Ministry of Lies: The Truth Behind "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews" [Hardcover]

Harold Brackman Ph.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 1994

The only book commercially available to publicly refute, point-by-point, the charges against Jews as purported by Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Under the auspices of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Brackman presents a scholarly yet easy-to-understand response to the claims that Jews masterminded the African slave trade and other diabolical plans. Photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In October 1991, the Nation of Islam's Historical Research Department anonymously published The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a book claiming to use "the most respected Jewish authorities" to charge Jews with "monumental culpability" in the slave trade. At the behest of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Brackman, a professor of African American history at UCLA-Riverside, analyzed the book that Louis Farrakhan touted in lectures, on radio and on TV. Brackman effectively refutes The Secret Relationship's central charges that Jews dominated not only the Atlantic slave trade but also medieval European slavery. In the process, he makes no claims of Jewish moral superiority (although he mentions rabbinic prohibitions against sex with slave girls and Maimonides's quote, "He who increases the number of his slaves increases sin and iniquity in the world") but rather emphasizes the fact that Jews were frequently barred from participation. He then goes to The Secret Relationship's real purpose: a clearly political rewriting of history aimed at reflecting blame away from Muslim nations. (As Brackman points out, Saudi Arabia did not outlaw slavery until 1962, Oman until 1970.) Throughout, Brackman considers the toll that anti-Semitism takes not only on Jews but also on African Americans. For them, he says, the American dream of equality and achievement "remains a dream significantly denied or at least deferred.... Their grievances are real and their frustrations deserving of understanding. What they need, however, is not scapegoating but solutions."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Brackman, a Simon Wiesenthal Center consultant and an authority on black-Jewish relations, offers a refutation and indictment of the by-now notorious anti-Semitic tract "anonymously" written and published by Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam (NOI) sect. It claims that Jews were the chief culprits in the enslavement of Africans, the key operatives in the Atlantic slave trade, and mainly responsible for the attempted genocide of the black race. "The secret relationship" condemns Jews for polluting Europe's lungs with tobacco and decimating Native American tribes. By systematically examining the NOI's "sources," Brackman exposes "the secret relationship" for what it is: a deliberate falsification of history aimed at scapegoating the Jews to appease the frustrations of many African Americans. An important book that belongs in all public and academic libraries.
Robert A. Silver, Shaker Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 100 pages
• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows (August 25, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568580169
• ISBN-13: 978-1568580166
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Counters some arbitrary hate speech, March 19, 2005

By 

Jill Malter ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ministry of Lies: The Truth Behind "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews" (Hardcover)

I think that it is worthwhile to refute hate speech. And this book does a good job of that.

As the author says, "the Jews have had it better than the Blacks in America, in no small part because of the historical advantage derived from the biological accident of white skin." Well, lighter skin. However, "if the Nation of Islam - in junior partnership with white racist antisemites - does somehow transform the U. S. into a country where Black-Jewish cooperation towards goals of minority rights and social justice becomes impossible," Jews and Blacks will both suffer.

The author says that "those who lie to us about the past foreclose our chance to shape the future."

There are numerous untruths in "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews." Brackman exposes many of them in this book. The untruths include claims that Jews "dominated" the slave trade in Medieval Europe, Africa, Latin America, and New England. In fact, Jews played a minor role in all these locations, while Arabs seem to have been the biggest slave traders in Africa. "According to the African historian J. E. Inikori, Arab slavers between the years 650 and 1900 drained Black Africa of 14.4 million people - more than most estimates of slave exports to the Americas during the 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade."

What about Southern Jews? Yes, there were some Southern Jewish slaveowners. In 1830, there were about 225,000 Southern families who owned slaves, including 322 Jewish families. About 59,000 of the families owned twenty or more slaves, including 23 Jewish ones. About 11,000 of the families owned fifty or more slaves including 4 Jewish ones. By the way, the author points out that some "persons of color" owned slaves too. These colored slaveowners "outnumbered the Jewish ones by fifteen to one."

I want all humans to be happy and prosperous, not poor and miserable. And I think we'll have a better chance of that if we value truth, justice, and human rights. This book is to be praised for taking a step in that direction. I recommend it.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Call the Liars a Lie Instead if this is the case., May 31, 2011

By 

WLJ "Slick" (TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ministry of Lies: The Truth Behind the Nation of Islam's "the Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews" (Paperback)

If this is true I assume you are calling all the Jews that the NOI quotes/documents in their footnotes and you are calling all the historical documents a lie without in evidence other than your double talk lies. Amazing how Jews call any facts, lies that document the truth but disagree with their Satanic programs.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A COMPELLING REFUTATION OF THE NATION OF ISLAM'S "SECRET RELATIONSHIP", May 6, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ministry of Lies: The Truth Behind the Nation of Islam's "the Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews" (Paperback)

This book is a refutation of The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews by the Nation of Islam.

Here are some quotations from this 1994 book:

"Some anti-Jewish stereotypes have a kernal of truth underneath the grotesque exaggeration. After all, there were Jewish moneylenders in medieval Europe and Jewish slave traders in the antebellum South. But other charges against the Jews---e.g., ritual murder, well-poisoning---have no plausible basis in reality." (Pg. 31)
"'The Secret Relationship' is an anonymous production. 'The Historical Research Department' identifies no individual members, nor does it indicate their academic credentials. In other words, those responsible themselves remain secret---choosing to hide behind rather than stand behind their scholarship." (Pg. 45)
"Jacob R. Marcus is the leading authority on American Jewry during the colonial period. He is quoted twenty-seven times in 'The Secret Relationship' and cited on numerous other occasions. Never once is his conclusion acknowledged that 'Jewish participation was minimal' in the slave trade with Africa." (Pg. 50-51)
"Black Africa experienced a slow bleed over hundreds of years. The world Jewish community experienced a massive hemorrhage---six million of eighteen million murdered---over just five years." (Pg. 98)