The panic of the Depression loosened my inhibitions against being different. I could be myself.

All of his grandparents immigrated from Germany; his paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother were Jewish (his maternal grandfather was Catholic). Service in the House of Representatives
During his first twenty-two years in Congress 1923–1945 Celler's Brooklyn and Queens-based district was numbered as New York's 10th congressional district. This national origin system was structured to preserve the ethnic and religious status quo of the United States by reducing immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe thereby excluding many Jews Catholics Italians and others.

He was defeated in the 1972 primary becoming the most senior Representative to ever lose a primary. Emanuel Celler (May 6 1888–January 15 1981) was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years from March 1923 to January 1973.