ABSTRACT
DESPITE THE HISTORICAL SIMILARITY of their experiences and the urgings of African American scholars, blacks and Jews in the United States have rarely, if ever, manifested anything resembling an alliance. There is, in fact, a long and virulent streak of antisemitism among black Americans. Dating back to the 1920s, when the whites with whom poor northern city blacks were most likely to have direct contact were Jewish landlords, store owners or social workers, the antipathy reared politically in Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association. This organization all but scapegoated Jews for the injustices perpetrated by whites in general.
