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Jews Did Not Finance the Slave Trade; Here Is the Proof
Recently, a prominent figure in the Rochester city community named Cynthia Elliott made a statement to a parent group about an important topic.
It was a passionate statement, which this person had clearly thought about, and sought to speak about from the heart. In this statement, Elliott included a reference to the “history of the Jewish nation … financing the slave ships to bring Africans into the Americas.”
The fact that this was mentioned as an aside, with no citation, leaves me to conclude that the author believes this assertion to be both true and well known.
I decided it was worth spending some time to address this disturbing but persistent falsehood.
“The Jewish nation” did not finance the slave trade. First of all, any time you begin a sentence with a phrase like, “the Jews” (or some iteration thereof), I urge any author to proceed with caution. Collective action by a racial or ethnic group, especially one without a centralized governing body, is rare. As such, these statements often devolve into stereotypes or worse.
I won’t assert that no Jewish person was ever involved in the transatlantic slave trade. I don’t know the identities of the many people around the world who colluded to perpetrate this industrial scale violation against Black Africans, and people of African descent.
The implication of the phrase is that Jews were main, motivating financiers (because of course Jews = money) behind this historical atrocity. This is simply not true.
Horrifyingly, as with many of the modern industrial scale crimes against humanity, the perpetrators kept records.
The Dutch West India company, for example, was one of the largest companies involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Their records indicate that 18 of the original stockholders were Jewish, and estimates put the cash value of their investment as high as 1.2% of total investment. The largest single company involved in the transatlantic slave trade, the Royal African Company, despite being headquartered in London where there was a thriving Jewish community, had no Jewish investors for more than 20 years, until finally in 1691, a single Jewish financier purchased some stock.
Furthermore, to the extent that Jewish people were involved in the transatlantic slave trade, it was not only in finance, and not even disproportionately in finance. The fact that only financing is mentioned plays into the stereotype that Jews are always behind the scenes, controlling the money. While the fact that any Jews were involved in the slave trade makes my blood run cold, it can hardly be said to constitute “the Jewish nation … financing the slave ships.”
Why do people think “the Jews” financed the slave trade? Some of the chief proponents of this idea have been Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jefferies.
The Nation of Islam, under the leadership of Farrakhan, wrote a pseudo-scholarly book entitled, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, which is devoted to this topic. This book picks sources to show any Jews who were involved in the slave trade, and then carefully doesn’t mention the scale at which these people were involved — which was a tiny fraction of the whole.
The book leaves out mention of other groups involved in kidnapping, torturing, selling, and owning Black human beings, including indigenous groups in America, Black African leaders, and other ethnic and racial groups. I do not write this to excuse or minimize any involvement by anyone of any race in this horrific crime. My point is that this book takes one of the worst crimes in human history, and pins it on “the Jews” by virtue of the actions of a tiny minority of people involved.
This kind of collective scapegoating is never acceptable or moral. It is hardly surprising however, since Farrakhan is an outspoken antisemite. His list of public antisemitic remarks is too long to list here, but suffice it to say that “termites” is one of the nicer names he has for Jews.
Leonard Jefferies was a professor at the City College of New York, who in 1993 gave a now infamous lecture in which he asserted, among other things, “Everyone knows rich Jews helped finance the slave trade.” When Jefferies gave a version of this lecture at Harvard, and was questioned by a student regarding historical records that do not show Jewish ownership or control in the companies who engaged in enslaving Black people for profit, he replied that the investments were “secret.”
Because these allegations align with pre-existing antisemitic tropes about Jews (that Jews are secretly controlling everything), they reinforce what many people already believe. This makes them memorable, and credible to people who are exposed to them. It also means that people are inclined to accept them, regardless of the lack of evidence.
The myth of Jewish control of the slave trade is one of several that foment the divide between non-Jewish Black communities, and non-Black Jewish communities. These two communities have historically stood together in the fight for civil rights, but also experienced increasing tension as Jews became coded “white” in American society, and benefited from some programs and opportunities that excluded Black Americans (though many excluded Jews also).
Today, white supremacy is the language we use to describe unjust, unearned power. In this conception, Jews (being all powerful) must be the agents of white supremacy, even though antisemites don’t consider Jews “white.”
I’m not sure what to say to someone who wholeheartedly believes “the Jews” financed the slave trade. I don’t know if we have a shared frame of reference from which to understand each other. I do not believe this community leader wrote these words with hate. This is simply their understanding of the world. This person lives in a world where an assertion like this makes so much sense, that it doesn’t need to be proven or justified. And my main question is: how do we find healing and justice when these libels persist in our education?
Lauren Deutsch, Esq., is an attorney, activist, and Torah scholar, living in Rochester New York, with her husband and three children. Lauren worked in migrant women’s health services prior to law school, and began her legal career representing survivors of domestic violence at The Legal Aid Society of Rochester in 2010. She has worked in reproductive justice, labor justice, and currently works in disability justice as the Executive Director of a national legal services organization.
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Leftist Internet Personality Confronts Ritchie Torres Over Israel Support, Unleashes Lewd and Antisemitic Tirade
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
In a viral video which circulated over the weekend, a leftist social media influencer followed US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on the streets of New York City, hurling antisemitic, sexually explicit, and racially charged rhetoric at the lawmaker over his support for Israel.
The influencer, who goes by “Crackhead Barney,” confronted and grilled Torres about his stance on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The provocateur, whose real name has not been revealed to the public, taunted Torres as a “coon” and asked the lawmaker why he supports a so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
“Why are you sucking Zionist c—k?” Barney asked.
“You’re a coon. Why do you suck Zionist c—k? Is it the money?” the influencer asked. “Show us the money, Ritchie. Show us the money.”
When asked by Torres if she supports the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the influencer responded “of course.” She then claimed that Israel “is the biggest terrorist organization.” The social media personality lambasted Torres as a “terrorist” and stated that he “sucks [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s c—k.”
The leftist firebrand accused Torres of accepting “genocidal money” and asked him if he was “going to kill more babies?” She also admitted to interrupting Torres’s event at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan to protest the war in Gaza.
The content creator attempted to coax Torres multiple times into saying “Free Palestine,” a phrase which many observers interpret as a call for the destruction of Israel.
“Say ‘free Palestine’ and I will leave you alone,” Barney said.
“There is no universe in which I will say that,” Torres responded.
After finally relenting and allowing Torres to walk away, Barney shouted “free Palestine!” multiple times and said the lawmaker “supports the mass murder of babies.”
The internet personality has gained notoriety for ambushing celebrities and high-profile media figures in public, conducting impromptu interviews and engaging in provocative behavior. In the 16 months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of 1,200 people throughout southern Israel, Barney has started targeting and harassing public figures supportive of the Jewish state. In April 2024, she made headlines after she confronted actor Alec Baldwin and pressed him to say, “Free Palestine.”
Torres, a self-described progressive, has established himself as a stalwart ally of the Jewish state. Torres has repeatedly defended Israel from unsubstantiated claims of committing “genocide” in Gaza. He has also consistently supported the continued shipment of American arms to help the Jewish state defend itself from Hamas terrorists. The lawmaker has directed sharp criticism toward university administrators for allowing Jewish students to be threatened on campus without consequence.
Warning: The video below contains lewd and explicit language.
I was walking on the streets of NYC when suddenly a pro-Hamas extremist began harassing me and hurling racial slurs. The confrontation illustrates just how unhinged the hate and harassment can be against those of us who have stood with Israel in the wake of 10/7.
Warning: the… pic.twitter.com/4QkzLAxNyx
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) March 2, 2025
The post Leftist Internet Personality Confronts Ritchie Torres Over Israel Support, Unleashes Lewd and Antisemitic Tirade first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Bowdoin College Rejects Divestment From Israel Days After Lifting Suspensions on Anti-Zionist Protesters
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas activists rally at an encampment for Gaza on April 25, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect
Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine has rejected the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, as its Board of Trustees voted to accept the counsel of a committee that recommended maintaining investment practices which safeguard the institution’s financial health and educational mission.
“The endowment exists solely to provide financial support of the college across generations,” said a report submitted to trustees in February and, according to The Bowdoin Orient, ratified by them last week. “It should not be used as a tool for the advocacy of public policy.”
The reported, authored by the college’s Ad Hoc Committee on Investments and Responsibility (ACIR), continued, “Interventions in the management of the endowment that are rooted in moral or political considerations should be exceedingly rare and restricted to those cases where there is near-universal consensus among Bowdoin’s community of stakeholders … if such actions are pursued, they should be taken only where the financial trade-offs are identifiable, measurable, and limited.”
Bowdoin’s review of its investment practices was prompted by a May 2024 “Solidarity Referendum” in which Bowdoin students called for the college to accuse Israel of “scholasticide” in an “institutional statement” and divest from companies supplying Israel with armaments and other services which contribute to its security. Having passed by what the Orient described in May 2024 as a “66 percent supermajority,” the referendum earned a response from Bowdoin president Safa Zaki. However, Zaki, citing an established practice of her administration, declined to issue any such statement and referred the other referendum items to the board of trustees.
The following semester, Zaki created ACIR, appointing it to study the issue and recommend policies for any “future specific requests regarding the endowment.”
The committee’s mission was always “broader” than addressing divestment from Israel, as it was being asked to rule on matters which involve binding agreements with “generations of alumni, family, and friends who created endowed funds for Bowdoin College underpinned by a contractual guarantee that their gifts would be managed and invested prudently to further the educational mission,” ACIR said in last month’s report.
“Among the hundreds of signed endowment terms in the college’s files, there are no explicit donor instructions that the gift be invested using practices that would advance a position on social or political questions,” the committee explained. “Each of these transactions involved entrusting the college to manage the money in a way that maximizes the benefit for both current and future students. Another important aspect of the educational mission of the college is to create and maintain an environment in which all topics can be discussed openly and respectfully, where ideas can be challenged and analyzed, and where differing viewpoints can coexist and be understood and appreciated … using the endowment as an advocacy tool for a specific political position may run counter to maintaining this atmosphere.”
Zaki endorsed ACIR’s report on Friday, saying that “using our endowment to make political statements on world affairs introduces the risk of losing access to the best investment managers.” Meanwhile, the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine told the Orient that “it’s really impossible to argue that this committee structure was anywhere near as effective as the referendum was in engaging the community and gathering perspectives.”
Bowdoin College is not the first higher education institution to cite its fiduciary obligations as cause for eschewing divestment from Israel.
Boston University did so last month, with its president, Melissa Gilliam saying, “the endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate; nevertheless, I will continue to seek ways that members of our community can engage with each other on political issues of our day including the conflict in the Middle East.”
Trinity College turned away BDS advocates in November, citing its “fiduciary responsibilities” and “primary objective of maintaining the endowment’s intergeneration equity.” It also noted that acceding to demands for divestment for the sake of “utilizing the endowment to exert political influence” would injure the college financially, stressing that doing so would “compromise our access to fund managers, in turn undermining the board’s ability to perform its fiduciary obligation.”
The University of Minnesota in August pointed to the same reason for spurning divestment while stressing the extent to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict polarizes its campus community. It coupled its pronouncement with a new investment policy, a so-called “position of neutrality” which, it says, will be a guardrail protecting university business from the caprices of political opinion.
Colleges and universities will lose tens of billions of dollars collectively from their endowments if they capitulate to demands to divest from Israel, according to a report published in September by JLens, a Jewish investor network that is part of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report presented the potential financial impact of universities adopting the BDS movement, which is widely condemned for being antisemitic.
The losses JLens forecasted are catastrophic. Adopting BDS, it said, would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.
“This groundbreaking report approached the morally problematic BDS movement from an entirely new direction — its negative impact on portfolio returns,” New York University adjunct professor Michael Lustig said in a statement extolling the report. “JLens has done a great job in quantifying the financial effects of implementing the suggestions of this pernicious movement, and importantly, they ‘show their work’ by providing full transparency into their methodology and properly caveat the points where assumptions must necessarily be made. This report will prove to be an important tool in helping to fight noxious BDS advocacy.”
As for Bowdoin, college officials there recently withstood an attempt to secure compliance with BDS by force.
Lasst month, members of SJP stormed Smith Union and installed an encampment there in response to US President Donald Trump’s proposing that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip and transform it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism. The roughly 50 students residing inside the building had vowed not to leave until Bowdoin agreed to boycott Israel and accede to other demands.
Ultimately, the college imposed light disciplinary sanctions on eight students — who were later given the sobriquet “Bowdoin Eight” by their collaborators — it identified as ringleaders of the unauthorized demonstration, sentencing them to probation.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Canadian Receives 5 Years in Prison for Online Antisemitism, 3D Printing Guns
3D-printed gun parts seized in an investigation into Pascal Tribout, 38. Photo: Royal Canadian Mounted Police
A man who pleaded guilty in December to manufacturing 3D-printed firearms and to posting antisemitic comments on the internet will spend years incarcerated for his crimes.
On Wednesday, at a courthouse just north of Montreal in St-Jérôme, Quebec, Judge Sylvain Lepine sentenced Pascal Tribout, 38, to four years for the gun charge and one year for the hate speech, each to be served consecutively. He is the first person in Canada convicted under a December 2023 law criminalizing the creation of 3D-printed guns.
Canada’s Security Intelligence Service had identified Tribout as a participant in a “GDL Chat 2.0” Telegram channel associated with the Goyim Defense League, a neo-Nazi group known for its antisemitic flier distributions and public provocations. The Anti-Defamation League says the organization wants “to expel Jews from America. To that end, their propaganda casts aspersions on Jews and spreads antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories in hopes of turning Americans against Jewish people.”
According to documents submitted to the court, “between March 14, 2024, and April 2, 2024, 66 messages of an antisemitic, racist, anti-government, and alarmist nature were attributed to the accused.” In his online postings, Tribout claimed that Jews created the COVID-19 virus in order to use the vaccine — which he called a “Jew Jab” — to target the broader population.
Following a visit to Tribout’s condo in February 2024 for a tripped burglar alarm, police found blocked windows, multiple 3D printers, and a home “strewn with debris and tools.” Tribout called himself an entrepreneur, telling the officers he modified paintball guns and participated in military-style simulations.
Tribout later spoke with an undercover officer, sharing conspiracy theories and his anti-vaccine views before transferring computer files to create the FGC-9 firearm with a 3D printer. (FGC-9 stands for “F—k gun control” and the 9 refers to a 9-millimeter barrel.) He reportedly told the officer that Jews needed “to be crushed all around the world” and turned into “ashes.” Tribout also said that 3D guns enabled the “perfect crime” because “you can melt the gun and there will be no evidence.”
In a search of Tribout’s home, investigators found more than two dozen gun frames for use in pistols and semi-automatic rifles with a prohibited magazine and Nazi propaganda. They found a document stating, “Every Single Aspect of the COVID Agenda is Jewish.” Tribout also created 3D-printed bladed weapons. Arrested in June, the St-Joseph-du-Lac resident has remained in detention since then with a judge denying him bail.
“This verdict is a welcome sign for all Canadians,” Henry Topas, who attended the sentencing and serves as B’nai Brith Canada’s regional director for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, said in a statement. “This case shows that antisemitism is not only a threat to Jews but also can be a matter of national security.”
Topas said that he chose to appear at the sentencing “because I believed that it was important that all people present in the courtroom, from the prosecutor to the representatives of the RCMP, to the judge, defense attorney, to the convicted felon and his family, that there was a visibly Jewish person in courtroom.” He explained that “this is not the nonsense going on in the streets every night. It’s a very different kettle of fish.”
B’nai Brith said in a community impact statement in December that “for the Jewish community of Montreal, which after the Holocaust in Europe became a haven for survivors to rebuild their lives, this dual threat of hatred and the potential for violent action raises horrific fears. Montreal is still home to some elderly survivors and their descendants who bear the scars of their parents and grandparents.”
The group said that “these scars, combined with the violence we now see on our streets and campuses, make it all the more necessary for the justice system, the last bastion of hope for the community, to stand up and act in the face of these threats.”
Prosecutor Gabriel Lapierre said, “We are very satisfied with the sentence,” and noted that the weapons “were not functional.”
Canada’s Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs stated that “as we said last year, this case reminds us that antisemitism can take many forms, including among neo-Nazi and anti-vaccine conspiracies. We welcome this sentence. From arrest to conviction, authorities acted decisively against Tribout and the threat he posed to society. We need the same level of commitment to fighting all cases of antisemitism.”
Pascal Tribout. Photo: LinkedIn via Montreal Gazette
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