The Dirty Bicker: Princeton, the Jews, and the Scandal of 1958, (Hardcover)

<p><b>A riveting account of the 1958 Princeton antisemitism scandal, when dozens of Jews were rejected by the school's exclusive eating clubs</b> </p><p>In February 1958, at the end of the annual "bicker" period--when Princeton sophomores seek admission to the university's prestigious eating clubs--an unusually high number of students got no offers--and most of them were Jews. The "dirty bicker," as it came to be known, was a troubling episode that laid bare the persistence of antisemitism in higher education. <i>The Dirty Bicker</i> tells the story of the affair that rocked the world of upper-class privilege, shedding light on the challenges that ambitious, upwardly mobile young Jewish men faced in postwar America. </p><p>Drawing on exclusive interviews with the men involved, both the rejected students and those who rejected them, Mark Oppenheimer transports readers to a time when status was tied to family heritage and even the ability to select the right blazer for the occasion. He addresses questions about what it means to belong--both in the Ivy League and in society more broadly. Were students blackballed because they were Jewish or because they were public schoolers in a pecking order presided over by preps? Were there quotas or just a gentleman's agreement not to admit too many "undesirables"? And what was the role of the administration in perpetrating a system that treated some boys as more equal than others? </p><p>A must-read for anyone who wants to understand campus antisemitism today, <i>The Dirty Bicker</i> is an absorbing account of a national scandal that spoke to the barriers confronting minority and working-class students in their struggle to be accepted in the upper echelons of society.</p>

• The Dirty Bicker: Princeton, the Jews, and the Scandal of 1958, (Hardcover)
• Author: Mark Oppenheimer
• ISBN: 9780691254159
• Format: Hardcover
• Publication Date: 2027-03-23
• Page Count: 176