18 Oct
Latest, U.S. Politics

Opinion: Jews and Latinos, an Alliance Built on Shared Values

There is a growing political alliance between Latinos and Jews in America – but it’s not for the reasons some people think. In recent months, there has been discussion about this coming in the form of new partnerships between organizations and a new Jewish-Latino Congressional caucus. On Wednesday, Moment printed an article examining this trend, which posited that the reason Jewish organizations are reaching out to Latino voters and working with Latino groups on issues like immigration reform is about gaining support for Israel from a growing Hispanic constituency. Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, a national Jewish social justice organization, believes that many American Jews are getting involved in these issues for a different reason. Bend the Arc focuses only on domestic policy issues and not on issues related to Israel. When we advocate...

Continue reading

15 Oct
Uncategorized

Jews and Latinos: Finding Common Ground

Last week, the Jewish social justice group Bend the Arc joined a clamorous immigration reform rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC. And back in June, the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly gathered the signatures of 1,300 Jewish clergy from different denominations on a joint letter to Congress calling for an overhaul of current immigration policy. Jewish involvement in Latino political interests is by no means a recent phenomenon and the relationship between the two communities has certainly come to bear at the ballot box, from Los Angeles to New York. Indeed, a growing, thriving American Jewish-Latino coalition, defined by politics, economics and cultural cooperation, is starting to come into focus. According to the Bend the Arc website, organizers estimated around 15,000 people attended the rally. You can find  more information about the rally on the Bend the Arc site. In...

Continue reading

28 Jul
Latest

Jewish/Latino Relations the Next Issue?

As much as everyone is talking about Jewish/African-American relations these days, The Jerusalem Post blog presents an interesting new angle. Maybe Jewish/African-American relations in fact isn't as critical an issue this election cycle as everyone believes. Maybe the real issue is a reconciliation of Jewish and Latino communities. Before Sen. Barack Obama's trip to Israel, columnist Samuel Friedman wrote: With more young black men in prison than in college, with Hispanics surpassing them as America's largest racial minority, blacks actually have some other, slightly more pressing things to worry about. are the ones who keep that myth going, and it's time to give it a rest. While much of Obama's visit will rightly be concerned with issues of Israeli security and Iranian aggression...inevitably the subtext will be the supposedly special relationship between blacks and Jews. The myth...

Continue reading