What do they mean by "Jewish slave trade"?

[Caesar_s_Ghost]

So, I’m reading an AP American History book over the summer for my AP History class next year. The edition is American History: A Survey, the tenth edition, by Alan Brinkley, and the copyright date is 1999. One quotation, about peoples who dominated the slave trade, says:

At first, the slave traders were overwhelmingly Portuguese…by the seventeenth century, the Dutch had won control of most of the slave market. In the eighteenth century, the English dominated it. (Despite some recent claims, Jews were never significantly involved in the slave trade.)

I’m wondering what the editors mean by this. When these people, whoever they are, claim that Jewish people were involved in the slave trade, are they referring to people of the Jewish religion–i.e. of a different nationality, but practicing Jewish beliefs–or do they refer to one country which was predominantly Jewish during the time of the slave trade? And why were some people claiming this?

I searched, by the way, but didn’t find any relevant topics.

[Captain_Amazing]

Some really stupid historians affiliated with the Nation of Islam who should have known better said that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was largely carried out by Jews. There isn’t any truth to the claim.

[Caesar_s_Ghost]

Oh, okay. That makes sense. Thanks, Captain Amazing.