Opening Doors

May 20, 2024
Irish and Jewish immigrants to America around the turn of the 20th century often made common cause, despite today’s popular misconception that the two groups were at loggerheads, reveals NYU historian Diner (We Remember with Reverence and Love) in this sweeping account. Notwithstanding a few early gang clashes, the Irish, who had arrived first and achieved hard-won positions of relative power in many American cities, usually took the Jewish newcomers under their wing, Diner finds. The Irish helped Jews combat the kinds of bigotry they themselves had faced: they taught newly arrived Jews how to acculturate, fought antisemitism alongside them, and recruited them into the labor movement so they could battle for better working conditions. Both groups saw the relationship as mutually beneficial, Diner writes, since they felt themselves to be natural allies against white Protestant elites. The author shows that antisemitism did not become common among Irish Americans until the 1930s—but that even then, Irish Americans were also among the most vocal in denouncing the global rise of bigotry against Jews. A fascinating thread of Diner’s many-stranded narrative is the importance of women labor organizers to the mentor-mentee relationship between Irish and Jewish Americans, especially the ties they forged when they worked together to challenge male labor leaders. Readers will be fascinated by this kaleidoscopic and invigorating view of American immigrant solidarity.

June 15, 2024
How newcomers rose together in America. Diner, former director of the Goren Center for American Jewish History and author of We Remember With Reverence and Love, draws on memoirs, newspapers, novels, plays, and popular culture to offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between the Irish and the Jews from the end of the 19th century through the 1930s. Irish Catholics, who had come in the 1840s, and Eastern European Jews, who came in the 1880s, realized that they needed each other to defend against anti-immigration Protestants, who thought they would "replace the true Americans." Because the Irish had come earlier, they "held the knobs," Diner asserts, that opened doors, allowing Jews "to cross over so many thresholds." The author focuses on four areas where Irish influence particularly helped Jews: public advocacy against antisemitism; urban politics, where the Irish held key positions; the labor front, where the Irish had been particularly successful organizers; and education. Although each group held some negative stereotypes about the other, in daily life, they "carved out shared spaces to pursue common goals." Anecdotes and capsule biographies enliven Diner's history as she portrays the many men and women who championed Jews and the Jews who benefited from their support. Education, not surprisingly, proved vital for Jewish children, who were taught by a large contingent of Irish schoolteachers; many joined the teaching profession themselves. Moreover, with a Jewish quota in private colleges, Jews were welcome in Catholic universities--e.g., Fordham, Notre Dame, DePaul--which were founded to help the sons of the Irish working class. In the 1930s, despite pockets of Irish antisemitism, there was strong Irish support of the Jewish campaign against Nazism. The vital cross-cultural alliance, Diner shows, created a capacious, embracing redefinition of what it means to be American. A timely history to rebut anti-immigration rhetoric.

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Starred review from July 1, 2024
Eminent immigration historian Diner (Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World, 2017) presents a fresh, compelling account of mutually beneficial cooperation between two disparate immigrant groups striving for acceptance as "true Americans." Diner argues that Irish-Catholic communities in New York, Boston, Chicago, and other cities paved the way into American life for Jewish immigrants arriving from Eastern Europe beginning in the 1880s. Both groups faced persistent discrimination from the dominant Protestant establishment. The Irish, who had immigrated en masse a generation before, controlled powerful political machines with considerable influence in organized labor and public schooling. They "held sway over the basics of daily life," offering Jews support and public advocacy while maintaining their own political power and demonstrating their embrace of American civic virtues. Diner draws on a rich trove of historical sources to make her case in this vivid, accessible reinterpretation of a fascinating chapter in the American story. Opening Doors does not ignore conflict and bigotry between the two communities but offers a highly readable and timely reminder that in a complex, democratic society, people benefit more by standing up for each other.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.