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They are, as far as he can tell, a united front.
Relations between African-Americans and white Jews have been maddeningly complex for centuries.
Though Jewish Americans and African-Americans have often marched hand in hand, their viewpoints havent always walked in parallel.
Lee is a part of this tortured history.
Thats not to say it isnt primarily a film about blackness and anti-blackness.
Thankfully, thats not the case.
Flip is one of those postmodern American Jews who has been doing much to shake it.
Im Jewish, yes, but I wasnt raised to be, he says.
But something is changing, something primal and genetic.
I never thought much about it, he says of being Jewish.
Now I think about it all the time.
To what do we owe this awakening?
Confronted again, he later repeats himself: Im no fucking Jew.
Frighteningly good, even.
At one point, Felix tells Flip he thinks the Holocaust never happened; that its a Jew-invented myth.
Of course, there are plenty of Jews of color around the world.
But the fact remains that the Jews of North America are predominantly white-skinned.
Therein lies the terror of Flips journey.
If youre a white Jew, its possible youre able to see yourself doing what he does.
Many of us have been passing, and I mean that in a very specific way.
It long ago stopped being de rigeur to wear a skullcap or the hip-dangling fringes of outward identification.
Given that, it can be all too easy to eschew solidarity with other minority populations.
Thats what makes Flips path so compelling.
He experiences hate head-on and learns that he does, indeed, have skin in the game.
As Ture puts them, If I am not for myself, who will be?
If I amonlyfor myself, what am I?
If not now, when?
