'Black, Jewish, Interracial - a contradiction ?'

Alina Polyak

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2005
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783640074167
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1-, Frankfurt, course: black and jewish women writers, language: English, abstract: During the semester we read a lot of texts by different authors. There were a lot of questions that we raised in class about race, gender, identity and religion. We found out that there was a lot of prejudice on both the Black and the Jewish side. It was important for me to know whether it is possible to unite both black and Jewish parts of one's identity or one has to give up one part of his or her heritage in favour of the other. In my paper I would like to try to find out if there is a contradiction in being both black and Jewish from the point of view of Jewish religion. I want to try to show that there is no contradiction to be found and that the prejudice against people of colour does not come from the Jewish tradition. As a Jew it is important to me to try to understand why many partners in interracial relationships were rejected by their families, what played the most important role – the race or the religion, and why many of them felt compelled to throw away their Judaism. Why could not they be both black and Jewish? Is it only the race issue that made them abandon their Judaism, or was it only a kind of justification or excuse? When parents refused to keep contact with their children was it because of race or because they were marrying a Gentile person? Would there be any difference if the non Jewish person were white? Would it hurt less? Or maybe it would be easier to hide? On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of Black converts to Judaism. It is very hard to convert and for a black person even harder – so what makes them do it? I do not hope to answer all the questions that I have raised but I would like at least to touch some of the points in this sensitive issue.