Judaism and Racism: The Ethical Call to Justice

One Ancestor, One Dignity

The Mishnah, the foundational text of rabbinic law, asks a question that echoes across the centuries: why did God create humanity from a single person? The answer: “So that no one could say to another, ‘My ancestor is greater than yours’” (Sanhedrin 4:5).

This teaching — that all humanity descends from one created being — is Judaism’s most fundamental statement against racism. If every human shares the same origin, then racial hierarchy is not just morally wrong; it is factually false. There is no master race, no inferior people, no bloodline that confers superior worth.

The Torah’s opening chapter reinforces this: “God created the human being in His image, in the image of God He created them” (Genesis 1:27). The Hebrew phrase b’tzelem Elohim — in the image of God — is not reserved for one race, one nation, or one class. It applies to every human being.

Prophetic Justice

The prophets of Israel thundered against injustice in all its forms. Amos demanded justice “like a mighty stream.” Isaiah called for loosening the bonds of wickedness. Micah declared what God requires: “to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.”

While the prophets addressed the specific injustices of their time, their principles are universal. The prophetic tradition insists that God cares about how the powerful treat the powerless — and that societies will be judged by their treatment of the vulnerable.

Jews and the Civil Rights Movement

The Jewish commitment to racial justice found its most dramatic expression in the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Jews participated in disproportionate numbers — as lawyers, organizers, funders, and marchers.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the twentieth century’s greatest Jewish theologians, marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Heschel later wrote: “I felt my legs were praying.” His participation was not incidental to his Judaism — it was an expression of it.

Jewish lawyers helped found the NAACP. Jewish philanthropists funded civil rights organizations. Jewish Freedom Riders traveled to the South. Two of the three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964 — Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — were Jewish.

This involvement was motivated by multiple factors: the prophetic tradition of justice, the Jewish experience of persecution, and the specific American Jewish experience of immigration and discrimination.

Internal Challenges

Honesty requires acknowledging that the Jewish community has its own struggles with racism. Jews of color — including Ethiopian Jews, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, Black Jews, multiracial Jews, and Jews by choice of color — sometimes face prejudice within Jewish institutions. They may be questioned about their Jewishness, overlooked in leadership, or subjected to assumptions about their backgrounds.

The Ethiopian Jewish community’s experience in Israel, where Ethiopian immigrants faced social discrimination and institutional barriers despite their deep Jewish commitment, is a particularly painful example. Within American Jewish life, the assumption that “Jewish” means “white Ashkenazi” erases the diversity of the Jewish people.

Addressing internal racism is not a betrayal of Jewish community — it is an application of Judaism’s own principles. If b’tzelem Elohim applies to all humanity, it certainly applies within the Jewish people itself.

Tikkun Olam and Racial Justice

The concept of tikkun olam — repairing the world — has become a framework for Jewish social action. Racial justice is a central component of this work. Jewish organizations across denominations have issued statements and engaged in activism addressing police violence, mass incarceration, educational inequity, and economic disparities.

The theological basis remains constant: if every human being carries the image of God, then systems that devalue people based on race are an affront to the divine. The work of dismantling racism is, from a Jewish perspective, sacred work — an expression of the deepest teachings of Torah and prophets.