Jewish-Arab American relations
Jewish-Arab American relations encompass the interactions and dynamics between Jewish and Arab American communities, which are shaped by their unique histories, cultures, and experiences in the United States. Both groups have faced challenges related to their ethnic and religious identities, often encountering discrimination and stereotypes that influence their social interactions. Arab Americans, numbering between one and three million, have diverse origins from 21 countries in the Arab League, while Jewish Americans, approximately 5.3 million strong, include both Sephardic and Ashkenazic populations with historical roots in Europe and the Middle East.
Despite differing backgrounds, both communities tend to be more educated and affluent than the national average. The historical conflicts in the Middle East have, ironically, fostered closer ties between Arab and Jewish Americans, particularly among liberal and progressive individuals from both groups seeking peace and mutual understanding. Organizations such as the New Jewish Agenda and American Arab and Jewish Friends actively promote dialogue and collaboration, emphasizing shared goals and fostering friendships.
However, deeply rooted tensions remain, often exacerbated by the influence of conservative media and political narratives. Efforts to bridge these divides continue, with initiatives focused on dialogue, community engagement, and social activism aimed at addressing the complexities of their relationships in a rapidly changing social landscape.
Jewish-Arab American relations
SIGNIFICANCE: Jewish Americans and Arab Americans conflict in their views of Israel, Palestinians, and the Middle East. Although some members of both groups take inflexible stances in their opposition to each other, other members are trying to bridge the gaps between the cultures.
According to the US census, there were 1.2 million Arab Americans living in the United States in 2000. By 2011, the American Community Survey reported the population had increased to 1.8 million. This population increased significantly in the 2010s, reaching 3.7 million individuals by the mid-2020s. The largest groups were Lebanese, Iranian, and Egyptian. However, it is difficult to obtain an accurate count because many Arab Americans are reluctant to reveal their origin for fear of discrimination or violence from those who, perhaps influenced by negative press coverage of Arabs and events in the Middle East, stereotype Arab Americans as terrorists or as anti-American.
US government figures in 2001 and the Pew Research Center 2013 Survey of US Jews both placed the number of Jewish Americans at 5.3 million. However, because some Jews, like Arab Americans, are reluctant to reveal their religious and ethnic identity for fear of discrimination, their actual population must be assumed to be greater. By 2020, the US census estimated the Jewish-American population at 5.8 million. Though the number of Jewish Americans increased from 2013 to 2020, the percentage of individuals self-identifying as having Jewish heritage remained about the same. Arab Jews in the United States are largely from Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Morocco. If Arab Jewish Americans are included in the Arab American population, the total number of Arab Americans is significantly increased. The largest population of Arab Jews in the United States is located in Brooklyn, New York. This community of Syrian Jews is stable and affluent.
Origins and Demographics
Arab Americans and Jewish Americans come from very diverse backgrounds and subcultures that sometimes seriously conflict. However, they are very much alike in terms of being better educated and more affluent than the average American.
Arab Americans trace their origins to the twenty-two countries of the Arab League (established on March 22, 1945): Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The earliest Arab immigrants, who arrived between 1900 and World War II, were predominantly Christians from Syria and Lebanon. Most had little formal education and were predominantly illiterate. Their success in running small family businesses, mostly in low-income neighborhoods, made it possible for their children to become well-educated and enter the professions or obtain high-level, white-collar jobs. Following World War II and especially after 1965, when quota restrictions were lifted, Arab immigration increased significantly. These newer immigrants were largely Muslim professionals and businesspeople who were better educated and typically more affluent.
Arab Americans, affluent and well-educated, are one of the most successful ethnic groups in the United States. Over 90 percent of all Arab Americans live in large metropolitan areas, with most concentrated in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Washington DC. California, New York, and Michigan had the largest Arab American populations in the mid-2020s. Most of these individuals reported ancestry in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, or Iraq.
Jews have lived in North America since the 1600s. The earliest immigrants were Sephardic Jews in New York. The 1800s saw the arrival of Ashkenazic Jews from Germany and the surrounding areas. They often worked as merchants and soon became prosperous. In the late 1800s, Eastern European Jews, many of them lacking resources, migrated in great numbers to the United States, often settling in cities. These late arrivals faced prejudice from both non-Jewish Americans and the earlier German Jews. After World War II and the Holocaust, anti-Semitism diminished greatly, and all Jewish groups found greater acceptance in the United States. Most Jews came to the United States from Europe to escape religious persecution and poverty and, like Arab Americans, have prospered in their adopted country. Both groups are predominantly urban dwellers.
Arab-Jewish American Relations
Ironically, the conflicts in the Middle East have brought Arab and Jewish Americans closer. Most of the efforts to improve intergroup relations have centered on events not in the United States but in the Middle East, where Israel and many members of the Arab League have been at war or in conflict since the establishment of the Arab League in 1945 and of the state of Israel in 1948.
The Arab and Jewish Americans most opposed to a just and equitable settlement of the plight of the Palestinians have been the religiously orthodox and fundamentalist members of the two groups. Those most willing to talk about peace and justice have been the more liberal Jews (Reform and secular Jews) and progressive Arabs. Most initiatives toward bringing Arabs and Jews together have generally originated with Jewish Americans and have been supported enthusiastically by Arab Americans. A significant impediment to improving Arab-Jewish relations has been the conservative and orthodox newspapers published exclusively for Arabs and Jewish people. Their biases, prejudices, and sometimes blatant hatred often hinder intergroup relations. The politics of the Middle East and their effect on American Arabs and Jews have been the focus of social-action organizations in both communities.
Escalating tensions in the 2020s related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza and the Israel–Hamas war increasingly impacted relations between the two groups. Though American policies traditionally supported Israel, an increasing number of Americans began criticizing Israel’s actions during this time. Heated opinions resulted in protests and demonstrations that were polarizing among Jewish and Arab Americans. Both groups continued to face hate crimes and social discrimination from one another and from other Americans with strong opinions concerning the war.
Organizations Working for Togetherness
On the national level, few organizations have been as active and effective in bringing Arabs and Jews together as the New Jewish Agenda (NJA). Active during the 1980s and early 1990s, at its height, NJA had twenty-eight chapters, most of which were in the large urban areas where Jewish Americans and Arab Americans live and work. NJA was started by Jews who felt that conservatives had dominated Jewish life in the United States and who yearned to create a strong progressive voice in the Jewish community. One of its major goals has been to have ongoing Jewish-Arab dialogues on crucial matters of mutual concern to Jews and Arabs in the United States and the Middle East, especially the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian question. Los Angeles, which has one of the largest concentrations of Jews and Arabs in the United States, has a dialogue group organized much like an NJA group. However, the Los Angeles group concentrates on Arab-Jewish issues and does not discuss issues such as racism, anti-Semitism, and nuclear disarmament, which were covered by NJA groups.
American Arab and Jewish Friends (AAJF) was founded in 1981 by George Bashara (an Arab American) and Arnold Michlin (a Jewish American) in metropolitan Detroit. It is a program of the Greater Detroit Interfaith Round Table of the National Conference for Community and Justice (formerly known as the National Conference of Christians and Jews). The AAJF’s purpose is to improve mutual understanding and friendship between the Arab and Jewish communities by coming together informally through luncheons, dinners, forums, and its sponsorship of an annual essay scholarship contest for graduating seniors in area high schools. The essays, which describe innovative and meaningful approaches toward the realization of the AAJF goal, are the joint effort of two students, one Jewish and one Arab American.
In large cities such as Washington, DC, where there are sizable Arab and Jewish American populations, the two groups often meet at friendly gatherings held by organizations such as the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), J Street, and the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP). For several decades, these organizations regularly held dinners, functions, and meetings where Arabs and Jews could become friends, discuss the issues that divide them, and make efforts to influence policymakers who may be in a position to initiate positive changes in the bitter conflicts that separate Israelis and Palestinians.
The Seeds of Peace summer camp was started by former newspaper editor John Wallach in the early 1990s. The Otisfield, Maine, camp brought together more than 160 teenagers from the Middle East—Palestinian Arabs and Jewish Israelis as well as American Jewish and Arab youngsters—for a month of good, healthy fun as well as serious discussions. Participants were selected by their governments after writing essays on making peace. The cost to run the camp was about $1.2 million per year, which Wallach received in private donations. All the campers attended on scholarships, each worth around $2,000. The camp was so successful that other such camps were organized elsewhere in the United States. Though the camp was restructured in the 2010s, its goals remained the same.
The Middle East Friendship League was established by Professor Robert Frumkin and his colleagues at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, following the killing of Israeli wrestlers by Arabs at the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, in 1972. Kent State had a large number of students and faculty from Arab League nations and Israel, as well as a sizable number of American Arab and Jewish students and faculty, making it an ideal setting for an experiment in improving Arab and Jewish relations. Although the organization's main purpose was to promote friendships between Arabs and Jews, its members discussed Middle East issues and engaged in social activism aimed at enhancing the peace process and addressing issues such as Palestinian rights and terrorism. The league met monthly for several years, during which real friendships developed and remained strong even after it disbanded.
Right-Wing Organizations
No discussion of Arab-Jewish relations in the United States is complete without a mention of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and Jewish Defense Organization (JDO), two right-wing organizations that are the antithesis of all the previously discussed organizations. The JDL and the JDO are pathologically anti-Arab. The JDL, founded by the late Meir Kahane, was not only involved in defamation of Arab Americans but also the destruction of Arab American property and even murder, including the Arab American leader Alex Odeh. Though these organizations were largely defunct in the United States by the 2020s, their members remained in small numbers, particularly in France.
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