Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

ALLIES OF A DIFFERENT SORT
Jews and Blacks in the American Left
PAUL BUHLE AND ROBIN D. G. KELLEY
iscussions of Jewish Americans and African Americans occasionally ven-
- ture into the fringes of American liberalism, where Leftists dream of workers'
revolution even when working for reform. Such discussions recall the
golden age of a radical Black-Jewish alliance conditioned by a vanished socialist
tradition. Like all memories, however, this one is very selective, revealing as much
about the degree of mythmaking and self-deception in such recollections as the
deep scars left by the collapse of the alliance. In this discourse, Black Nationalism
usually figures as the culprit-deserter, with the vanquished hopes of the Great
Society the tragic backdrop. On the other hand, Black nationalist intellectuals,
most conspicuously Harold Cruse, recollect a history of Jewish paternalism suffocating
native Black radicalism, of nationalist-minded Jews pushing for their own
cultural autonomy at the expense of their darker comrades. 1
As is often the case, the truth may lie somewhere in between these two opposing
narratives. But the twisted tale of Black-Jewish relations on the Left is far too
complicated to be constructed as the middle-ground of extremes. Neither version
has a long view of the contradictions experienced by the two sides of the Black-
Jewish dyad; instead the scope of inquiry is limited to the forty years after 1915.
The fuller story, usually disguised within the history of labor, socialism, communism,
and various branches of popular entertainment, has hardly begun to be
told. Based upon archival research, oral histories, and relatively unexamined
non-English language sources, a fresh narrative begins to emerge in outline.
Irreducibly complex, it is a story of idealism, sometimes astonishing accomplishment,
defeat and repression, egotism and wounded pride, even betrayal. By offering
a condensed version of it, the authors of this essay seek to suggest new ways
of thinking about the American Left at large as well as those Jewish and African
American radicals who played such a vital role in it.
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