The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity

Tuition: $300 | YIVO members: $225**

This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English, and any readings will be in English.

Instructor: Eric Goldstein

What has it meant to be Jewish in a nation defined around the categories of “black” and “white”? The millions of Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Central and Eastern Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries had lived as outsiders in their countries of origins. In their new home, these immigrants also faced various forms of discrimination and marginalization, but because power and privilege in the U.S. were significantly shaped by the color line, European Jews came to occupy a more ambiguous place in American life, one that often combined the roles of “insider” and “outsider” in confusing and contradictory ways.

Although a process of acculturation led to European Jews and their descendants winning solid acceptance as part of the white majority by World War II, the contradictory nature of their group identity nonetheless continued to inspire debate, not only about their place in the American world of difference, but also about the very meaning of "difference" in American life. By the late 20th century, the increasing number and visibility of Jews of color in the United States raised additional questions about the relationship between Jewishness, diversity, and whiteness. This course will explore the history of Jews’ uncertain place in America’s culture of race and difference from the period of mass immigration through the contemporary movement for racial justice.

Course Materials:
Readings for the course will consist of original historical documents. The instructor will provide these course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

Eric L. Goldstein is the Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, where he is also Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies. He is the author of the prize-winning The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity (2006, Princeton University Press) and, with Deborah R. Weiner, On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore (2018, Johns Hopkins University Press). From 2007-2012, he was the editor of the quarterly scholarly journal, American Jewish History.

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