I starred in a Super Bowl ad on Black, Jewish partnership. But Israel divided us.
I starred in a Super Bowl ad on Black, Jewish partnership. But Israel divided us. | Opinion Blacks are not being asked; they're being challenged to a loyalty oath of action – you support Israel's fight against Hamas or, de facto, you don't support our domestic Jewish struggles.
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Ad Meter 2024: Foundation to Combat Antisemitism
Watch this Super Bowl ad from the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. Be sure to vote for your favorite Super Bowl ad with Ad Meter! Go to admeter.usatoday.com.
One year ago, I starred in a Super Bowl commercial.
The spot was produced by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and his Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which strives to curb antisemitism and hate speech. They came to me because of my work with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (I spent the '60s as his adviser, lawyer and draft speechwriter.) The ad traded on the idea of a shared history of support between persecuted African Americans and persecuted Jews.
Today, I fear that the Black-Jewish coalition celebrated in my ad is virtually nonexistent.
Criticizing Israel is not equivalent to promoting antisemitism
In my estimation, the armed assault by Hamas on Israel's music festival and its surrounding Jewish communities on Oct. 7, 2023, marked not only the start of the Gaza war but also the beginning of the end of the Black-Jewish civil rights coalition in the United States.
The coalition, a 65-year working relationship between the Black and Jewish communities, had developed during the American Civil Rights Movement, motivated by their common struggle for equal treatment and an end to racial or religious discrimination.
Opinion: I helped write MLK's 'I Have a Dream' speech. Its message remains essential.
During my years as a participant, architect and promoter of this partnership, it never appeared to me that either party embraced any third party outside of the coalition.
But appearances can be deceiving. I didn't clock that third party: the state of Israel.
This is likely because there was no single event that acted as any kind of wedge issue to spotlight this. Israel hovered over our coalition like a ghost. But after the Hamas attack, Israel cast a shadow over the coalition that made it solidly visible. The armed assault was the equivalent of a dagger plunged into the heart of the American Black-Jewish coalition. Because now we're being challenged to what effectively has become a 'loyalty oath' to the state of Israel.
Decades of 24/7 African American support wasn't sufficient to many Jewish organizations and leaders. Now, to be authentic if you were a Black leader, your support in the Black-Jewish coalition is only 'acceptable' if you also support the actions of Israel, right or wrong.
Criticism of Israel the state is tantamount to promoting antisemitism. This is a false equivalency at best. I would suggest that loyalty to country and preservation and protection of a religion are apples and oranges.
US Black community is being challenged with an ultimatum
Blacks are not being asked; they're being challenged to a loyalty oath of action – you support Israel's fight against Hamas or, de facto, you don't support our domestic Jewish struggle against antisemitism. The U.S. Black community is offered an ultimatum by the political leadership of the Jewish community.
Regrettably, they seem to be saying to us, 'We no longer are prepared to fight racism in America without your public support for the state of Israel against his war with Hamas.'
Opinion: I'm Jewish. I can't stay silent on Trump's plan for the US to own Gaza.
The context of my Super Bowl ad against hate was limited to the domestic fight against antisemitism across the board in all communities in the United States. It did not suggest that if you were Black you had to commit yourself to Israel's struggle against Hamas (though one could argue perhaps the subtext was something different).
Yet as subsequently relevant as the struggle in Gaza is, a blanket commitment to that struggle by African Americans is beyond the scope of the domestic civil rights coalition that had developed between the Black and Jewish communities.
As readers of my memoir "Last of the Lions" will know, I've never pledged loyalty to any government. When I was drafted during the Korean War, I was court-martialed for refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the United States.
Now, seven decades later, I don't intend to abide by what is effectively the same idea imposed by the Jewish community on the Black community regarding a country for which none of us even claim citizenship.
My hope is that we begin to reconsider and untangle the issues between a sacred way of life ‒ Judaism ‒ and a geopolitical situation, tied to very earthly things indeed, before the very deep bonds of these two groups of persecuted Americans permanently shears apart.
Clarence B. Jones was personal attorney, adviser and speech writer for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and credited as a co-author of King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. He is chairman of the board of the Spill the Honey Foundation and co-founder of the Clarence B. Jones Institute for Social Advocacy. His new memoir, written with Stuart Connelly, is "Last of The Lions."
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