Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said Wednesday that he is critical of particular Jews, especially supporters of Israel, but does not consider Judaism a “gutter religion.”
Rather, Farrakhan said, he thinks that some Jews “practice dirty religion,” citing Israeli policy-makers as “using God and religion as a cover” for their actions.
“I have no reference whatsoever to the religion that Jews practice,” the Black Muslim minister told The Washington Post during a two-and-a-half hour interview published Thursday.
Yet in a speech given last week at Michigan State University, Farrakhan said he owed no apology to his Jewish critics for his frequent attacks on Jews because Jews have “sucked the blood of the black community.”
He said that blacks had been demeaned in movies he saw as a child, and he blamed Jews in the movie industry.
“You wrote us in as clowns and buffoons,” Farrakhan said. “I never did that to you, but you Jews did that to black people.”
When asked by The Washington Post whether Jews are collectively responsible for actions against blacks, Farrakhan said, “Certainly a majority of Jews are not involved in certain decisions that are made by others. No. You can’t condemn a whole group of people for what some have done.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
