"With Sorrow and Anger"

Black leaders lash out at Jews, and Jews lash back

Despite Andrew Young's own earnest pleas that his abrupt departure from Carter's Cabinet not be used to fuel black-Jewish divisions, inevitably it has. Though the two groups, once so closely and warmly allied in the early civil rights struggle, have been drifting apart for years, the spectacle of such open animosity and barbed exchanges as took place last week was dismaying.

Declared a group of 200 black leaders, who assembled at the N.A.A.C.P. headquarters in New York City to discuss the split: "Some Jewish organizations and intellectuals who were previously identified with the aspirations of black Americans . . . became apologists for the racial status quo. They asserted that further attempts to remedy the present forms of discrimination were violative of the civil rights laws . . . Jews must show more sensitivity and be prepared for more consultation before taking positions contrary to the best interests of the black community."

Retorted a group of eleven Jewish organizations: "It is with sorrow and anger that we note these statements. We cannot work with those who resort to half-truths, lies and bigotry in any guise or from any source. . . We cannot work with those who would succumb to Arab blackmail."

Such volleys were balanced, to some extent, by promises from both sides to work together against racism and injustice. But the sense of outrage came through even more clearly in individual declarations. Defending the new black support for the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker of Harlem's Canaan Baptist Church said the Palestinians "are the niggers of the Mideast." Nathan Perlmutter, director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, called the black leaders' charges an "amalgam of half-truths, untruths and anti-Semitic nonsense." Howard Squadron, president of the American Jewish Congress, accused black leaders of attacking Jews "for the sake of reviving the sagging institutional fortunes of civil rights organizations that have seen better days."

For those who wondered precisely what were the causes of black dissatisfaction, the group of 200 voiced them in what some called a "declaration of independence." The main causes:

Andy Young's fall. Young was the highest-ranking black in the Administration, the only one with the President's ear, and blacks felt that he was unfairly and too quickly removed as a result of Jewish pressure. While Jewish groups did protest Young's secret meeting with the P.L.O., Jewish leaders insist they only wanted to torpedo the policy, not Young, noting that in one poll of Jewish leaders, only two called for Young's removal from his post at the U.N.

The P.L.O. Many blacks feel that the continued denial of self-determination for the Palestinians is a human-rights issue, one in which they share an interest, and that the P.L.O. represents the Palestinians. The Israelis differentiate between the Palestinians and the P.L.O., insisting that the P.L.O. is simply a terrorist gang, with whom they will never negotiate. When Israeli U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Blum lectured black leaders for meeting with the P.L.O. representative to the U.N. and implied that blacks ought to leave Middle East policy to those who understand it, blacks were furious at being patronized. Replied the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference: "Who are you to tell us who we can't talk to? To heaven with you!"

Southern Africa. The black manifesto demanded that Jews bring pressure on Israel to halt "its support of those repressive and racist regimes" in South Africa and Zimbabwe Rhodesia. Israel does in fact maintain a flourishing trade with South Africa ($120 million last year), and it provided military assistance that has been used against black guerrillas. Ties between Israel and South Africa started when both nations needed whatever allies they could find. Israel also used to help black Africa until the Africans themselves broke off these relations in order to take a more pro-Arab position.

Affirmative action. More rankling than any foreign policy issue is a division that has emerged between blacks and Jews about how far society should go in pushing "affirmative action" programs to place more minority people in job-training programs and professional schools. Blacks insist that affirmative action, which means, in effect, special consideration, is needed to help them overcome the handicaps imposed by centuries of discrimination in the U.S. Many Jewish organizations agree in principle--but several filed briefs in the celebrated Bakke and DeFunis cases, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court must not permit racial quotas, a stand that blacks fear could prohibit the setting of specific goals and timetables for minority hiring or admissions. Jews have bitter memories of the days when such quotas were used to limit their numbers in fields where they are now relatively numerous, such as medicine, law and teaching.

Beyond the stated agenda of grievances, there are some that blacks are reluctant to discuss openly. Many of the whites whom ghetto blacks meet face to face are Jews (one reason: some black ghettos were once predominantly Jewish neighborhoods, and often Jewish businesses have stayed in place even though their owners now live elsewhere). Blacks often see them as exploiting landlords, store owners and credit managers or as teachers who fail to educate black pupils. Jews working in or living near the black ghetto, in turn, fear the violence they see around them (as, of course, do blacks).

These tensions reflect the fact that Jews have overcome discrimination well enough to become, in the view of some blacks, part of the establishment from which blacks are still mostly locked out. Beyond that, there are historical reasons: Jews once took a leading role in the civil rights movement, and in due course blacks took over that leadership. Such transitions are difficult--for both parties. Now blacks are moving into a new area of assertiveness, foreign policy, and that too, as last week's fusillades demonstrated, will doubtless mean fresh frictions--and not just for Jews.

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