Kahane was living in the midst of Black nationalism initially instituted by Stokley Carmichael in June 1966, and he focused on the antisemitic rhetoric of some PTA parents in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville district, which was over 90% Black and Hispanic, while the teachers were 80% white (including many Jews). Kahane claimed Lindsay was supporting or at least enabling the antisemitism that arose in light of the school strike.
In Kahane’s case, and here I suggest reading my chapter on race in the book, the underlying assumption in Kahane’s thinking was that Blacks held antisemitic views and that the school strike was simply an occasion to express them. Setting this aside for the moment, his attack on Lindsay suggested that a NYC mayor, in this case a High-Church white Protestant would throw Jews “under the bus” if he needed to maintain his liberal values. Interesting, Israel was not at issue here at all and wouldn’t be for Kahane until 1972 when he published Time to Go Home, his swansong to America. In his congressional testimony in 1967 on Soviet Jewry he does deal with the PLO somewhat, but it is not his central issue there. Later it would become his main concern. Underlying Kahane’s worldview is that America is not safe for Jews and that America will ultimately turn on Jews in line with the Jewish past.
The context of 2025 is different and yet oddly similar. Now Israel is the central issue. October 7 and the Gaza War which led to the utter destruction of Gaza evoked large protests in the progressive camp that was not viewed as threatening the liberal Jewish camp. Liberal Jews continue to struggle to make sense of, and defend, the death and destruction of Gaza and yet maintain their fidelity to Israel, viewing claims of “genocide” as indicative of antisemitism not dissimilar to the ways many Black parents blamed Jews for taking over their school district (some numbers suggested 70% of white teachers in the district were Jews).
Enter Mamdani (from central casting), a Muslim, socialist, anti-Zionist candidate for mayor who expressed many of the sentiments of the campus protestors, albeit he had no record of animus toward Jews. But by 2025 American Jewish identity and Israel had become so fused (which was not the case in 1968) that anti-Israel sentiment was tacitly viewed as antisemitic. Any claim otherwise was rejected as naïve.
