Nostalgic old-time activists in the Jewish and African American communities like to recall the brave days of the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and '60s, when they joined hearts and bodies to battle discrimination and segregation. With much of the good fight won, the two ethnic groups drifted apart. Frictions arose in the 1980s over affirmative action, later over the perceived anti-Semitism of Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam, and more recently over often-opposing perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Which explains why Cookie Lommel sees herself as a one-woman bridge between the two groups, intent on reversing the estrangement she thinks is based more on mutual ignorance than hostility. Last year, Lommel was named executive director of the Jewish Labor Committee's Western region; she's believed to be the first African American of either gender to run a Jewish organization.
| Continue Tom Tugend's Los Angeles Times article "One-woman bridge"
Also: "African-American, Jewish, proud to be both"
posted in articles on March 15, 2004 2:28 AM | t (0)
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