Americas Jews

5. The Pendulum Shifts, 1965-1975

5. The Pendulum Shifts, 1965-1975 American Jews were rather comfortable with themselves and their position in American society during the latter half of the 1950s and the early 1960s. Whatever misgivings individual American Jews may have entertained about the decline in the quality and intensity of Judaism in the thirdgeneration community, the group and its constituent organizations appeared convinced that the adoption and internalization of American norms and values and the removal of all barriers to structural assimilation were the keys to guaranteeing the continued well-being of America's Jews. Perceiving that they had successfully integrated into the "triple melting pot" (Kennedy, 1944, 1952; Herberg, 1960), American Jews and the organizations became active in reforming and perfecting American society, especially through the dismantling of the institutionalized segregation that had perpetuated the political and social disenfranchisement of blacks and other deprived minorities for so long. In contrast to the impressions of David Boroff-whose views are fairly typical of many Jewish intellectual critics-that American Jews were growing more conservative because"as the doors of American society swing open hospitably to talented Jews, the impulse to castigate and criticize becomes attenuated" (Boroff, 1961, p. 90), American Jews remained politically liberal to left and they became increasingly involved in organizations actively engaged in promoting social and political change. Nor did the 104 events of the 1960s support Boroff's prediction that "as Jews The Pendulum Shifls 105 increasingly become part of the 'Establishment,' intellectual teenagers will merely see themselves as apprentices rather than critics" (ibid. p. 90). To assign a specific date to the founding of the New Left is difficult because it never was a specific body; but its origins are in the issuance of the Port Huron Statement in June 1962, a statement seen as the guiding principles and handbook for radical action of the Students for a Democratic Society, and SDS was to become the core group within the movement. While most Jewish students were neither leaders nor members of New Left organizations, Jews did playa very significant role in the leadership and membership of those organizations . Arthur Liebman has estimated that during the first half of the 1960s the number of Jews in SDS ranged from 30 to 50 percent (Liebman, 1979, p. 67). Likewise, "a majority of the leadership of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley in 1964 was Jewish, and it was Jewish students within the student body at Berkeley who gave the FSM its strongest base of support" (ibid., p. 68; see also Feuer, 1969, p. 423; Somers, 1965, p. 548). Coinciding with and giving purpose to the student organizations of the New Left were the "long hot summers"the series of race riots, accompanied by looting and violence, which erupted in many American urban centers during the 1960s. The New Left immediately took up the cause of the oppressed black population, especially since many early founders of the movement had been involved in the civil rights cause as nonviolent protesters in the South during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The civil rights and black protest movements affected Jews in several ways. Jews were overwhelmingly liberal and played a significant role in the movement to eradicate the institutionalized injustices under which blacks had been economically, politically, and socially deprived for so long. As Liebman points out, "in the summer of 1961 Jews made up two-thirds of the white Freedom Riders that traveled into the South to desegregate interstate transportation . Three years later Jews comprised from one-third to one- 106 America's Jews in Transition half of the Mississippi Summer volunteers. Two of the white youths martyred during this experience, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, were Jews" (Liebman, 1979, p. 68). Adult Jews, too, played important roles in civil rights organizations, some as national leaders, others as local leaders, and many as members. For a large segment of the American Jewish population, as well as for many of its organizations, civil rights was an issue, if not the issue, of highest priority. The racial situation and its ramifications, on the other hand, began to affect American Jews in ways that began to erode the Jewish-black alliance that had existed until the middle of the 19605. The summer of 1964 witnessed violent racial disturbances in many American cities. Although virtually all disturbances were limited to the black ghettos of the cities, many Jews were affected, and disproportionally so among...