Black-Jewish alliance isn’t nostalgia. We need it to defend democracy - opinion

As the Sacred Covenant we signed in Atlanta declared, 'The Black-Jewish covenant cannot be sustained by nostalgia alone. Sacred memory must become present responsibility.'

At the recent 2026 Atlanta Summit for Black Pastors and Rabbis, I joined 100 rabbis, Black American clergy, Black Jewish leaders, scholars, activists, and community leaders in signing a Sacred Covenant affirming a renewed national commitment to unite against antisemitism and racism. 

I was honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with Georgia Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock, Amb. Andrew Young, journalist Van Jones, Rabbis Rick Jacobs, David Saperstein and Heather Miller, Rev. Mariama White-Hammond of the New Roots African Methodist Episcopal Church and many other leaders to discuss how to further our alliance. 

Amid surging antisemitism and discrimination, conversations were heavy, but I was reminded that this partnership isn’t nostalgia; it’s a living commitment each generation must choose. I was also struck by the particular weight carried by my Black Jewish colleagues, whose experiences can show the complexity of navigating both Black and Jewish spaces. The Black-Jewish alliance is not simply a partnership between two distinct communities; it is lived every day by Black Jews whose experiences remind us that neither community is a monolith.

History of the Black-Jewish alliance

When I speak with Jewish peers about events like this, they’re sometimes surprised to hear that the Black-Jewish alliance is still so alive. They tell me that the allyship seen in the civil rights movement was frozen in time, and that following the Hamas raids inside Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, some Jews have felt abandoned by progressive allies, including those in the Black community. Disagreements over Israel and Gaza, debates about the meaning of solidarity, and diverging views on what is or is not antisemitic deeply challenge us.

Despite these areas of friction, in my experience, the Black-Jewish alliance is far from a relic of the past. The history of this alliance runs deeper than most people know and continues to this day.

As the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, I take tremendous pride in sharing the story of our founding, including the 1959 stipulation by philanthropist, civil rights activist, and Reform Jewish leader Kivie Kaplan that the Washington, D.C. building he gifted to be our Reform movement’s home serve as a hub for the civil rights movement. My predecessor and the RAC’s founding director, Rabbi Dick Hirsch, invited his friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to use our space as his office when in town, and I fervently wish our building’s walls could talk.

Because of this special history, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was partly drafted in our conference room, rooted in the bloodshed in places like Selma, Alabama, and Neshoba County, Mississippi, by people including future Rep. John Lewis, as well as Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner, two white Jewish men and a Black Christian man whose sacrifices continue to inspire. Equally inspiring is the work of many Black Jews, such as Charles McDew and Julius Lester, who made significant contributions during the civil rights movement, but are too often overlooked. That commitment to showing up for each other brings us to the ballot box today.

Voting rights continue to connect both communities

Through my seats on the boards of the NAACP and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, I work every day with Black Jewish colleagues and leaders in the Black community to protect voting rights more than 10 years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder decimated the Voting Rights Act; stand against antisemitism and racism in the face of attacks like the racially motivated 2022 Tops Grocery shooting in Buffalo and the assault this year on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan; expand health care in the face of narrowing Affordable Care Act coverage; reform our broken criminal justice system that still sees the disproportionate incarceration of Black men; and protect critical programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 

Today’s moments of crisis also echo the past: The recent arson attack against Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi, recalls the Ku Klux Klan’s bombing of the congregation in 1967 over its rabbi’s civil rights work. When the building was set afire this past January, the Black community quickly came to the aid of the congregation at an “All-City Call to Prayer and Action.”

Voting rights continue to connect both communities. Democracy keeps Jews and all people safe, and it’s on the line. That’s not a political calculus; it’s a Jewish imperative. For more than 60 years, the RAC has existed to turn the Reform movement’s moral commitments into civic power, and nothing tests that mission more than the current assault on the right to vote, voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering, and attacks on vote-by-mail that threaten Jews and the Black, LGBTQ+, Latino, and immigrant communities alike.

As the Sacred Covenant we signed in Atlanta declared, “The Black-Jewish covenant cannot be sustained by nostalgia alone…. Sacred memory must become present responsibility.”

We must continue this alliance, in partnership with Black-led organizations, to ensure our communities are safe and our voices are heard.

That’s the Judaism I was ordained to practice: One where liberation only makes sense in solidarity with others who are still not free.