{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2017}} {{Infobox organization | name = Jews for Urban Justice | logo = | type = | key_people = | footnotes = | founded = {{Start date|1966}} | location = [[Washington, D.C.]], United States | addnl_location = | origins = | region_served = | product = | focus = [[Anti-racism]], [[Anti-imperialism]], [[Socialism]], and [[Social justice]] | method = | leader_title = | leader_name = | leader_title2 = | leader_name2 = | revenue = | expenses = | endowment = | num_volunteers = | num_employees = | num_members = | owner = | website = | dissolved = 1971<ref name="disambiguation-jufj-juj">{{cite web |title=Disambiguation: JUFJ and JUJ |url=https://jufj.org/disambiguation-jufj-and-juj/ |website=JUFJ.org |access-date=7 October 2021}}</ref> }}
'''Jews for Urban Justice''' ('''JUJ''') was a Jewish-American left-wing [[Activism|activist]] organization based in [[History of the Jews in Washington, D.C.|Washington, D.C.]], and its [[Washington metropolitan area|suburbs]]. The organization was founded to oppose [[anti-black racism]] within the predominantly white Jewish community of Washington, D.C.
==History== Jews for Urban Justice was created by young Jewish intellectuals in the Summer of 1966 to oppose anti-black racism from white Jewish landlords and businesspeople, which they felt fueled [[Antisemitism in the United States|antisemitism]] in the African-American community. Alleging that white Jews and predominantly white Jewish institutions were "part of the power structure" and that white Jews "gyp and rob" African-Americans in the ghetto, JUJ urged rabbis and other Jewish community leaders to address the problems of racism and classism within the Jewish community.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.jta.org/1968/05/23/archive/washington-group-alleges-unscrupulous-jews-are-root-cause-of-negro-anti-semitism |title=Washington Group Alleges Unscrupulous Jews Are Root Cause of Negro Anti-Semitism |date=May 23, 1968 |publisher=[[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]] |accessdate=2018-08-25}}</ref> Jews for Justice fought for equal access to housing for African-Americans at a time when white Jewish land developers in the DC metropolitan area used [[Covenant (law)|racially restrictive covenants]] that excluded African-Americans and other [[people of color]] from buying homes in white Jewish neighborhoods.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://washingtonjewishweek.com/42306/silver-springs-jewish-history-long-and-complicated/news/ |title=Silver Spring's Jewish history 'long and complicated' |date=November 10, 2017 |publisher=[[Washington Jewish Week]] |accessdate=2018-08-25 |archive-date=August 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180825180222/http://washingtonjewishweek.com/42306/silver-springs-jewish-history-long-and-complicated/news/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
JUJ was involved in Martin Luther King Jr.'s [[Poor People's Campaign]], the Mothers Day Welfare Rights March, and the [[Delano grape strike]]. In solidarity with the United Farm Workers strike, JUJ urged synagogues and rabbis in the DC area to forgo using California grapes in their [[sukkah]]s. JUJ succeeded in convincing Joseph Danzansky to stop carrying California grapes at Giant Food grocery store locations.
JUJ helped organize the Freedom Seder on the third night of [[Passover|Pesach]], April 4, 1969, the anniversary of the [[assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.]] [[Arthur Waskow]], a JUJ member and [[Jewish Renewal]] rabbi, was instrumental in creating the Freedom Seder. Waskow created a new [[Haggadah]] for the seder, saying "I wove the story of the liberation of ancient Hebrews from Pharaoh with the liberation struggles of black America, of the Vietnamese people, passages from Dr. King, from Gandhi." 800 people gathered for the Freedom Seder at the [[Lincoln Temple United Church of Christ|Lincoln Temple]], an historically black Protestant church in Washington, D.C., bringing together blacks, whites, Christians, and Jews. The seder was attended by prominent black civil rights leaders, including Reverend [[Channing E. Phillips]] and [[Topper Carew]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/04/397323302/in-freedom-seder-jews-and-african-americans-built-a-tradition-together |title=In Freedom Seder, Jews And African-Americans Built A Tradition Together |work=NPR |publisher=[[National Public Radio]] |accessdate=2018-08-25}}</ref>
In 1970, JUJ released a manifesto titled "The Oppression and Liberation of the Jewish People in America", outlining their ideology as an anti-racist, anti-war, [[Jewish left|Jewish socialist]] organization that was critical of the mainstream Jewish establishment. The manifesto calls for white Jewish solidarity with [[African American–Jewish relations|African-American]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]], [[Chicano]], [[Italian Americans|Italian-American]], and [[Appalachian Americans|Appalachian]] communities. The JUJ manifesto is critical of Israeli policy towards Palestinians and supports Palestinian self-determination, but is not explicitly [[anti-Zionism|anti-Zionist]]. JUJ's manifesto critiqued conflating Zionism with Jewishness and objected to [[New antisemitism|antisemitic]] expressions of anti-Zionism.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/243887/jewcy-jews-for-urban-justice |title=In Decades-Old Jewish Social Justice Manifesto, Lessons for Today's Activists |date=August 24, 2017 |publisher=[[Tablet (magazine)|Tablet Magazine]] |accessdate=2018-08-25}}</ref>
{{quote|We call upon the Jewish people to free itself by joining in alliance with others to abolish the Amerikan empire that now oppresses the Jewish people and many other peoples at home and much of the human race outside. We call upon the Jewish people to join the task of creating a democratic, communitarian, libertarian, and socialist society in America. We believe that a fully socialist society will be one in which many self-governing communities are able to end the alienations of mind and body, of politics from economics, of spirit from work, of individual from collective, and thus to create the new, unalienated person; that these communities will differ freely from each other in the shapes they give to the wholeness they make out of their previously alienated lives; and that among these communities a liberated Jewish people will joyfully take its place.|The Oppression and Liberation of the Jewish People in America<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/juj-statement.pdf |title=The Oppression and Liberation of the Jewish People in America |last= |first= |date= |website=Marxists.org |publisher=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |access-date=2018-08-25}}</ref>}}
==See also== *[[African American–Jewish relations]] *[[History of the Jews in Washington, D.C.]] *[[Jewish left]]
==References== {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}
==External links== *[https://archives.cjh.org//repositories/3/resources/463 Guide to the Jews for Urban Justice (Washington, D.C.) Records, 1967–1971], processed by Nicole Greenhouse for the American Jewish Historical Society Center for Jewish History *[https://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/juj-statement.pdf The Oppression and Liberation of the Jewish People in America], the JUJ Manifesto on the [[Marxist Internet Archive]]
{{Organized Jewish Life in the United States}}
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