''The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews'' is a three-volume work of

pseudo-scholarship Pseudo-scholarship (from pseudo- and scholarship) is a term used to describe work (e.g., publication, lecture) or a body of work that is presented as, but is not, the product of rigorous and objective study or research; the act of producing such wo ...

, published by the

Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...

. The first volume, which was released in 1991, asserts that

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

dominated the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

. ''The Secret Relationship'' has been widely criticized for being

antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade.Austen, p 134.Encyclopedia of American Jewish history, Volume 1, pp. 199. The

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

issued a statement condemning claims that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade, and other historians such as Wim Klooster and

Seymour Drescher Seymour Drescher (born 1934) is an American historian and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, known for his studies on Alexis de Tocqueville and slavery and his published work ''Econocide''. Career Seymour Drescher has been publishin ...

concluded that the role of Jews in the overall Atlantic slave trade was in fact minimal. The book uses selective citations in order to exaggerate the role of Jews.

Reception

The book's thesis has been labeled an

antisemitic canard Antisemitic tropes, canards, or myths are " sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since the Middle Ages, such repo ...

by historians, including

Saul S. Friedman Saul S. Friedman (March 8, 1937 in Uniontown, Pennsylvania – March 31, 2013 in Canfield, Ohio) was an American historian. Life Saul S. Friedman, son of Albert and Rebecca Friedman, came from a large Jewish family. He married Nancy Evans in 1964 ...

, who contends that Jews had a minimal role in the New World slave trade.''Jews and the American Slave Trade'',

, Transaction Publishers, 1999 pp. 2, 40.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Amer ...

, head of the department of Afro-American studies at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, called the book "the Bible of

new antisemitism New antisemitism is the idea that a new form of antisemitism has developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tending to manifest itself as anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government. The concept is included in some definitions ...

" and added that "the book massively misinterprets the historical record, largely through a process of cunningly selective quotations of often reputable sources".Gilles Kepel ''Allah in the West: Islamic movements in America and Europe'', Stanford University Press, 1997 pp. 68–69. Other black academics came forward to condemn the book.

Eugene Genovese Eugene Dominic Genovese (May 19, 1930 – September 26, 2012) was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and s ...

, an American historian and expert on slavery, wrote that the book "rivals ''

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...

'' in fantasy and gross distortion. The absurdity of its pretenses to scholarship are outweighed by its sheer viciousness. It must be taken with deadly seriousness as a transparent attempt to foment antisemitism, irrationality, and hatred, and to subvert intellectual discourse and common decency on our campuses." Wim Klooster noted that in "no period did Jews play a leading role as financiers, shipowners, or factors in the Transatlantic or Caribbean slave trades. They possessed far fewer slaves than non-Jews in every British territory in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and the Caribbean. Even when Jews in a handful of places owned slaves in proportions slightly above their representation among a town's families, such cases do not come close to corroborating the assertions of The Secret Relationship." The book was criticized for being antisemitic and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade. Common criticisms were that the book used selective quotes, made "crude use of statistics," and was purposefully trying to exaggerate the role of Jews.Austen p 133-134. Historian Ralph A. Austen criticized the book, saying that the "distortions are produced almost entirely by selective citation rather than explicit falsehood ... more frequently there are innuendos imbedded in the accounts of Jewish involvement in the slave trade," and " ile we should not ignore the antisemitism of ''The Secret Relationship''..., we must recognize the legitimacy of the stated aim of examining fully and directly even the most uncomfortable elements in our lack and Jewishcommon past." In 1995, the

(AHA) issued a statement condemning "any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade." The publication of ''The Secret Relationship'' spurred retorts published specifically to refute the thesis of ''The Secret Relationship'': * 1992 – Harold Brackman, ''Jew on the Brain: A Public Refutation of the Nation of Islam's The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews''. The booklet was published privately by

Bill Adler Bill Adler is an American music journalist and critic who specializes in hip-hop. Since the early 1980s he has promoted hip-hop in a variety of capacities, including as a publicist, biographer, record label executive, documentary filmmaker, mu ...

, the former director of publicity for

Def Jam Recordings Def Jam Recordings (also simply known as Def Jam) is an American multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It is based in Manhattan, New York City, specializing predominantly in hip hop, contemporary R&B, soul and pop. The ...

, after learning that the rapper

Ice Cube An ice cube is a small piece of ice, which is typically rectangular as viewed from above and trapezoidal as viewed from the side. Ice cubes are products of mechanical refrigeration and are usually produced to cool beverages. They may be produc ...

had endorsed ''The Secret Relationship''. In his foreword, Adler wrote, "I care way too much about black-Jewish relations – and particularly about black-Jewish relations in the rap community – to allow 'The Secret Relationship' to go unchallenged." The booklet's afterword was written by

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and ...

. It was republished that same year, minus its original foreword and afterword, as "Farrakhan's Reign of Historical Error: The Secret Relationship Between Blacks & Jews" by the

Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...

. In 1994, it was republished for a second time under the title "Ministry of Lies: the Truth Behind 'The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews'" by

Four Walls Eight Windows Four Walls Eight Windows was an American independent book publisher in New York City. Known as 4W8W or Four Walls, the company was notable for its dual commitment to progressive politics and adventurous, edgy literary fiction. History Four W ...

. * 1992 –

David Brion Davis David Brion Davis (February 16, 1927 – April 14, 2019) was an American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, a ...

, "Jews in the Slave Trade," in ''Culturefront'' (Fall 1992) pp 42–45. * 1993 –

, "The Role of Jews in the Atlantic Slave Trade," ''Immigrants and Minorities'', 12 (1993), pp 113–125. * 1993 – Marc Caplan, ''Jew-Hatred As History: An Analysis of the Nation of Islam's "The Secret Relationship"'' (Published by the

Anti Defamation League The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. It was founded in late Septe ...

). * 1998 – Eli Faber, '' Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight'', New York University Press. * 1999 – Saul S. Friedman, ''

Jews and the American Slave Trade ''Jews and the American Slave Trade'' is a 1998 book by American historian Saul S. Friedman published by the Transaction Publishers. It focuses on the Jewish involvement in the American slave trade and is a polemical rebuttal against the 1991 wo ...

'', Transaction. Friedman's work has been described as a successful rebuke of ''The Secret Relationship''. In his work, Friedman referred to ''The Secret Relationship'' as the "Handbook of Hate", and described it as "one part fact and nine parts fable". Holocaust historian

Deborah Lipstadt Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian, best known as author of the books ''Denying the Holocaust'' (1993), ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier'' (2005), ''The Eichmann Trial'' (2011), and ' ...

called the book the "African American-oriented version" of ''

''. Legal historian

Paul Finkelman Paul Finkelman (born November 15, 1949) is an American legal historian, the Robert E. and Susan T. Rydell Visiting Professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, and a research affiliate at the Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre f ...

states that the central thesis of the book is "ludicrous and considered absurd by all serious scholars." Historian

Glenn C. Altschuler Glenn Altschuler is an American writer and university-level educator and administrator. At Cornell University, he is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies and a Weiss Presidential Fellow. An animating force in Ameri ...

and

Robert Summers Robert Summers (June 22, 1922 – April 17, 2012) was an American economist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught from 1960. A widely cited early work by Summers is on the small-sample statistical properties of alternate ...

called ''The Secret Relationship'' a "compendium of conspiracy theories."

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

scholar

Mary Lefkowitz Mary R. Lefkowitz (born April 30, 1935) is an American scholar of Classics. She is the Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, where she previously worked from 1959 to 2005. She has published ten b ...

called the book "hate literature" and wrote: "The authors of ''The Secret Relationship'' continually misquote Jewish sources, taking quotations out of context, or citing as support works that actually say the opposite of what they are claiming. They make a number of claims that are impossible to substantiate, such as that Jews (rather than Arabs) dominated the transatlantic slave trade; that they were the dominant slave traders and holders in the South; that they raped black women; that they infected Native Americans with smallpox...The known facts about the slave trade give a completely different picture of the level of Jewish participation."

who analyzed the role of Jews in the overall Atlantic slave trade concluded that it was "minimal," and only identified certain regions (such as

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

) where the participation was "significant."Drescher: JANCAST: p 455: "only in the Americas – momentarily in Brazil, more durably in the Caribbean – can the role of Jewish traders be described as significant." .. but elsewhere involvement was modest or minimal p 455.

Subsequent volumes

Volume Two of ''The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews'' was published in 2010, with the subtitle "How Jews Gained Control of the Black American Economy". According to the Anti-Defamation League, Volume Two blames Jews for "promoting a myth of black racial inferiority and makes a range of conspiratorial accusations about Jewish involvement in the slave trade and in the cotton, textiles, and banking industries". Titled simply ''The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Volume 3,'' the third installment was published in 2016. As summarized by the ADL, the work claims the resurgence of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

and the subjugation of Black people during the early 20th century not only enriched but also was orchestrated by Jewish businessmen of the time. Further, the responsibility of the lynching of

Leo Frank Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884August 17, 1915) was an American factory superintendent who was convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia. His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national at ...

was also the work of Jews.

Notes

References

* Austen, Ralph A., "The Uncomfortable Relationship: African Enslavement in the Common History of Blacks and Jews", in ''Strangers & neighbors: relations between Blacks & Jews in the United States'', Maurianne Adams (Ed.), Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1999, pp 131–135. * Brackman, Harold, ''Jew on the brain: A public refutation of the Nation of Islam's The Secret relationship between Blacks and Jews'' (self-published), 1992. Later renamed and re-published as ''Farrakhan's Reign of Historical Error: The Truth behind The Secret Relationship'' (published by the

). Expanded into a book in 1994: ''Ministry of Lies: The Truth Behind the Nation of Islam's "the Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews"'' (published by Four Walls, Eight Windows). * Caplan, Marc ''Jew-Hatred As History: An Analysis of the Nation of Islam's "The Secret Relationship"'' (published by the

), 1993. * Davis, David Brion, "Jews in the Slave Trade", in ''Culturefront'' (Fall 1 992) pp 42–45. * Drescher, Seymour, "The Role of Jews in the Transatlantic Slave Trade", in ''Strangers & neighbors: relations between Blacks & Jews in the United States'', Maurianne Adams (Ed.), Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1999, pp 105–115. * Drescher, Seymour, (EAJH) "Jews and the Slave trade", in ''Encyclopedia of American Jewish history, Volume 1'', Stephen Harlan (Ed.), 1994, page 414–416. * Drescher, Seymour, (JANCAST) "Jews and New Christians in the Atlantic Slave Trade" in ''The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1400–1800'', Paolo Bernardini (Ed.), 2004, p 439–484. * Faber, Eli, ''Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight'', New York University Press, 1998. * Friedman, Saul S. ''Jews and the American Slave Trade'', Transaction, 1999. {{DEFAULTSORT:Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews 1991 non-fiction books African American–Jewish relations Antisemitic canards Antisemitism in the United States Antisemitic propaganda Antisemitic publications Conspiracy theories in the United States Judaism and slavery Islam and antisemitism Pseudohistory Nation of Islam Non-fiction books about American slavery

Reception

Subsequent volumes

See also

Notes

References