For MLK Day: A Zionist’s protest against racism
For American Jews, the birthday of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is an occasion to recall the impressive Jewish contributions to the movement for African-American civil rights—from Jewish Freedom Riders such as Schwerner and Goodman, to the rabbis who marched with Dr. King, to the Jewish attorneys who spearheaded the NAACP’s legal battles against discrimination.
It may surprise some to learn that one of the earliest Jewish protests against racism in America was lodged more than half a century before Rosa Parks and Bull Connor—by the militant Zionist leader Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
The year was 1910. Jabotinsky was just beginning to emerge as one of the most dynamic young leaders in the Russian Jewish community and the early Zionist movement. His articles in the Russian and Jewish press were attracting a following and provoking debate.
As an essayist, philosopher, and poet, Jabotinsky cast his eye on a wide array of topics, beginning with Jewish affairs but often ranging much further. On July 18, 1910, in the pages of the Russian periodical Odesskie Novsoti, he fixed his gaze upon a remarkable event in far-off America.
His article was titled “Homo Homini Lupus,” or “Man is As a Wolf to Other Men,” an allusion to a Roman proverb about human cruelty. The excerpts that follow were provided by Jabotinsky scholar Yisrael Medad, of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.
The event that seized Jabotinsky’s attention was a July 4 boxing match in Reno, Nevada, between Jack Johnson and Jack Jeffries. Johnson was the reigning heavyweight champion of the world, and only the second African-American to hold that title. Jeffries, who was white, had been heavyweight champion previously but had refused to fight Johnson and retired. Now, in 1910, Jeffries came out of retirement for what was billed as the Fight of the Century. Throughout the country, excited crowds gathered outside the offices of local newspapers, to hear the blow-by-blow read aloud from the teletype machine.
