Clayborne Carson writes, "Scholarly discussion of black-Jewish relations have been more successful in identifying the reasons why members of both groups work together on behalf of civil rights reform than in explaining why this cooperation is continually disrupted." Carson says that such disruptions have become ritualistic, often set off by statements by obscure individuals which have offended the other group. Carson states that the rituals associated with these crises usually involve Jewish leaders and intellectuals "turning to their black counterparts for assurances that never seem to be adequate" (133). Theorists have more success explaining why blacks and Jews work together for civil rights than in explaining why the disruptions come about. Carson sees tensions in black-Jewish relations as "recurring manifestations of the basic tension between integrationist civil rights activity and ever-present group-interest politics" (140). In the sixties, a source of dissension came as blacks moved toward racial separatism as Jews moved toward increasingly group consciousness after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Many see this era as continuing when in fact Jews did not abandon the civil rights struggle at all any more than blacks betrayed the struggle as some Jews believe. However, Carson says that the political ties between the two groups will remain unstable because each community has a much wider range of political orientations.
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