In the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, Irish and Jewish Americans shared an unexpected bond. Irish Americans were the pious legatees of centuries of Catholic antisemitism. Arriving a generation or two ahead of a large group of Jewish immigrants, the Irish sometimes tried to block Jews’ advances on the ladder of upward mobility. Jewish newcomers, on the other hand, absorbed beliefs about Irish alcoholism and loutishness — stereotypes that the Protestant majority did little, if anything, to quell. Yet as the historian Hasia R. Diner emphasizes in this fresh and illuminating book, the Irish effectively eased Jews’ integration into American society. Hers is a story in which the Irish are not bullies but benefactors, not rivals but mentors. They expertly helped Jews who came from Eastern Europe to navigate their new society.
Opening Doors makes its case by examining interethnic cooperation in politics, labor, and education. The author shows us how the urban bosses, whom the Progressives condemned for corruption, befriended the Jewish poor and were rewarded with votes. Resolute Irish female agitators placed the demands of union members on the agenda of the Democratic Party and would become the model for Jewish labor organizers. In the public schools of New York, Boston, Chicago, and other cities, Irish female teachers taught grammar, pronunciation, and deportment — all of which served students of Yiddish-speaking homes well, fueling their ascent into the middle class. Rather than depicting moments of friction between the two groups, Diner assigns herself the more challenging historiographical task of revealing what the Jews owed to the Irish. In doing so, she plucks from the past the often obscure figures — Charles F. Daly, Myra Kelly, and Frances Sweeney, to name a few — who worked closely and comfortably with Jews to reduce their poverty, fortify their aspirations, and defend their interests.
Skeptical readers might ask: but what about Father Charles E. Coughlin? Opening Doors does not deny the rancid influence of the demagogue who stirred up bigotry in the 1930s. But Diner chooses to focus less on the “radio priest” and more on the Irish Americans who dedicated themselves to denouncing him — at risk to their standing in their church and community. She thus presents a nuanced picture of the impact of antisemitism in that decade.
Opening Doors concludes its study in the 1930s, when the Roosevelt administration sought to remedy the misery of the Great Depression by assuming responsibilities far beyond the powers of the Irish bosses. The welfare state also helped move millions of workers into the middle class, leaving a vacuum that blue-collar Americans of other ethnicities filled. Generational change allowed Jewish women to replace Irish women as teachers in the public schools. These two successful non-Protestant groups, Diner writes, made “the category ‘American’ … capacious.”
Stephen Whitfield is Professor of American Studies (Emeritus) at Brandeis University. He is the author of Learning on the Left: Political Profiles of Brandeis University (2020).
