opinion
We Need to Debunk
Longstanding Jewish-Black
Zero-sum Assumptions
BY ZEV ELEFF
L ast weekend, I had a troubling encounter
with American sport, apart from the Phillies’
unfortunate defeat in the World Series.

On Sunday morning, Hall of Fame football
player Ed Reed tweeted his support of embattled
basketball star Kyrie Irving: “These boys making
business decisions, not worried about the people!
I STAND WITH #KyrieIrving we are Harmed every-
day! Stop acting as if BLACK folk are not treated
worse than any. All the attn (apologies) PROVES
it #CarryOn.”
Irving was suspended last week for posting a
link to an antisemitic movie, “Hebrews to Negroes:
Wake Up Black America.” The propagandist film
is chock full of anti-Jewish tropes and, among
its most egregious claims, denies the historical
Holocaust. Owing to the other recent firestorm
over Kanye West’s antisemitic banter, the news
of Irving’s misdeeds has received ample media
attention. Why did Reed’s Twitter post catch my atten-
tion? Reed played defense for the Baltimore
Ravens, my favorite football team. During his All-
Pro career, I spent many hours cheering Reed in
front of my television screen, and on a few occa-
sions in person.

His comments frazzled my fandom and shook
my sensibilities. I didn’t have another way to reach
Reed, so I tweeted back: “Hate isn’t a scarce
resource. It’s not a zero sum game as you make
it out to be.” Reed responded less than an hour
later: "No hate here playa, just standing with my
brother not on hate bc that’s not what he [Irving]
is about.”
Reed and I exchanged a few more tweets
before I closed my phone in preparation for a
Holocaust education event at Gratz College. At
the program, fortuitously, Elisha Wiesel shared
how his father, the humanitarian Elie Wiesel, had
urged Jews and non-Jews to learn “from” and
“about” the Holocaust.

During the program intermission, I checked
Twitter, curious to learn whether Reed extended
our discussion. Reed didn’t. His only Twitter
activity in the interim was a post to an antisemitic
video clip.

I figured, then, that it would be of no help to
share Wiesel’s wisdom on Twitter; to suggest that
the study of genocide and hate is an opportu-
14 NOVEMBER 10, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
nity to learn narrowly “about” those persecuted
groups and to draw broader lessons “from” those
experiences. Others, however, weighed in on our exchange.

Some tweets took up my cause, explaining to the
retired football legend that the movie Irving had
endorsed was unredeemable. Someone of Irving’s
public stature should not spread lies and hate.

Other commenters took Reed’s side, suggesting
that Irving’s post was benign and, in response to
a Jewish college president raising the issue, sug-
gested that the “Jewish Holocaust already dom-
inates the curriculum in our American schools.”
The Twitter encounter challenged my assump-
tions about Black-Jewish relations. What we
require, I had shared at a recent program held by
them to work apart.

Reed has alerted me that learning “about” hate
is insufficient so long as Jews, African Americans
or any other group believes that remedying injus-
tice is a zero-sum game; that, somehow, too much
of a curricular emphasis about one group will
detract from the available time and energy avail-
able for the other.

Reaching further back into history, this was
Isaac Leeser’s fear in the 1860s. Leeser, one of
Philadelphia’s ranking Jewish leaders, worried
that abolitionists’ success on behalf of Black
slaves might sink Jews to the bottom of the soci-
etal totem pole. We need to debunk this long-
standing zero-sum assumption and consider how
groups can learn “from” one another to cultivate
(Ed) Reed has alerted me that learning “about”
hate is insufficient so long as Jews, African
Amerians or any other group believes that
remedying injustice is a zero-sum game; that,
somehow, too much of a curricular emphasis
about one group will detract from the available
time and energy available for the other.

the Anti-Defamation League’s Philadelphia-based
Black-Jewish Alliance was increased literacy of
the Jewish and African American experiences in
the U.S. As an American historian, I stressed that
the Black and Jewish communities need to obtain
a better handle on the important histories of these
two minority groups and how each was, in relative
terms, kept on the fringes of American life.

Of course, the extent of antisemitism in the
U.S. has never reached the horrors of racism.

Yet, a nuanced view has much to offer about
the complexities of “whiteness” in determining
access to the American mainstream. There’s
also much to say about how Jews and African
Americans worked together, and how civil rights
issues such as affirmative action compelled
mutual support.

We must teach “about” hate and draw lessons
“from” history that support agency and ally-
ship. The classroom discussions examining Elie
Wiesel’s or Toni Morrison’s works should elicit
provocative and applicable conversations about
the people represented in those books and make
meaning for the young people grappling with
those challenging texts.

Bigots and racists load their weapons of hate
speech with limitless ammunition. We, on defense,
ought to recognize that our tools to educate and
engender understanding need not be so limited
like some zero-sum totem pole. JE
Zev Eleff is president of Gratz College.