The civil rights movement in the United States and Jews

The engagement of American Jews alongside the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s constitutes one of the most significant chapters of American social history. Organizations such as the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) provided legal and financial support to the cause of racial equality, and Jews were overrepresented among white activists working in the field, notably during the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi. The murder that year of activists Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were Jewish, alongside African American James Chaney, became a symbol of this alliance and its sacrifices. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongside Martin Luther King in Selma in 1965. This coalition, nourished by a shared Memory of oppression and the ideal of justice (tsedek), subsequently experienced tensions, linked notably to debates over affirmative action and inter-community relations, which reflect the complexities of American society.

Sources & resources

• Jewish Virtual Library ↗
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan