Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND JEWS
IN HOLLYWOOD
Antagonistic Allies
twelve
THOMAS CRIPPS
ew ethnic groups in America have enjoyed such a close association in the
popular mind as have African Americans and Jews. And yet their shared
: affinities have often been clouded by ambiguities. From the earliest days of
the alliance—such as in the heavily Jewish founding of the NAACP in 1909 or
in the origins of Black-oriented Jewish foundations such as the Rosenwald
Fund—lack of mutual trust has often blurred the shared goals of their common
cause: the struggle to end racial and ethnic discrimination. Among Blacks in particular
the alliance has been strained by a lingering sense that however philanthropic
Jews had been, they also possessed the power to push buttons that allowed
them to dictate the terms of the alliance. In such cases, stereotypes regain their
ability to define diverse groups as one dimensional demons—Jewish conspirators
or moneygrubbers as against Black wastrels and criminals.
I propose to take up this theme of the ambivalent allies as it applies to African
Americans and Jews in Hollywood, particularly with respect to their intergroup
relations during times of social crisis such as the Great Depression and World
War II.
In the history of moviemaking, the Black and Jewish alliance often suffered
schisms that fractured its sense of common cause. But the central issue here is one
of perception by African Americans of their shifting place in American life rather
than a matter of actual Jewish social behavior. Indeed, Jews behaved politically
like the generality of Americans, save for a generalized Jewish leftward slant that
Michael Lerner, editor of the Jewish journal, Tikkun, spoke of thus: "Jews earn like
Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans." 2
Nonetheless, when it came to moviemaking most observers saw that Jews
enjoyed a special seat of power that clearly reinforced the notion of a Jewish cabal
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