Hasia Diner (NYU) will discuss her new book, Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America (St. Martin's Press).

Popular belief holds that the various ethnic groups that emigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century regarded one another with open hostility, fiercely competing for limited resources and even coming to blows in the crowded neighborhoods of major cities. One of the most enduring stereotypes is that of rabidly anti-Semitic Irish Catholics, like Father Charles Coughlin of Boston and the sensationalized Gangs of New York trope of Irish street thugs attacking defenseless Jewish immigrants. 

In Opening Doors, Hasia R. Diner, one of the world's preeminent historians of immigration, tells a very different story; far from confrontation, the prevailing relationships between Jewish and Irish Americnas were overwhelmingly cooperative, and the two groups were dependent upon one another to secure stable and upwardly mobile lives in their new home. The book draws from a deep well of historical sources to show how Irish and Jewish Americans became steadfast allies in classrooms, picket lines, and political machines, and ultimately helped one another become key power players in shaping America's future.