Georgetown University professors collaborated on a book that examines the complex relationship between Black and Jewish communities in political and religious life. 

The book, titled “Blacks and Jews in America: An Invitation to Dialogue,” analyzes democracy in the United States through underrepresented perspectives. Jaques Berlinerblau, the Rabbi Harold White Professor of Jewish Civilization in the School of Foreign Service (SFS), and Terrence L. Johnson, associate professor of religion and politics in the government department, released the book in February. 

“Blacks and Jews in America” aims to investigate and clarify the connections between race relations, religion and politics, according to Johnson.  

“We really wanted to tell this message in terms of the complicated ways race, religion and democracy intertwine and tell the story through the particularities of Blacks and Jews as a starting point for reinvigorating not only conversation between the two groups but also a broader conversation in terms of political solidarity,” Johnson said in an interview with The Hoya. 

The Unite the Right rally — a deadly 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists marched, chanted racist and antisemitic rhetoric and became violent — initiated Berlinerblau and Johnson’s decision to write the book as both authors felt the need to speak about the hateful ideas expressed at the rally. 

“I think what triggered the idea that we needed to do something within the Georgetown community was the Charlottesville incident,” Johnson said. “When they were chanting, ‘Blacks and Jews will not replace us,’ I think we were both stunned.” 

The book explores why Blacks and Jews are not more united in the fight against white supremacy, as well as the deep roots between the Black and Jewish communities extending to before the mid-twentieth century.  

Berlinerblau and Johnson co-teach an undergraduate course titled “Blacks and Jews in America,” where they utilize dialogue to approach intimate issues with sensitivity and structure. 

Students’ reaction to the material in the class, as well as the discussions that took place in the classroom, also inspired the book “Blacks and Jews in America,” according to Berlinerblau.

“We started teaching the class in 2015 and there was tremendous student excitement around the project,” Berlinerblau wrote in an email to The Hoya. “We were propelled by their energy I guess.”

The book, which is intended to be an invitation to dialogue, builds upon classroom experiences, discussions and essays, according to Johnson.   

“We decided to take a portion of that style and then add a couple of our original essays and also interviews with two leading women scholars in part because we find that the discussions around Blacks and Jews are often centered on men and on exchanges between them,” Johnson said.

Student teaching assistants and researchers worked behind the scenes on the book in collaboration with Berlinerblau and Johnson. Ria Pradhan (SFS ’23), who took a proseminar class with Berlinerblau in the fall 2019 semester, worked on a variety of projects with him in the past related to political secularism. 

According to Pradhan, the work that went into “Blacks and Jews in America” required her and another student researcher, Alexander Lin (SFS ’23), to complete a variety of tasks, including general research, drafting and providing editing assistance. 

“The research tasks Alex and I conducted ranged from transcribing and editing conversations between the Professors (which were then adapted into the content you see in the book), finding topical journal articles, collecting primary sources, and providing feedback to the Professors on chapter content,” Pradhan wrote in an email to The Hoya. “I feel really grateful to have been able to delve into Black-Jewish relations with Professors Berlinerblau and Johnson as they are both experts in the field.” 

Johnson hopes that the book will urge readers to evaluate their perceptions of Black and Jewish relations in a new light. 

“All the issues that I think divide us come up in between these two groups, and I think that we can dissect what’s happening and what has happened historically,” Johnson said. “It’s not about reviving any kind of alliance, but it’s about how we make this sort of alliance and what we take away from it so that we can push and broaden our imagination about democracy.”