Latinos and Jews: "Old Luggage, New Itineraries"

Publication Date: January 2002

Publisher: American Jewish Committee

Author(s): Michael Tomasky; Abraham D. Lavender; Louis DeSipio; Jean-Pierre Ruiz; Charles Kamasaki; Peter Beinart; Roberto Suro

Research Area: Culture and religion

Keywords: Ethnicity; Community Relations; Political Behavior; Cultural Sensitivity

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

This collection of essays looks at the active relationship between Latinos and Jews in the United States. The purpose of this volume is to help provide some understanding to both communities about where we have been and where we are going, about what unites us and what divides us. The authors of these essays--coming from the diverse worlds of scholarship, journalism, and community relations--do not all agree with one another in their prognostications for the future. No one has a crystal ball and can say definitively where Latino-Jewish relations will be in a decade or two. It is clear that persons of Hispanic heritage will form an increasingly large proportion of the overall American population, and may soon be the "majority minority" in certain U.S. cities. It therefore behooves us to get to know one another on more than a superficial level, and to come to understand what issues are seen as critical to the interests of each group.