“Thus saith the Lord: Let my people go.”
The biblical demand delivered by Moses to the Pharaoh is one of history’s most enduring calls for liberation. It tells the story of a people enslaved, freed by a moral awakening.
We reflected on the story of Exodus and the shared struggle of Black and Jewish communities after we read Michael J. Sacks’ recent op-ed “Why I support AIPAC and a big tent Democratic Party” in the Tribune. For Jewish communities, the Exodus represents liberation from chattel slavery and the birth of a nation grounded in faith and freedom. For Black Americans, liberation has followed a complicated path.
This year, as our communities observe Passover and Easter, the season of liberation comes with renewed concern over the impact of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s spending in Black communities in the recent Democratic primaries in Illinois. With its substantial political resources and $22 million in spending — perhaps even more — AIPAC far outdid other groups in outside spending in Black and underserved communities.
Of particular concern, the organization took steps to hide its money in shell political action committees and coordinated donations via individual donors while the candidates who benefited often feigned ignorance about enormous donations and expenditures. This has raised questions across our community about outsized influence and lack of transparency.
This moment calls for reflection, not division.
Black and Jewish communities share deep historical parallels. We know persecution. We know exclusion. We understand the importance of political organization and civic engagement.
Yet, our histories are not identical. In America, race-based constitutional slavery, embedded in law and enforced by government, created a legacy of disparities in wealth, education, housing, health care and the right to vote and to be represented.
Emancipation for Black Americans did not come through a single divine decree. It came through decades of political compromise and moral struggle: the admission of one free state and one slave state at a time to maintain a fragile balance between North and South. The Missouri Compromise. The Compromise of 1850. And ultimately, the Civil War, which claimed more than 600,000 lives.
Freedom for Black Americans has been a continuous political struggle. Frederick Douglass captured that tension in his famous 1852 speech, asking: “What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?” His question still resonates. Independence means something different to those who are excluded from its promises.
Freedom required the 13th Amendment to end slavery, the 14th Amendment to guarantee citizenship and the 15th Amendment to protect voting rights. Even then, it required Reconstruction, followed by a century of resistance to Jim Crow. It required the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The latter is now under attack by the current administration and in a case the U.S. Supreme Court may decide by this summer, with the potential to erase Black representation across the country.
Black and Jewish communities in America have long shared a common bond rooted in the pursuit of justice. Our shared struggle was especially visible in Chicago.
Jewish leaders and organizations played important roles in the Civil Rights Movement, from supporting school desegregation to providing legal advocacy through civil rights organizations. Chicago’s neighborhoods became places where Black and Jewish communities worked together on labor rights, fair housing and voting access.
During the 1960s, Jewish activists joined Black Chicagoans in marches for open housing and confronted discrimination in neighborhoods across the city. Today, those struggles continue across Chicago’s West and South sides and the south suburbs.
In majority-Black districts, political primaries are forums for communities to debate their futures. These debates must be grounded in the lived experiences of those still navigating the consequences of historic inequality. These are sacred debates reflecting the unfinished work of liberation.
We must recognize the differences in our struggle and the right to decide our own future. Shared struggle does not require identical paths; it requires mutual understanding and mutual respect.
Chicago has long been a place where that understanding has taken shape. From civil rights marches to labor movements, Black and Jewish communities have often stood side by side. The question now is how that partnership can continue in an era of polarized politics and the outside, oversized influence of AIPAC.
The Exodus story reminds us that liberation is not just about leaving bondage; it is about building a just society afterward. Inside our voting districts, our primaries and our communities, we must be free to chart our own futures.
“Let my people go” was the beginning of a journey, not its end.
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The work of liberation continues for all who believe in justice, equality and the promise of democracy — for all.
Jesse Jackson Jr. is a former congressman who represented Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District for 17 years. Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs is an advocate of social change, spirituality and civil rights. Rabbi Hillel Cohn has earned honors for his work fighting hate and building inclusion.
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