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Tuesday January 7, 1997

Why Jews still embrace Martin Luther King's legacy

Nearly 30 years after the Rev. Martin Luther King's assassination, the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Minister Louis Farrakhan and his

Yet it was just a generation ago that King, perhaps the most important black leader of our time, was involved not only in the civil rights struggle, but also participated in the efforts to free Soviet Jewry, make Israel a secure and independent state, and combat anti-Semitism. That is why Jews worldwide will enthusiastically join celebrations of Martin Luther King Day on Monday, Jan. 20.

From virtually the very beginning of the movement to free Soviet Jews in the 1960s, King was a major advocate on their behalf. More than a quarter of a century ago, he publicly sought support for the re-establishment of the "religious and cultural freedom" of Soviet Jews. He also urged the Soviet government to "end all discriminatory measures against the Jewish community."

In a 1967 telephone hook-up, King addressed dozens of Soviet Jewry human rights rallies across America. In his compelling remarks, he stated that the Soviet government deprived Jewish communities of basic items required to sustain even a modest existence. He admonished his fellow Americans not to sit "complacently by the wayside" while their Jewish brothers and sisters in the Soviet Union faced the possible dissolution of their spiritual and cultural life.

King's commitment to a secure and independent Israel was also clear. A few months after the Six-Day War, he wrote to Jewish community leaders that "Israel's right to exist as a state in security is incontestable."

In addressing a conversation of rabbis just 10 days before his tragic death in 1968, the Nobel Prize laureate referred to Israel as "one of the great outposts of democracy in the world." He went on to say that "we must stand with all our might to protect [Israel's] right to exist, its territorial integrity."

King also frequently denounced anti-Semitism. According to him, "the segregationists and racists make no fine distinction between the Negro and the Jew." In a letter to Jewish leaders, he attacked anti-Semitism "within the Negro community, because it was wrong. I will continue to oppose it, because it is immoral and self-destructive."

In retrospect, King's adoption of these causes is not surprising, given his belief that the freedom of blacks was inextricably tied to the universal right of all groups to live in peace, free from discrimination and oppression.

This belief, exemplified by King's extraordinary leadership, was instrumental in shaping the close relationship between blacks and Jews that developed during the King years, a closeness that included cooperation in campaigns to end discrimination in housing and to improve educational opportunities.

Nowadays, a far more attenuated relationship has come into being, a relationship strained in part by the vicious anti-Semitic comments of Farrakhan, whose message of discipline, economic independence and separatism is beguiling to too many African-Americans.

At this point, it is important to think back to what King viewed as the basis of the natural relationship between blacks and Jews. A decade before his death, he said the groups shared an "indescribably important destiny to complete a process of democratization -- which is our most powerful weapon for world emulation."

Surely, just as we must actively contain the anti-Semitic poison of Farrakhan, we must also rededicate ourselves to King's vision of a society in which people are judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

It is again time for blacks and Jews to re-engage to recommit themselves to achieving King's dream, the enduring dream that should be shared by all Americans. The failure to work together to achieve this goal will only provide encouragement for the success of Farrakhan's separatism. And that would not be good for Jews, blacks, or American society in general.

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