Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has written to several American Jewish organizations seeking “repair of my people from the damage” he says Jews have caused blacks.
Minister Farrakhan sent the letter and two books from the Nation of Islam Historical Research Team that he says prove “an undeniable record of Jewish Anti-Black behavior” beginning with the slave trade and Jim Crow laws.
One of the books, “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews” by Tony Martin, argues that Jews had a disproportionately large role in the black slave trade, a position rejected by some of America’s leading African American studies scholars and the American Historical Association. The text stereotypes Jews as being obsessed with money, while accusing them of initiating the slave trade. Farrakhan has promoted it as factual and well researched.
The recipients of the letter and books include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, and the Orthodox and Reform movements.
“We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy,” Farrakhan wrote.
“This is an offer asking you and the gentiles whom you influence to help me in the repair of my people from the damage that has been done by your ancestors to mine,” he writes. “Your present reality is sitting on top of the world in power, with riches and influences, while the masses of my people ... are in the worst condition of any member of the human family.”
Farrakhan, who has spoken openly against Jews in his speeches, has long charged Jews with controlling the economy, pushing America into wars, keeping black people impoverished and portraying them negatively in mass media.
“Never, in our more than 20 years of following Minister Louis Farrakhan, have we seen him so obsessively devoted to his hate crusade against Jews,” said Abraham H. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s National Director. “His anti-Semitism is obsessive, diabolical and unrestrained. He has opened a new chapter in his ministry where scapegoating Jews is not just part of a message, but the message.”
Farrakhan has not responded to the reactions against his letter. The Minister has long denied being anti-Semitic, saying his statements have been taken out context. His countless anti-Jewish statements and actions weaken his defense. Some statements are anti-Semitic in any context.
“You say I hate Jews. I don't hate the Jewish people, I never have. But there [are] some things I don't like. ‘What is it you don't like, Farrakhan?’ I don't like the way you leech on us. See a leech is somebody that sucks your blood, takes from you and don’t give you a damn thing. See, I don't like that kind of arrangement. You become our manager, you become our agent. Every one of us that got talent, we can’t make it because you opened the door, and when you opened the door you get and we end up dead with nothing, owing the IRS.”
