Henry Louis Gates Jr.

In the following viewpoint, Henry Louis Gates Jr. maintains that anti-Semitism is on the rise among young and educated African Americans. This anti-Jewish sentiment is fostered by misguided activists who believe that the black community will become stronger if it isolates itself from other ethnic groups—particularly those who have allied themselves with blacks in the past. The author contends that African Americans cannot ignore anti-Semitism in the black community if they hope to combat racial and social injustice. Gates is chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. In Gates’s opinion, what is the “bible of the new anti- Semitism”?
2. According to the author, American Jewish merchants were accountable for what percentage of slave trafficking in the...