The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean

The Shamama Case is a 19th-century lawsuit over the estate of a wealthy Tunisian Jew that sheds new light on the history of belonging across regional, cultural, and political borders. The case involved Jews, Muslims, and Christians from both sides of the Mediterranean and produced hundreds of pages in legal briefs and thousands of dollars in lawyers fees. Jessica Marglin follows the unfolding of events, from Shamama's rise to power in Tunis and his self-imposed exile in France to his untimely death in Livorno and the clashing visions of nationality advanced during the lawsuit.

Format: Hardback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 15 November 2022
Publisher: Princeton University Press

In the winter of 1873, Nissim Shamama, a wealthy Jew from Tunisia, passed away unexpectedly in his palazzo in Livorno, Italy. His passing sparked a fierce legal battle over his vast estate. Before Shamama's riches could be distributed among his aspiring heirs, Italian courts had to determine which law to apply to his estate, a decision 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 captivating history of citizenship across regional, cultural, and political borders.

On its surface, the crux of the lawsuit seemed straightforward: To which state did Shamama belong when he died? However, the case generated hundreds of pages of legal briefs and thousands of dollars in legal fees before the man's estate could be distributed among his quarrelsome heirs. Jessica Marglin follows the unfolding of events, from Shamama's rise to power in Tunis and his self-imposed exile in France, to his untimely death in Livorno and the clashing visions of nationality advanced during the lawsuit. Marglin brings to life a Dickensian array of individuals involved in the case: family members who hoped to inherit the estate; Tunisian government officials; an Algerian Jewish fixer; rabbis in Palestine, Tunisia, and Livorno; and some of Italy's most famous legal minds.

Drawing from a wealth of correspondence, legal briefs, rabbinic opinions, and court rulings, The Shamama Case reimagines how we think about Jews, the Mediterranean, and belonging in the nineteenth century.

Weight: 808g
Dimension: 169 x 243 x 32 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780691235875