The Illusion of Shared Oppression: Rebuilding the Black and Jewish Alliance

2020 Faith Matters Series featuring Dr. Terrence Johnson

Thursday, November 19
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM CST
Zoom (Registration required)

Co-hosted by Schwalb Center for Israel and Jewish Studies 
In Partnership with UNO Religious Studies

click here to register

Join Tri-Faith Initiative and the Schwalb Center for Israel and Jewish Studies for this timely and informative discussion on the relationship between Black and Jewish communities in America.

Author, researcher, and professor Dr. Terrence Johnson will provide a short lecture on the historical context of Black-Jewish relations in the United States, followed by a discussion with Schwalb Center Director, Dr. Jeanette Gabriel about present-day questions and issues.

Why has the Black and Jewish alliance fallen apart? What are impediments towards rebuilding the alliance? How can these two historically marginalized groups work together to confront injustice? Join us to explore how Black and Jewish communities nationally and in Omaha can find common ground and make change.

Dr. Terrence Johnson
Dr. Terrence L. Johnson is an associate professor of religion and politics in the Department of Government. He is also a senior research fellow at the Berkley Center, an affiliate member of the Department of African American Studies, and serves on the executive committee of the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University. Johnson’s research interests include African American political thought, ethics, American religions, and the role of religion in public life. He is the author of Tragic Soul-Life: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Moral Crisis Facing American Democracy (2012) and serves as co-editor of the Duke University Press Series Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People. Johnson is completing a manuscript titled We Testify with Our Lives: Black Power and the Ethical Turn in Politics, which explores the decline of Afro-Christianity in the post-Civil Rights Era and efforts among African-American leftists to imagine ethics and human rights activism as necessary extensions of political liberalism, pragmatism, and liberal public philosophies. Johnson holds a B.A. from Morehouse College, an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Brown University.

Dr. Jeannette Gabriel

Dr. Jeannette Gabriel is the Director of the Nate and Hannah Schwalb Center for Israel and Jewish Studies. Dr. Gabriel’s work is related to American religious history with an emphasis on issues of race and gender.  She employs oral history research methodology to document untold stories and complicate and enrich the existing historical record.  Dr. Gabriel’s current research projects include African-American and Jewish collaboration and conflict, and  post WW2 Jewish refugee resettlement in small towns throughout the Midwest. As part of her role in the Schwalb Center for Israel and Jewish Studies, Dr. Gabriel has taught courses in Judaic Studies that have been cross listed with Women’s Studies, History and Black Studies. Dr. Gabriel also teaches academic classes within Omaha’s Jewish community. Gabriel holds a B.A. from University of Wisconsin-Madison, a MA from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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