When the FBI made up a fake Black man to splinter the Left over antisemitism.

In 1969, a Black World War Two veteran wrote a letter to the director of JDL (the Jewish Defense Leaugue), Rabbi Mair Kahane. The veteran explained he’d served in Germany, where he reported being treated for his wounds by a Jewish doctor named Dr. Rothstein. He fondly recalled his high school teacher, Mr. Katz, who encouraged him to stay in school.

“I have always thought Jewish people are good and they have helped me all my life,” he added. For this reason, he went on to explain, he was petrified to report that his own son and his Black Panther friends planned to wage a genocidal war against Jewish people on behalf of Arabs.

“My oldest son just returned from Algiers in Africa where he met a bunch of other Black Panthers from all over the world.”

“He said to me that they all agreed that the Jewish people are all against the colored people and that the only friends the colored people have are the Arabs.”

“He called me an Uncle Tom and said I’d never be anything than a Jew boy’s slave.” He claimed he’d overheard his son’s and his friends planning to drop bombs on Jewish schools and planned to hand out pictures of Jewish soldiers killing Arab babies in Black Churches.

You know where this is going. The letter-writer was a complete fiction fabricated by the FBI’s New York office, as part of the COINTELPRO program, a massive effort to discredit left organizations, the Black panthers specifically, ranging from disinformation to the murder of Fred Hampton. The FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover lived in terror of interracial left alliances. It’s why he had the Chicago police murder Fred Hampton, who’d started the working-class Rainbow Coalition, in Chicago.

Since many prominent members of the New Left were Jewish, the FBI figured the issue—especially as related to the Israel-Arab conflict—would splinter alliances. There were very many tensions in the New Left—a lot of big egos at the leadership level. The specter of antisemitism in Black partners surely led to soul-searching.

Kahane was targeted because he’d worked as a journalist so they thought he’d spread the story.

He told the press that the Black Panthers were “Nazis” and “vicious anti-Semites who pose a definite clear and present danger to Jews.” Soon after, in May of 1970, Kahane led the JDL in clashes against the panthers in Harlem. The BP had many problematic elements; surely some members were antisemitic. But it’s telling that the FBI had to invent a fake veteran with a fake Jewish doctor and fake Jewish high school teacher to gin up proof of vicious, widespread anti-semitism on the Left. Anything sound familiar?

Writing in 2019, Aryeh Leib Shapiro noted the parallels to our time: a resurgence on the left, wedded to racial justice and solidarity with oppressed people around the globe.

“Again, the establishment leaders target Jewish figureheads to parrot this messaging in the press and over social media, dividing the Jewish public from movements that seek to end the marginalization and oppression of groups both at home and abroad,” he continued. “Again, the Jewish community stands at a crossroads, and our decisions will define our people’s story in the American Diaspora for decades to come. Man if he knew what kind of 2023 we’d be having….

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