The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean by Jessica M. Marglin (review)

Reviewed by: The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean by Jessica M. Marglin Joshua Schreier Jessica M. Marglin. The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022. 384 pp. Jessica Marglin's The Shamama Case is an exhaustively researched discussion of an inheritance case that dragged its way through Italian courts for ten years following the 1873 death of Tunis's former receiver general, or tax collector, Nissim Shamama. The book's story follows a central question of the case: What regime governed Shamama, a Tunisian-born Jew who had left his homeland, had himself declared Italian by decree, and was living in Livorno at the time of his death? The answer would ultimately determine how Shamama's astronomical fortune would be partitioned. Marglin dives into these debates to illuminate still-fluid nineteenth-century thinking about citizenship, nationality, and how leading European legists understood the sources of rights. The ambiguity over the inheritance did not stem from Shamama's lack of a will; Nissim actually provided clear instructions. He wished that half his fortune go to his great-niece, ʿAziza Shamama, and her son, Nissim Jr. Then, one-quarter End Page 245 each should go to two other members of his family, Nissim's nephew, Joseph Shamama, and his great-nephew, Nathan. The problems emerged when, angling to secure a healthier portion of the estate, the latter two parties rose up to contest the will's validity. Adding to the drama (and the stakes), the indebted Tunisian government (in partnership with another nephew, Momo Shamama) also joined the suit. The contest that followed revealed Shamama's will to be vulnerable. According to the celebrated lawyer Augusto Francescopaulo Pierantoni, who represented Nathan, Joseph, and the Tunisian government, the will was invalid because Nissim did not (or legally could not) relinquish his Tunisian nationality, and thus never became legally Italian. In some permutations of their argument, this was due to his failure to register his decree of nationality in the Italian consulate in France, where he had been temporarily residing. If he had not become Italian, it meant Nissim Shamama died a (Jewish) subject of the bey of Tunis. If this were the case, any will (by Tunisian law) would be invalid and his colossal inheritance would be partitioned according to Halakhah, or Jewish law. Given that Halakhah entitles male heirs to larger shares, this would have diminished ʿAziza's portion while benefiting Nathan, Joseph, Momo, and by extension, the Tunisian bey. It thus appeared worth sinking serious money into lawyers arguing that the departed Shamama had not been Italian. On the other hand, if Nissim had severed his ties to Tunis, and his citizenship in Italy was successfully established, his last will would have held sway. This was precisely what Shamama had done before his untimely death, argued ʿAziza's lawyer, the celebrated Italian expert on international law Pasquale Sanislao Mancini. Furthermore, Mancini argued, there is an "international" right to expatriate and obtain citizenship in other lands. Such a view, if upheld, would have preserved the will's validity and guaranteed ʿAziza's claim to a full half of the inheritance. Adding to the texture of these arguments, the first party (represented by Pierantoni) eventually brought an additional strategy to the table: the argument that "Jewish" was itself a nationality, despite the fact that no state currently represented this particular nation. This idea was championed, in particular, by the translator Léon Elmilik and the Italian lawyer Leopoldo Galleoti, both of whom worked for Husayn ibn ʿAbdallah, a representative of the Tunisian bey. In this case, once again, Nissim's will would be declared invalid and Jewish law would decide how his money was divided. Marglin is less interested in the impact of the court's final decision than in showing us how these debates reveal a fluidity, ambiguity, and expansiveness that contrast with today's assumptions about citizenship's stability. This historiographic point is not in itself novel, and to be fair, it is a more story-driven than argument-driven book. This being said, she posits that "nationality" and "citizenship" are, in her view, "unequal the task" of understanding how, exactly...