IS THERE A CURE FOR ANTI-SEMITISM?
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Edith Kurzweil: I
think, however, that we cannot really assume that
there is one "black community." If we do, we are ignoring important
differences. And we are accepting that the rabble-rousers are speaking for
all blacks. We ought to find the groups you're speaking of, and support
them in some way.
Question:
I'd like to support Mr. Wistrich. I am a doctor, and my prac–
tice is mostly geriatric. Sixty to seventy percent of my patients are black.
I find them loving, caring, gentle. I have a good relationship with every
single one of them. They are wonderful in their relationships with their
families, their lovingness with their children, and they support their fami–
lies. I am not surprised by this, but it completely contradicts so many of
the impressions we get. What you said is entirely right. There are great
segments of our black friends and alli es and fellow citizens who I am sure
feel very warmly inclined towards Jews.
Edith Kurzweil:
That's right, but they sllffer within their communities
for it.
Qllestion:
To say in genera l that it is th e black intellectuals who are en–
couraging these racist expressions is to miss the point. The black anti–
Semitic agitation has its origins in a black power movement being led by
a group of Black Muslims represented by Farrakhan. Only counterfeit in–
tellectuals wou ld want to be the rallying point of that angry mass of un–
employed, imprisoned youths attracted by this particular movement. It is
not an intellectual movement; it's a black power movement, and it's
guided by those few black pseudo-intellectuals on the college campuses
who rally around the Farrakhan army.
Norman Podhoretz: I
don't think there are so few. What is extraor–
dinary about what's been happen ing in the last few years is the extent to
which Farrakhan and some of these others have been able to get a hear–
ing and support outside their own organizations. What is the member–
ship of the Nation of Islam, between ten and fifteen thousand? It's not
very large. Yet, as I just pointed out, Farrakhan was able to draw thirty
thousand people for a speech in New York. And in a recent poll con–
ducted by the Black Politics Study at the University of Chicago, nearly
seventy percent of the black respondents said he was a positive forcc.
Now some of the respondents, no doubt, mean that he fights drugs and
that he is for law and order. Neverthelcss, to go back to what I was
saying about the toleration of anti-Semitism in all circles of society, the
