Examines how Irish and Jewish Americans defined their place in a complex society.
The story of America is the story of the unlikely groups of immigrants brought together by their shared
outsider status. Urban American life took much of its shape from the arrival of Irish and Jewish
immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Forged in America is the story of how Irish
America and Jewish America collided, cooperated, and collaborated in the cities where they made their
homes, all the while shaping American identity and nationhood as we know it.
Bringing together leading scholars in their fields, this volume sheds light on the underexplored histories
of Irish and Jewish collaboration. While mutual antagonism was clearly evident, so too were
opportunities for cooperation, as settled Irish immigrants served to model, mentor, and mediate for
Jewish newcomers. Together, the chapters in this volume draw fascinating portraits that show mutuality
in action and demonstrate its cultural reverberations.