Jewish anti-racism is Jewish opposition toracism. Significant numbers of Jewishanti-racism activists have participated in a variety of anti-racist movements, including the American civil rights movement, the South African anti-apartheid movement, and the international Palestinian solidarity movement.
TheInternational League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism was founded in 1927, mostly with the intent to combat antisemitism. The organization has since expanded its mission to include opposition toracism andIslamophobia.[1]
The Jewish collectiveTsedek! (Hebrew for "Justice!") describes itself as an anti-racist, anti-Zionist, anddecolonial organization.[2]
Ethiopian Jews in Israel have played a central role in opposition to anti-Black racism, as Ethiopian Jews and otherBlack Jews experienceanti-Black racism within Israeli society. TheJuly 2019 Ethiopian Jews protest in Israel was led by Ethiopian Jews and their allies, reacting to anti-Black police brutality in Israel.[3]
South African Jews played a notable role in theanti-apartheid movement in South Africa. A substantial number of white South Africans who were actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement were Jewish. Although the majority of South African Jews and the Jewish establishment in South Africa initially did not condemn the apartheid government, those Jews who participated in the anti-apartheid movement were disproportionately represented in light of the fact that Jews were only 0.3% of the South African population and they were only 2.5% of the white population. More than half of the white South Africans who were charged during theRivonia Trial were Jewish.[4]
In 2021, theScottish Council of Jewish Communities released their "Jewish Manifesto for Scotland", which advocated for anti-racist education and the provision of culturally sensitive public services, among other policies.[5]
While some American Jews who lived during theAntebellum Period were in favor of or took no actions againstslavery, others were actively involved in the abolitionist movement. Jews were noted as members of abolitionist organizations during the early 1830s. An 1853 report by theAmerican and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society noted that someSouthern Jews had "refused to have any right of property in man, or even to have any slaves about them" and that the history of antisemitic persecution was a motivating factor for those Jews to support abolitionism.[6]
Many American Jews have participated in anti-racist movements during the 2020s, including theGeorge Floyd protests and theBlack Lives Matter movement. In 2020, over 600 Jewish organizations representing the majority of American Jews signed onto a letter published inThe New York Times on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement.[7]
During the 1930s, Jewish Communists in the United States accused the Zionist movement inMandatory Palestine of perpetuating "Jim-Crowism".[8][9]
Jewish activists, many of them Jewish anti-Zionists, have played a notable and highly visible role in international pro-Palestinian activism. Jewish organizations such asIfNotNow andJewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have played a prominent role in the 2024pro-Palestinian university campus protests.[10]
TheAnti-Defamation League has criticized Jewish anti-Zionist groups such as JVP for characterizing Zionism as a form ofracism andwhite supremacy.[11][12]
