Book on Jewish citizenship in the US rethinks the history of legal status
In the United States, a book by historian of American Jewry Lila Corwin Berman, Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship, analyzes disputes over the legal status of Jews in the country. The author challenges the widespread notion that Jews in the United States received citizenship without controversy, The Jerusalem Post reports.
Race, nationality and religion
According to Berman's conclusions, judges, legislators and participants in court proceedings repeatedly turned to defining Jewishness as a race, nationality or religion. These discussions affected not only the status of Jews but also the legal position of other groups. The establishment of the State of Israel also influenced the development of approaches to dual citizenship.
In the 19th century, Jews referred to George Washington's 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, as evidence that they were recognized as US citizens. At the beginning of the 20th century, lawyers for the American Jewish Committee sought to remove the category “Jew” from racial classifications in immigration statistics. They stressed that Jewish identity was religious and that Jews therefore should not be singled out in annual totals of emigrants from their countries of residence.
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In 1909, the Federal Naturalization Service denied citizenship to four Armenians because they were not “free white persons.” Federal Judge Francis Cabot Lowell noted that, on this issue, Armenians did not differ from Jews, who at the time were also defined as a separate race of Asian origin. He concluded that until Congress clarified the concept of “whiteness,” the exception regarding the granting of citizenship to Jews should become the rule.
Loyalty and protection from discrimination
From 1924 to 1965, US federal authorities established national quotas for the admission of immigrants and the granting of citizenship. According to Berman's account, some legislators and judges doubted whether Jews had retained loyalty to the countries from which they had emigrated. Zionism and the creation of Israel, the author writes, fueled suspicions that Jews constituted a separate nationality and were incapable of being loyal to another state.
The book also examines contemporary legal questions: whether Jews belong to protected groups under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, how Jewish identity should be legally defined, and whether race should be the basis of laws and public policy. Berman warns against turning law from a principle into a tool that can advance the interests of only one group, political ideology or one right.
