Anti-Black Racism
towards8The Jews hate black people. This hatred against black people was seen in the cruel Atlantic slave trade. In fact, Jews played a massive role in the Atlantic slave trade. Many of the ships that transported Black people from Africa to America were owned by Jews, and many slave owners in America were Jewish.
My Jewish Learning about Jews and the Atlantic slave trade:
Did Jews really own slaves?
Yes. Jacob Rader Marcus, a historian and Reform rabbi, wrote in his four-volume history of Americans Jews that over 75 percent of Jewish families in Charleston, South Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; and Savannah, Georgia, owned slaves, and nearly 40 percent of Jewish households across the country did. The Jewish population in these cities was quite small, however, so the total number of slaves they owned represented just a small fraction of the total slave population; Eli Faber, a historian at New York City’s John Jay College reported that in 1790, Charleston’s Jews owned a total of 93 slaves, and that “perhaps six Jewish families” lived in Savannah in 1771.
A number of wealthy Jews were also involved in the slave trade in the Americas, some as shipowners who imported slaves and others as agents who resold them. In the United States, Isaac Da Costa of Charleston, David Franks of Philadelphia and Aaron Lopez of Newport, Rhode Island, are among the early American Jews who were prominent in the importation and sale of African slaves. In addition, some Jews were involved in the trade in various European Caribbean colonies. Alexandre Lindo, a French-born Jew who became a wealthy merchant in Jamaica in the late 18th century, was a major seller of slaves on the island.
However, the hatred of Jews against black people is much older. You can even find it in the Bible. In the book of Numbers, chapter 12, we are told that Moses married a Cushite woman. Cushites were a black people and are the ancestors of the Sudanese. Miriam and Aaron did not like the fact that Moses married a black woman and condemned him for it. God then punished Miriam by making her skin as white as snow. But not only Moses, Solomon too married a black woman and this black woman was also treated with hostility by the Jews. She defended herself in Song of Songs 1:5-6 with the words: "I am black and beautiful, you daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not stare at me because I am dark, for the sun has tanned me."