Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

BLACKS, JEWS, AND GENDER
nineteen
The History, Politics, and Cultural Anthropology
of a Women's Dialogue. Group
LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN
his is the story of a Black/Jewish dialogue group that talked a blue streak
for more than a decade and then went silent. I don't mean to suggest that a
'• precipitating crisis contributed to the dissolution of this once vibrant
group. More accurately, we just petered out. I think I understand why this happened
and how other Black/Jewish dialogues might learn from our mistakes. But
I'm getting ahead of my story.
Our group began back in 1984 as a spin-off from the sixty-member Black/
Jewish Coalition of New York, which was composed mostly of male business,
religious, and community leaders. Organized around the issues of the 1984
Presidential campaign, this larger assemblage had been effective at defusing
Jewish anger over Jackson's "Hymietown" slur, and Black anger over a full-page
ad headlined "Jews Against Jackson." But after a few months, it was clear to me
that most of the participants were unwilling to delve deeper, to accept ambiguity,
to expose their vulnerabilities, and to grapple with the emotional component
of Black/Jewish relations. The men in particular fell into the habit of proclaiming
how much they'd done for race relations and how well-connected they were—
a kind of upscale version of "doin" the dozens."
While listening to one of these self-congratulatory speeches, I happened to
glance across the room at a Black woman named Harriet Michel and we both
rolled our eyes. At the end of that meeting, Harriet and I agreed that we'd had
enough of these public masculinity contests. We decided to convene a women's
dialogue, a small group of Jewish and African American women who could
approach our mutual concerns with honesty, grit, and a feminist perspective.
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