A 150th Anniversary Series

Goldman and Sachs, Kuhn and Loeb, Warburg and Schiff, Lehman and Seligman. These Gilded Age dynasties would help to define modern finance, develop New York into a business and cultural Mecca, and preside over an unprecedented era of Jewish philanthropy and institution-building that gave rise to many enduring mainstays of American Jewish life — including The 92nd Street Y, which this month celebrates its 150th anniversary.

New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Schulman sits with financial journalist William D. Cohan for a discussion about his book, The Money Kings, which unspools the remarkable origin stories and profound impact of these German-Jewish titans. Schulman chronicles their paths to Wall Street dominance, as they navigated antisemitic currents and contended with a humanitarian crisis facing their religious brethren in Russia, and the complexities of the Civil War, World War I, and the Zionist movement that tested both their burgeoning empires and their identities as Americans, Germans, and Jews. For a story set more than a century ago, there are many historical echoes between that era and this one — from the ongoing immigration wars, to concerns about tech monopolies, to the alarming rise in antisemitism.