The LA-based entertainment industry group "Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance” (BJEA) is hosting a 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop event today in New York City, in partnership with The Recording Academy – organizers of the Grammy Awards.
Contrary to its positive branding and feel-good name, BJEA is connected to the bigoted, fundamentalist Israeli government and was created by a racist, right-wing Israel lobby group for destructive ends – to sabotage the global surge in solidarity with Palestine and interconnected justice struggles.
That’s why leading Palestinian, Jewish and Black groups in the US that oppose racism and fight for justice for all – Adalah Justice Project (AJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) - are speaking out about BJEA and calling on artists and everyone across the entertainment industry to renounce this destructive group.
What is the Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance (BJEA), and how is it supporting Israeli apartheid?
The Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance (BJEA), contrary to its positive branding and feel-good name, is connected to the far-right, apartheid Israeli government.
While claiming to bring Black and Jewish members of the entertainment world together to fight antisemitism and anti-Black racism, BJEA is a project of Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), which condemns artists who boycott Israel in support of Palestinian freedom. CCFP funds BJEA’s activities and CCFP staff oversee implementation of them. CCFP is in turn a project of the right-wing, racist nonprofit StandWithUs (SWU), which has ties to the Israeli government.
All three groups—BJEA, CCFP, and SWU—operate effectively as a single organization, sharing funding, infrastructure, leadership, and staff with a long-established history of racism.
2. Why was BJEA created?
BJEA was created in 2021 by the Israeli apartheid lobby to undermine growing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
In a leaked 2017 report, CCFP described intersectionality (which identifies how interlocking systems of power impact those who are most marginalized and oppressed) and international grassroots solidarity between Palestinian rights groups and other political movements – such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) and feminist groups – as a “troubling and growing trend ”that “is only going to grow stronger without intervention.”
Since then, solidarity with Palestinians has only surged, and Black-Palestinian solidarity continues to blossom. In May 2021, over 600 musicians, including, Noname, Vic Mensa, Black Thought, Questlove, Bun B, Run The Jewels, and Cypress Hill, came together under the banner of Musicians for Palestine – just as artists did to rally the world against apartheid in South Africa.
Supporters of Israeli apartheid know that when Palestinians link arms with the Black movement, Indigenous peoples, the LGBT+ community, immigrants, earth defenders, anti-Zionist Jews, and all who are fighting for collective liberation, we are unstoppable.
3. Who are the leaders of BJEA?
Despite attempts to project the image of a stand alone organization, BJEA shares leadership with the far-right organizations, with CCFP’s Director answering emails to BJEA as BJEA staff. And while CCFP claims to be an apolitical entertainment industry organization, leaders and staff who created BJEA are in fact closely aligned with Israel’s apartheid regime and recite its racist, right-wing talking points. StandWithUs and CCFP Board Chairs participate in Israeli government forums, and toured Israel’s illegal settlements with extremist settlers. Their work is regularly coordinated with and praised by Israel’s far-right apartheid government.
BJEA’s leadership is a reflection of the group’s anti-Black and anti-Palestinian underpinnings, as exhibited by the public statements of two of its prominent leaders, Ari Ingel and Esther Renzer.
Meet Ari Ingel, Creative Community for Peace/BJEA Director & Black Lives Matter opponent
BJEA director Ari Ingel previously tweeted that Black scholar Ibram X. Kendi and critical race theory promote “racism.” In May 2021, Ingel attacked Black Lives Matter activists for supporting Palestinian freedom and dismissed Indigenous Palestinians as “foreign invaders.” Ingel regularly derides the Palestinian rights movement as using “the woke playbook,” and “critical social justice theory,” often tweeting “#StayWoke” to taunt prominent people of color.
Meet Esther Renzer, StandWithUs Cofounder/Board Chair & Ron DeSantis sympathizer
Renzer is the co-founder and board chair of the far-right Zionist organization StandWithUs, the parent organization of CCFP, home of BJEA. On February 1, 2023, Renzer marked the first day of Black History Month by cheering the removal of renowned Black scholars like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and bell hooks from AP African American History curriculum as “a positive step towards rational thnking (sic). No more critical race theory.”
4. Is the Black-JewishEntertainment Alliance an anti-racist group?
NO. Despite framing itself as a Black-Jewish alliance “against hatred and bigotry”, BJEA founders and its parent organizations have a long history of anti-Black and anti-Palestinian racism. By rejecting intersectional and contextual approaches to anti-racist work, BJEA’s sole purpose is to discredit growing Black-Palestinian solidarity by promoting anti-Palestinian racism under the guise of combating antisemitism. As a project of CCFP (and, by extension, SWU), BJEA pays lip service to fighting “racial injustice” while actively undermining actual anti-racist work.
But who is BJEA’s leadership actually in solidarity with? Not only does BJEA not employ an anti-racist framework, its leadership has employed and allied itself with racists and white supremacists.
StandWithUs (SWU) has worked closely with “Christians United for Israel” (CUFI), whose leader, Pastor John Hagee, is known for espousing anti-Black racism and even praising Hitler.
In 2022, longtime CCFP manager Karys Rhea Oschin reposted a racist tweet mocking the death of George Floyd and applauded another racist tweet saying that Black Americans don’t know what a father is. Oschin has also promoted white supremacist Stephen Miller and cited Tucker Carlson as an authority on “Black Lives.”
5. How can Black, Jewish, and Palestinian communities work together to fight anti-Black racism, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism, and antisemitism?
While BJEA is a cynical project designed to undermine Palestinian solidarity, it is tapping into a real desire to connect struggles against anti-Black racism and antisemitism.
To that end, we’ve seen beautiful demonstrations of solidarity between Black, Palestinian and Jewish communities over the last few years.
From Movement for Black Lives:
“To be clear: one cannot claim to be progressive while being racist or supporting oppression, nor can one claim to be anti-racist while justifying settler-colonialism and supporting apartheid. We must fight against anti-Palestinian racism at the same time as we fight against anti-Blackness and antisemitism.
Intersectional solidarity between Black Americans, Jewish Americans, and Palestinians is too important to be undermined by advocates of apartheid. Black movement is rooted in a tradition of radical love and resistance. It is that same love that calls us to rise in solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. That includes our Palestinian family because the fight for Palestinian rights and dignity is integral to the fight for human rights everywhere.”
6. How is The Recording Academy complicit?
In September 2023, BJEA and The Recording Academy (organizers of the Grammy Awards) teamed up to host two events celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. By partnering with the anti-Palestinian, anti-Black, pro-Apartheid organization BJEA, The Recording Academy betrayed its stated commitments to racial justice, equality, and “creating a culture of belonging.”
But it’s not too late! The Recording Academy can correct this serious error and do the right thing.
Not co-sponsor future events with BJEA
Not partner with any group that actively promotes Israeli apartheid
Not partner with any group that actively promotes anti-Black racism
Do partner with groups that fight antisemitism without promoting Anti-Palestinian racism, like Jewish Voice for Peace or PARCEO, that have a history of working in broader anti-racist struggles and do not conflate antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel.
7. What can you do?
Sign the petition telling The Recording Academy to drop its partnership with BJEA
Share these posts on your social media accounts
If you are a musician or are connected to the music world, please contact us here about signing onto our music industry letter to The Recording Academy
Fact Sheet: Our fact sheet provides detailed information and evidence about BJEA and the racist, right-wing Israel lobby groups that it serves.