If you think you know how Jewish and Irish Americans have interacted in the past, think again: Hasia Diner has news for you in this wonderful and important new book. There’s a revelation on every page, it seems. The author’s expertise is breathtaking; the story she tells is surprising and exciting. This is a book only Hasia Diner could write. And thank goodness she did.”
—Terry Golway, author of Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of American Politics
"Hasia Diner's Opening Doors is an eye-opening, lucidly written account of the relationship between the Irish and Jewish immigrant communities. Diner digs beneath timeworn tropes and stereotypes to reveal a far richer, more nuanced history. In a time when inter-ethnic divisions are encouraged and cultivated, Diner reminds us of what can be achieved when immigrant groups join together to seek a fairer, freer country, Engaging and timely, Opening Doors is an important contribution to our understanding of our immigrant past and our hopes for the future."
—Peter Quinn, author of Cross Bronx: A Writing Life
“What a great book! Opening Doors is a tour de force of erudition and insight. Diner demonstrates that the relationship between Irish Americans and Jewish immigrants was one of the keys to the making of modern America.”
—Tyler Anbinder, author of Plentiful Country and City of Dreams
“In a glorious cascade of vivid life stories, Hasia Diner explains how migration brought Irish and Jewish people together for the first time in the dynamic setting of urban America. Irish immigrants set a template that Jewish immigrants followed—in the tenements, the labor movement, politics, education, and popular culture—and together they opened doors for themselves, their children, and everyone committed to cultural pluralism in the United States. A crowning accomplishment by the preeminent historian of Jewish America.”
—Kevin Kenny, author of Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction
"Hasia Diner, among the most innovative and fluent of all American Jewish historians, has written a superb study, a work of considerable historical as well as contemporary importance. She demonstrates how the relationship between Irish and Jews in the United States—typically viewed as one of antagonism—was far more complex and less conflicted than recalled. This a bracingly relevant reminder of how America was—and remains—different."
—Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History
2024-05-10
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.