This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed human.

And we continue with our American stories.

As an icon of the Protestant elite,

Theodore Roosevelt was an unlikely ally of the

waves of impoverished Jewish newcomers who crowded the docks at Ellis Island. Here to tell

the story is Arizona State History Professor Andrew Porwancher. Andrew is the author of American

Maccabee, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Jews.

Let's take a listen.

I wish I had a little Jew in me.

Theodore Roosevelt once mused to a friend. Not a drop of Jewish blood coursed through his veins.

If anything, Roosevelt was the ultimate insider of the Protestant

elite that dominated American life in his era. His father descended from a New York political dynasty

whose eminence in Manhattan dated back to the days of Dutch colonial rule. His mother was a southern bell of such renown

that many believed her to be the inspiration for the character of Scarlett O'Hara.

Theodore lived a life consistent with his patrician pedigree,

enrolling at Harvard, serving as a military officer, and seizing the grandest prize

of all, the Oval Office.

Roosevelt was a Silver Spoon statesman who had grown up in the fashionable neighborhood

of Gramercy Park in New York.

He had little in common with the Yiddish-speaking immigrants,

moistening their brows in the sweatshops of the Lower East Side, just a short walk away.

...