well as in the wider world. Of course, when we discuss these issues we must be careful not to slide inadvertently into anti-black rhetoric. We must be precise and specific in our language and in our defence. But we must defend ourselves.
The idea that Jews should keep their heads down and just get on with it must be consigned to history. While we may understand the impetus for that cultural response to Jew-hate, we must recognise that it didn’t work. I know there’s a fear that we may “prove people right” if we raise our voices to defend ourselves. I know that people were worried that if West was cancelled, then notions of Jewish power would be proven. No. We must defend ourselves. We must expect there to be consequences to such egregious examples of Jew-hate.
Without sounding alarmist, there’s a war taking place. In the media, at high schools, at universities, in people’s workplaces, on the streets. Jews are being targeted. We must wake up to this fact. We mustn’t diminish it. We must understand it, and face it.
West’s Jew-hate is bigger than him. It’s bigger than American Black Hebrew Israelites or the Nation of Islam. It’s rooted in thousands of years of deeply embedded systemic hate that has targeted Jews. There’s strength in numbers, both for us and for those who hate us. Tragically, West has offered Jew-haters a huge platform and role model in their war against us. We must fight back in any way we can. And we mustn’t underestimate the severity of these battles.
- Ben M Freeman is the founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement, a Jewish leader, a Jewish thinker, and a Jewish educator, and the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People and Reclaiming our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride. His work focuses on Jewish identity and historical and contemporary Jew-hatred.
