Overview

Seeking the reasons behind Jewish altruism toward African-Americans, Hasia Diner shows how - in the wake of the Leo Frank trial and lynching in Atlanta - Jews came to see that their relative prosperity was no protection against the same social forces that threatened blacks. It thus became in the Jewish American self-interest to support the black struggle for racial justice and to fight against American prejudice. Jewish leaders and organisations genuinely believed in the cause of black civil rights, Diner suggests, but they also used that cause as a way of advancing their own interests without seeming ""pushy"" or ""too demanding"" - launching a vicarious attack on the nation that they felt had not lived up to its own pronouncements of freedom and equality.

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Reviews

Based upon thorough research and documentation, 'In the Almost Promised Land' vividly illustrates the well-known but little-understood phenomenon of Jewish support for a better life for American blacks. Diner has produced a significant contribution to the examination of ethnic studies and an insightful analysis of certain aspects of the early years of the civil rights movement in the twentieth century. --'Cithara: Essays in the Judeo-Christian Tradition' Helps explain why a special relationship between Jews and blacks developed within the context of a particular historical period and why that relationship ultimately ended. --'Historical Review' Diner has neither idolized nor debunked the Jewish leaders who sought to help blacks achieve a better life. What she has done, and this should be a model for others writing ethnic history, is to examine the complexities that motivated one group of individuals to help another. --'Labor History'

Author Information

Hasia Diner is professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of Erin's Daughters in America and A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration, 1820-1880 (Volume II in the series The Jewish People in America), both available from Johns Hopkins.

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