White Ethnic New York: Jews, Catholics, and the Shaping of Postwar Politics

by Joshua M. Zeitz

Historians of postwar American politics often identify race as a driving force in the dynamically shifting political culture. Joshua Zeitz instead places religion and ethnicity at the fore, arguing that ethnic conflict among Irish Catholics, Italian Catholics, and Jews in New York City had a decisive impact on the shape of liberal politics long before black-white racial identity politics entered the political lexicon.

Understanding ethnicity as an intersection of class, national origins, and religion, Zeitz demonstrates that the white ethnic populations of New York had significantly diverging views on authority and dissent, community and individuality, secularism and spirituality, and obligation and entitlement. New York Jews came from Eastern European traditions that valued dissent and encouraged political agitation; their Irish and Italian Catholic neighbors tended to value commitment to order, deference to authority, and allegiance to church and community. Zeitz argues that these distinctions ultimately helped fracture the liberal coalition of the Roosevelt era, as many Catholics bolted a Democratic Party increasingly focused on individual liberties, and many dissent-minded Jews moved on to the antiliberal New Left.

296 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2007

Reviews

[Andrew Figueiredo]

An interesting thesis, that the New Deal coalition in NYC began to fracture when differences between Catholic and Jewish communities became more prominent. Zeitz explains how Jewish New Yorkers and Catholic New Yorkers had "sharply divergent worldviews that defined the way they approached a broad range of political and cultural questions." While both were Democratic groups in the wake of FDR's New Deal, these differing values and lifestyles grew in salience, causing the groups to diverge politically. One key factor was whether each group saw Communism or Fascism as the greater threat to freedom. Zeitz argues that Jews were more likely to see Fascism as the larger menace, while Catholics were more anti-Communist.

Zeitz relies on polling data, newspaper articles, and other studies to argue that Catholics inhabited a subculture that was traditional, hierarchical, and comprehensively religious. The dominant strain resembles the more paternalistic Catholicism discussed in Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church. This obedience to authority contrasted, however, with a Jewish tradition of dissent and intellectual freedom. Jewish New Yorkers grew up in a much more democratized culture where it was normal to question authroity. Both groups built up their own ethnic enclaves, but these enclaves looked very different, with the Catholic ones steeped in faith and the Jewish ones defined by tight-knit social structures, albeit often more secular (but still culturally Jewish) ones.

Over time, Catholics "grew uncomfortable in a Democratic Party that increasingly prioritized individual liberties and entitlements." Both groups expressed some support and some skepticism, especially later in the 1960s, toward civil rights issues. For instance, Jewish New Yorkers turned on Mayor Lindsay's support for school decentralization, which was seen as an attack on heavily Jewish teachers. However, the picture that emerges here is one of a more progressive stance from the Jewish community, with both groups disapproving of Black Power movements.

Zeitz also points out that there were divides within each of these groups. Younger generations of Jews (and a few Catholics) supported the New Left, protesting on even on campuses like Yeshiva and Fordham. Irish and Italian Catholics differed in some ways, with Italians especially gravitating towards a more working class right represented by Republicans like Richard Nixon. As the 1970s came about, the Jewish community changed in composition and the cohesive Catholic culture Zeitz describes fractured.

Studies of White ethnicity are uncommon in academia today, as the 1970s roots revival fades, its fruits growing dusty on library shelves. This book is older, but shows its age just in its existence. Zeitz's is an intriguing argument, and he supports it well.

[Frank Paul]

This is a nice piece of political sociology. I enjoyed reading some of the details about what went down politically in my hometown in the 1950s and 1960s. Zeitz theory is pretty straight-forward. New York Jews remained committed to liberal politics for decades longer than their fellow immigrants from Ireland and Italy. His explanation to the historical reasons for this are also good-if a little simplistic at times.

Zeitz is a good academic writer but his ambition here is mostly limited to making an argument of social science. His prose is very readable and he marshals facts to support his claims. But the narrative does not sing and he doesn't make much effort to make the important figures in this story memorable as characters.

[джаймс X]

I enjoyed this and I learned from it. I'm only giving it 3 stars because I found it a bit repetitive. Maybe I'm just not the right audience for sociology.

[Jsb]

Not as good as "Working-Class New York."