The Comparison Needs More Care Than Competition
I understand why Black people sometimes look at other communities and ask why we have not achieved the same level of collective organization, wealth, or political influence. That question can open a serious conversation about history, institutions, family networks, education, land, discrimination, and the long consequences of slavery. But I become careful when the conversation turns into ranking one people’s suffering against another people’s suffering. Black Americans endured centuries of racial slavery followed by generations of segregation, disenfranchisement, racial violence, and economic exclusion. European Jews endured centuries of antisemitic persecution that reached catastrophic proportions under Nazi rule and the Holocaust. Nazi persecution lasted from 1933 until 1945, with the systematic mass murder of European Jews intensifying during World War II. Six million Jews were murdered. Those histories are different in duration, method, geography, and political purpose. Neither one becomes more worthy of respect by making the other one smaller. If I want justice for Black people, I do not have to compete with Jewish suffering to make the case.
Three Hundred Years Versus the Holocaust Misses Something
People sometimes say Black people suffered for three hundred years while the Holocaust lasted only five or six years. I understand the point being attempted because duration unquestionably matters when examining the effects of oppression across generations. American slavery developed over centuries and created economic and social systems whose consequences did not disappear with emancipation. But reducing the Holocaust to a few calendar years can also hide the larger history of antisemitism that preceded Nazi Germany. Jews in Europe experienced expulsions, pogroms, discriminatory laws, forced conversions, property restrictions, and recurring violence for centuries before Hitler came to power. The Holocaust represented an extreme and systematic attempt to destroy European Jewry, not the beginning of anti-Jewish persecution. Black history contains its own long continuum from slavery through Jim Crow and beyond. Jewish history also contains a longer continuum than the Nazi death camps alone. Historical comparison becomes useful when it helps us understand systems rather than decide whose ancestors suffered more. Pain is not a competition with one trophy sitting at the finish line.
Jewish People Do Not “Control This Country”
I have heard the statement that Jews control America, control the banks, control politics, or control the media. Those ideas have circulated for generations, and they are classic antisemitic conspiracy theories rather than reliable descriptions of how American institutions work. Jewish Americans have achieved significant representation in professions such as law, business, entertainment, academia, medicine, and politics. That success does not make millions of Jewish people one coordinated political or financial organization. Jewish Americans disagree with one another about politics, Israel, religion, economics, and nearly everything else Americans disagree about. Some are wealthy and powerful. Others are ordinary middle-class or poor families. Political influence in America is distributed among corporations, wealthy donors, labor organizations, religious groups, advocacy organizations, voters, political parties, industries, and countless other interests. Reducing that complicated system to “the Jews control it” may feel like an explanation, but it is actually a stereotype. Black political analysis becomes stronger when we identify specific institutions and policies rather than blaming an ethnic or religious population.
Israel Was Not Simply Reparations for the Holocaust
Another claim I hear is that Israel was created specifically as reparations for Jewish Holocaust survivors. That is not historically accurate. Modern political Zionism developed in Europe during the nineteenth century, decades before the Holocaust. Jewish migration to Ottoman and later British-controlled Palestine had also been occurring before Nazi Germany existed. The Holocaust dramatically increased international attention to Jewish displacement and the demand for a Jewish homeland, but Israel’s creation in 1948 came through a much longer and highly contested historical process. Britain had controlled Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. Jewish and Arab nationalist movements were already competing over political control and national self-determination. The United Nations proposed partition in 1947, war followed, and Israel declared independence in 1948. Palestinians experienced mass displacement during that conflict, which they remember as the Nakba. Israel’s creation therefore cannot accurately be described as one simple compensation payment handed to Holocaust survivors. History becomes more honest when we acknowledge Jewish aspirations, Holocaust trauma, Palestinian dispossession, colonial history, nationalism, and war together.
Germany Did Pay Reparations
There is, however, a legitimate reparations comparison worth discussing. West Germany entered into a reparations agreement with Israel in 1952. Germany agreed to provide goods and services worth three billion Deutsche Marks to Israel and another 450 million marks to the Jewish Claims Conference, with the latter intended principally to benefit Holocaust survivors outside Israel. Israel argued that it had absorbed large numbers of displaced Holocaust survivors and was carrying substantial resettlement costs. Individual survivors also received various forms of compensation through German programs. Those payments continued evolving over decades. That history demonstrates something important about reparative justice. People receiving reparations do not necessarily have to be the only individuals who physically suffered the original act. Governments can recognize that historical crimes produce consequences extending beyond the immediate moment. That principle is one reason Black reparations advocates examine the Holocaust compensation experience closely.
Black Reparations Should Stand on Their Own Evidence
I do not need to argue that Jewish people received something unfairly in order to make the case for Black reparations. The Black American case has its own historical foundation. Enslaved people performed generations of uncompensated labor under a system protected by law. Families were bought, sold, separated, inherited, mortgaged, and treated as property. Emancipation arrived without a broad national program compensating formerly enslaved families for stolen labor or providing the land many believed would secure economic independence. Reconstruction was followed by racial violence, disfranchisement, discriminatory labor systems, segregation, housing discrimination, and other barriers. Federal and state policies sometimes reinforced those inequalities. Those facts can support a reparations discussion without borrowing moral legitimacy from anybody else’s history. The question should be what harm occurred, who was responsible, what consequences remain, and what form of repair would be just and workable. Black Americans do not need another group’s suffering as permission to present that argument.
Jews Did Not Dominate the Slave Trade
I also want to deal directly with the claim that Jews built the slave ships, controlled the banks financing slavery, dominated slave insurance, or were among the largest enslavers in America. Individual Jewish merchants and slaveholders did participate in Atlantic slavery, just as members of numerous European, American, African, Christian, Muslim, and other communities participated in various parts of the system. But historians who specialize in slavery reject the claim that Jews played a disproportionate or controlling role. The American Historical Association formally condemned that allegation as false. Historian Seymour Drescher similarly found Jewish participation comparatively marginal even in areas where Jewish merchants had a visible presence. Portugal, Britain, Spain, France, the Netherlands, colonial governments, European commercial interests, African political actors, and American slaveholders played much larger structural roles in the Atlantic system. That does not excuse any individual Jewish slaveholder. It places responsibility where the historical evidence actually puts it. If I condemn distorted history when somebody minimizes Black slavery, I have to use the same standard when somebody exaggerates Jewish responsibility for it.
Judah P. Benjamin Does Not Prove Collective Responsibility
The Confederate official usually mentioned in these conversations was Judah P. Benjamin. Benjamin was Jewish and served the Confederacy as attorney general, secretary of war, and later secretary of state. He supported the Confederate government and therefore bears responsibility for his own participation in a government created to preserve slavery. That is a legitimate historical fact. But one prominent Jewish Confederate official cannot be transformed into evidence that Jews collectively created or controlled American slavery. We would never responsibly judge all Black people by one Black person’s political conduct. We should not apply that kind of collective guilt to Jewish people either. Individuals have moral responsibility for what individuals do. Institutions have responsibility for what institutions do. Historical analysis becomes distorted when a person’s religion is made more important than the actual political and economic system in which that person operated.
Were Enslaved People Sold at Synagogues?
There are documented examples of slave sales connected with different public and commercial spaces in Atlantic port cities, including locations where Jewish merchants lived and worshiped. But claims that synagogues broadly served as major slave-auction centers are often presented without sufficient context or evidence. Enslaved people were sold at auction houses, markets, courthouses, plantations, taverns, docks, private residences, and other commercial locations. The institution of slavery was deeply integrated into colonial and American economic life. Highlighting a synagogue only because it was Jewish can create the misleading impression that Jewish religion had a special relationship with slavery. Christian churches and Christian slaveholders were far more numerous in the American slave system because Christians made up the overwhelming majority of the white population. Some churches defended slavery theologically. Other Christians became abolitionists. Religious identity alone therefore tells us very little about whether a particular person opposed or participated in slavery. The better question is what individuals and institutions actually did.
Black Americans Did Help Liberate Europe
There is a powerful history connecting Black American military service with the defeat of Nazi Germany. Black soldiers served in the segregated United States military during World War II. They fought for a democracy abroad that did not yet give them full equality at home. Black units performed critical roles in combat, transportation, engineering, aviation, logistics, and other operations. Some African American soldiers encountered concentration camps and witnessed evidence of Nazi atrocities. Their service belongs in the larger story of defeating fascism. They returned home expecting that fighting racism overseas should strengthen demands against racism in America. That contradiction helped fuel the Double V campaign: victory against fascism abroad and racism at home. Black veterans became important participants in later civil-rights activism. Remembering that history can create solidarity rather than competition between Black and Jewish memory.
Israel and Apartheid South Africa
There is also a difficult historical fact that should not be ignored. Israel developed significant military and security ties with apartheid South Africa, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. Scholars have documented arms sales, military cooperation, weapons development, and other strategic relationships between the two governments. South Africa supplied materials and Israel supplied military technology and weapons. The relationship continued during years when international condemnation of apartheid was increasing. Israel eventually moved away from those relationships as international pressure grew and apartheid approached its end. Criticizing those policies is legitimate. Governments should be judged by what governments do. But criticizing Israeli government policy should not become accusing Jewish people everywhere of supporting apartheid. That distinction allows serious criticism without turning politics into ethnic blame.
The 2026 United Nations Vote Is Real
A very recent event gives this discussion another legitimate point of tension. On March 25, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a Ghana-led resolution describing the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel slavery as “the gravest crime against humanity.” The measure received 123 votes in favor. Fifty-two countries abstained. Three countries voted against it: the United States, Israel, and Argentina. Ghana, under President John Dramani Mahama, championed the resolution as part of a larger push toward reparatory justice. Black people have every right to ask why those three governments opposed the resolution. Government votes are public policy decisions and deserve scrutiny. But again, Israel’s vote is the action of the Israeli government, not proof that Jewish people as a whole disregard Black suffering. The United States voting against the measure certainly does not mean every American citizen agrees with that decision either.
Ask Why Governments Vote the Way They Do
When governments vote against resolutions, I want to know their stated reasoning before deciding what the vote proves. Governments may object to terminology, legal implications, reparations language, precedent, jurisdiction, diplomatic alliances, or other provisions. Sometimes those objections are persuasive, and sometimes they appear like attempts to avoid responsibility. The appropriate response is to examine the explanation. If the United States opposes language calling the slave trade the gravest crime against humanity, Black Americans are entitled to ask why. If Israel opposes it, the Israeli government can be questioned too. Accountability does not require conspiracy. In fact, specific accountability is stronger because the government cannot hide behind accusations that critics are simply prejudiced. Tell me what you voted for, what you voted against, and why. Then citizens can judge the decision on its merits.
Black and Jewish Histories Have Crossed in More Than One Direction
The relationship between Black Americans and Jewish Americans has never been one simple story of friendship or hostility. Jewish activists participated in parts of the American civil-rights movement. Jewish lawyers, rabbis, students, and organizations worked alongside Black activists in campaigns against segregation. Some suffered violence for that participation. At the same time, tensions developed around housing, schools, business relationships, policing, urban politics, affirmative action, Israel, and other issues. Black antisemitism has existed. Jewish racism against Black people has existed too. Communities are made of human beings, and human beings are capable of solidarity and prejudice at the same time. History becomes childish when we insist one community was always ally or always enemy. Mature history allows us to acknowledge cooperation where it happened and conflict where it happened.
“Not All Skin Folk Are Kinfolk” Works Both Ways
Black people often remind one another that sharing skin color does not guarantee shared values. The same principle applies to every group. Jewish people do not all share one politics. Israelis do not all share one politics. Africans do not all share one politics. Black Americans certainly do not all share one politics. When we treat a population as one mind, we become vulnerable to propaganda. One Jewish billionaire does not represent every Jew. One Black politician does not represent every Black person. One Israeli government does not represent every Jewish person around the world.
Why Some Communities Build Strong Institutions
There is still a productive question hiding underneath the original comparison. Why have some communities been particularly effective at building durable institutions? Jewish communities in many places built synagogues, schools, charitable organizations, professional networks, mutual-aid groups, cultural institutions, and advocacy organizations. Black Americans did the same under extraordinarily hostile circumstances. We built churches, mutual-aid societies, historically Black colleges, fraternities and sororities, newspapers, civil-rights organizations, businesses, banks, insurance companies, and civic institutions. The difference is not that Black people never organized. Black organization was repeatedly attacked. Black banks were denied capital, Black towns were destroyed, Black political organizations were surveilled, Black leaders were assassinated, and Black economic institutions faced discrimination. Yet Black America kept rebuilding. The better lesson is not “Why can’t we be like the Jews?” but “Which institutional strategies have helped different communities survive, and what can we learn from them without losing ourselves?”
Unity Does Not Mean Everybody Thinking Alike
Sometimes people tell Black Americans that our problem is a lack of unity. I understand the frustration behind that statement, but no population of tens of millions of people will think alike. Jewish communities do not think alike either. Unity does not require identical politics, religion, class interests, or personalities. Useful unity means agreeing on certain shared interests while allowing disagreement on everything else. Black people can disagree about political parties while supporting fair voting access. We can disagree about religion while supporting good schools. We can disagree about economic philosophy while supporting fair treatment in employment and business. Mature coalitions are built around goals, not fantasies of complete agreement. We should stop measuring Black unity against an imaginary version of another community that never existed.
Oppression Can Damage Trust
Centuries of oppression can also influence how communities organize. Slavery separated families and punished collective resistance. Enslavers understood that organized enslaved people represented danger. After emancipation, Black political organizing faced violence. Labor organizers could be fired. Civil-rights organizations were surveilled. Leaders were infiltrated, discredited, arrested, or killed. Those experiences can produce understandable suspicion around institutions and leadership. But they also produced some of the strongest organizing traditions in American history. The NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Black churches, mutual-aid societies, and countless local organizations demonstrate that Black people have always known how to organize. The challenge has often been sustaining institutions in environments where organized Black power faced organized opposition.
We Should Learn Without Mythologizing
There is nothing wrong with learning from another community’s successes. Black people can study Jewish educational traditions, philanthropic networks, political organizing, family institutions, and community advocacy. We can study Asian immigrant business networks. We can study Latino labor organizing. We can study African cooperative traditions. We can study our own history too. But learning becomes dangerous when admiration turns into mythology. If I believe Jewish people never struggle, I will misunderstand Jewish poverty, discrimination, internal disagreement, and history. If I believe every Jew automatically has access to money and political power, I am repeating stereotypes rather than learning anything useful. Real lessons come from studying actual institutions, not imagined racial superpowers.
Black Freedom Was Never Given as a Gift
What I continue returning to is that Black American progress was created through struggle. Freedom was fought for. Citizenship was fought for. Voting rights were fought for. Schools were built because communities sacrificed for them. Businesses were created despite discriminatory markets. Civil-rights protections required organizing, litigation, protest, political negotiation, and sometimes blood. Nobody handed Black Americans everything we have today because the country suddenly developed a conscience. That history should give us confidence. We do not need to believe another ethnic group secretly controls everything in order to explain why inequalities remain. We need to understand power, organize effectively, build institutions, protect what previous generations created, and challenge policies that continue producing unfair outcomes.
Reparations Should Not Become a Fight Between Black and Jewish People
If I support serious consideration of reparations for Black Americans, I want that argument directed toward the institutions responsible for American slavery and its documented aftermath. That means examining federal policy, state governments, businesses, financial institutions, universities, religious institutions, and other entities where historical responsibility can actually be established. It does not mean demanding payment from Jewish people because some Jewish individuals participated in slavery. Collective racial guilt is not a sound reparations framework. Holocaust reparations were directed toward Germany and institutions responsible for Nazi persecution. That makes sense. Black reparations should likewise examine identifiable American responsibility and injury. We can learn from German reparations without turning Jewish recipients into competitors. Justice works better when victims of one historical crime are not forced to fight victims of another for moral recognition.
Our Anger Needs the Right Address
Anger can be politically useful when it is aimed accurately. If a bank discriminated against Black borrowers, name the bank and document what happened. If a government destroyed a Black community, document the government decision. If an institution profited from slavery, research the records. If a politician opposes a reparations study, challenge the politician’s reasoning. But saying “the Jews did it” takes a complicated system and gives the anger the wrong address. That makes accountability easier to avoid because the actual institutions disappear behind a stereotype. It can also turn potential allies into enemies while doing nothing to repair Black communities. Our history deserves better than misdirected anger. We need facts sharp enough to identify who actually owes what.
Summary
Black American slavery and the Holocaust are both profound historical crimes, but they should not be reduced to a competition over whose suffering mattered more. Black Americans endured centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression afterward. Jews experienced centuries of antisemitism culminating in the Holocaust, during which six million Jews were murdered. Jewish people do not collectively control America, and historians reject claims that Jews disproportionately controlled the Atlantic slave trade. Israel was not simply created as Holocaust reparations, although West Germany later paid significant reparations to Israel and Jewish survivors. Israel did maintain serious military ties with apartheid South Africa, and that government policy deserves historical criticism. In March 2026, Israel, the United States, and Argentina did vote against Ghana’s UN resolution identifying the transatlantic slave trade and racial chattel slavery as the gravest crime against humanity. That vote can be criticized without blaming Jewish people collectively. Black reparations have their own powerful historical case and do not require diminishing Jewish history to establish it.
Conclusion
I want Black people organized, informed, economically stronger, politically sophisticated, and serious about reparative justice. I also want us careful about where we place responsibility. We have been lied about too many times to become comfortable repeating distorted history about somebody else. Jewish people are not one mind, one bank account, one government, or one political agenda. Black people are not either. There are legitimate criticisms to make of Israeli policy, American policy, historical Jewish individuals, Christian institutions, corporations, banks, governments, and anybody else whose conduct can be documented. Make those criticisms directly. But Black liberation does not grow stronger by turning Jews into a secret enemy. Our strongest case comes from knowing exactly what happened to us, identifying who was responsible, understanding what consequences remain, and building the power necessary to demand repair. I do not need to deny another people’s suffering to honor my own ancestors. There is enough historical truth available for both peoples to remember their dead without turning memory into another weapon against each other.