Mitchell Hart is a Professor of History at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1994. Hart published Jews and Race: Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880-1940 (2011).
In Gilded Age America, immigration from Europe rapidly grew the nation’s Jewish population, convincing many Americans that Jews were a dangerous and undesirable race. As lawmakers debated ways to restrict immigration, busine…