slavery / slave trade | #TranslateHate
slavery / slave trade
noun \ ‘sleiv(ə)ri \ ‘slāv trād \
: the practice of owning slaves, people who are forced to work with little or no pay and are denied physical freedom or the opportunity to leave
WHEN IT’S ANTISEMITIC:
The claim that Jews controlled or made up a significant portion of the Atlantic Slave Trade is false. The Council of the American Historical Association (AHA) “condemns as false any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the exploitation of slave labor or in the Atlantic slave trade.” While some Jews with resources owned slaves, as did wealthy people of all backgrounds, it was by no means widespread within the Jewish community.
This trope has been spread by the far-right and far-left, from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan wizard, to Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI). The claim was popularized in Farrakhan’s 1991 publication The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume One, and has most recently resurfaced within segments of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement to prevent Jews from taking part in the protest movement. The conspiratorial film “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” brought to a mainstream audience through a celebrity endorsement in fall 2022, falsely claims Jews orchestrated the transatlantic slave trade.
