The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews
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| Author | Historical Research Department of NOI |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | The Final Call |
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Publication date
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1991 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 334 pp |
| ISBN | |
The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews is a book released in 1991 by the Nation of Islam that asserts that Jews dominated the Atlantic slave trade.The Secret Relationship has been widely criticized for being antisemitic and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade. The American Historical Association issued a statement condemning claims that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade, and other historians such as Wim Klooster and Seymour Drescher concluded that the role of Jews in the overall Atlantic slave trade was in fact minimal. Critics of the book assert that it uses selective citations in order to purposefully exaggerate the role of Jews.
Volume Two of The Secret Relationship was published in 2010, with the subtitle "How Jews Gained Control of the Black American Economy".
The book has been labeled an antisemitic canard by some historians, including Saul S. Friedman, who contends that Jews had a minimal role in the New World slave trade.Henry Louis Gates, Jr., head of the department of Afro-American studies at Harvard University, called the book "the Bible of new anti-Semitism" and added that "the book massively misinterprets the historical record, largely through a process of cunningly selective quotations of often reputable sources".
The book was criticized for being antisemitic and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade. Common criticisms were that the book used selective quotes, made "crude use of statistics," and was purposefully trying to exaggerate the role of Jews. Historian Ralph A. Austen criticized the book, saying that the "distortions are produced almost entirely by selective citation rather than explicit falsehood ... more frequently there are innuendos imbedded in the accounts of Jewish involvement in the slave trade," and "[w]hile we should not ignore the anti-Semitism of The Secret Relationship..., we must recognize the legitimacy of the stated aim of examining fully and directly even the most uncomfortable elements in our [Black and Jewish] common past." Austen acknowledges that the book was the first book on the subject aimed at a non-scholarly audience.
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