“Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History,” a new four-part documentary series, will be broadcast for four consecutive Tuesdays on Kansas City PBS and PBS stations around the country.
“Black and Jewish America” is hosted, produced and written by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. — known for his PBS television show “Finding Your Roots” as well as being a professor, historian and literary critic. It was made to explore the complex relationship between Black and Jewish Americans.
Drawn together by entrenched racism and antisemitism, Black and Jewish Americans have a long connection through civic partnerships, artistic collaborations and fighting for civil rights. More recently, the connections have been affected by each group’s unique struggles in an increasingly fragmented social and political landscape.
“This is a deeply personal subject for me,” Gates told PBS. “It’s connected to my own coming of age during the heroic days of the civil rights struggle and is an urgent response to the violent forces I’ve seen reawakened in our society over the last decade. By tracing the long arc of Black and Jewish history in America, I hope we can see each other more clearly, more honestly, and find hope in our mutual stories of survival, resilience and solidarity. But this series is not only about the past. It is about us — and how, together, we can prevail over the forces of hatred that seek to divide us.”
Among the interviewees are Billy Crystal, Tony Kushner, Anna Deavere Smith, Al Sharpton, David Remnick, and the children of noted civil rights figures Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Rabbi Israel Dresner, and more.
“As directors, it was a dream to explore a story so layered and endlessly fascinating, with countless echoes and lessons for today,” directors Phil Bertelsen, Julie Marchesi and Sara Wolitzky told PBS. “The Black-Jewish connection is complicated and was never inevitable. Our struggles overlap, but our experiences in America are distinct. And yet, the times these communities have come together, however imperfectly, produced defining art and civil rights gains in America. We were determined to tell the unvarnished story, in all its glory and messiness/complication.”
The four-episode series will air as follows:
“Let My People Go” — Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 8 p.m. — exploring the core differences at the start of the Black and Jewish American stories, as well as overlapping struggle, faith, resilience and early civic partnerships by the 1920s.
“Strange Fruit” — Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 8 p.m. — spotlighting how Black and Jewish communities collaborated in the early 20th century on music, movies and the universal fight against fascism, navigating tensions while shaping culture, confronting injustice and leaving a lasting social impact.
“The ‘Grand Alliance’” — Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. — tracing the 1960s’ “Grand Alliance” as Black and Jewish communities fought for civil rights in an interracial coalition and the imbalances that quickly tested their alliance.
“Crossroads” — Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. — examining the shifting Black and Jewish relationship from the 1970s onward, exploring political gains, global tensions, rising hate and the enduring lessons of coalition building and solidarity.