How the Jewish Community Has Helped Further Human Equality and Dignity in the United States
One of the fundamental tenets of the Jewish faith is the belief that we are all created equal. In action, that credo follows the Talmud, which mandates respect for the basic rights of others. The Talmud tells us that “what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” In practice, that has long taken the form of a strong Jewish presence in some of history’s most difficult, yet transformational, civil rights movements.
The Early History of Jewish Involvement in Civil Rights in America
Though the contributions of the Jewish community to the civil rights movement in the 1960s is fairly well-documented, the involvement of and commitment by the American Jewish community to racial equality in the United States goes back much further.:
- In 1909, when the legendary W.E.B. DuBois brought together a coalition to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one of the founding members was Henry Moscowitz
- Kivie Kaplan, a renowned Jewish-American businessman and vice-chairman of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, retired to serve as national president of the NAACP from 1966 until his death in 1975
- The Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, a part-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company, gave millions of dollars over three decades to help build and operate more than 2,000 K-12 schools and more than 20 Black colleges, including Howard and Fisk universities. According to some estimates, when these schools were all operating, nearly half of all Blacks educated in the American south attended one of these so-called “Rosenwald schools.”
Jewish Involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s
Because the Jewish community was already integrally involved with the NAACP, there was a strong Jewish presence in the fight for civil rights that grew throughout the first half of the 20th century. Jewish leaders were deeply involved in many of the key organizations of the civil rights movement, from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It’s estimated that about half of all the activists who traveled to Mississippi in 1964 for the Freedom Summer were Jewish. Prominent leaders of the Jewish Reform Movement were side-by-side with Dr. Martin Luther King in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964, leading to their arrest and incarceration for publicly challenging discrimination in public accommodations. At the pivotal 1965 march on Selma, Rabbi Joshua Heschel walked alongside Dr. King. And, tragically, two of the three civil rights workers slain by the KKK in Mississippi were Jewish.
Jewish leadership was also instrumental in drafting and lobbying for the passage of landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Much of the language of what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was hammered out in the conference room at the Religious Action Center (RAC) of Reform Judaism, which housed the offices of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights for decades.
Gutterman’s and Gutterman Warheit—Meeting Your Funeral and Burial Needs for 125 Years
At Gutterman’s and Gutterman Warheit, with chapels in New York and Florida, we have provided comprehensive funeral and burial services to individuals and families in the Jewish community for more over a century and a quarter. We can provide guidance and support on every detail after the death of your loved one, helping you select a monument, working with you to put together the order of service for the memorial, selecting a casket, making preparations for sitting Shiva or creating a Yahrzeit calendar. We will also work directly with the Chevra Kadisha to ensure proper ritual cleansing of the body before burial.
To learn how we can be of assistance, contact us by email or call us at one of the numbers listed below.
Gutterman’s & Gutterman Warheit — Where Relationships Matter
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