The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean

Marglin, Jessica, The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean, Princeton University Press, 2022, 384 p.

How a nineteenth-century lawsuit over the estate of a wealthy Tunisian Jew shines new light on the history of belonging.

In the winter of 1873, Nissim Shamama, a wealthy Jew from Tunisia, died suddenly in his palazzo in Livorno, Italy. His passing initiated a fierce lawsuit over his large estate. Before Shamama’s riches could be disbursed among his aspiring heirs, Italian courts had to decide which law to apply to his estate—a matter that depended on his nationality. Was he an Italian citizen? A subject of the Bey of Tunis? Had he become stateless? Or was his Jewishness also his nationality? Tracing a decade-long legal battle involving Jews, Muslims, and Christians from both sides of the Mediterranean, The Shamama Case offers a riveting history of citizenship across regional, cultural, and political borders.

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