Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade: Setting the Record Straight [Hardcover]

Lays to rest the controversial myth of Jewish involvement in the slave trade

In the wake of the civil rights movement, a great divide opened up between African American and Jewish communities. What was historically a harmonious and supportive relationship suffered from a powerful and oft-repeated legend, that Jews controlled and masterminded the slave trade and owned slaves on a large scale, well in excess of their own proportion in the population.

In this groundbreaking book, likely to stand as the definitive word on the subject, Eli Faber cuts through this cloud of mystification to recapture an important chapter in both Jewish and African diasporic history.

Focusing on the British empire, Faber assesses the extent to which Jews participated in the institution of slavery through investment in slave trading companies, ownership of slave ships, commercial activity as merchants who sold slaves upon their arrival from Africa, and direct ownership of slaves. His unprecedented original research utilizes shipping and tax records, stock-transfer ledgers, censuses, slave registers, and synagogue records. These materials reveal, once and for all, the minimal nature of Jews' involvement in the subjugation of Africans in the Americas.

A crucial corrective,Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Tradelays to rest one of the most contested historical controversies of our time.

The late Eli Faberwas Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, and author ofA Time for Planting: The First Migration, 1654-1828, the first volume in the five-volumeThe Jewish People in America. For anyone in search of ammunition to refute farfetched claims about Jewish culpability for the enslavement of Africans in America, this is the place to look. The only way to set the record straight is to do what those making the claim [of Jewish domination of the slave trade and widespread slave ownershipló‡