Lila Corwin Berman, "Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship" (Princeton UP, 2026)

New Books in Law · Jul 6, 2026 · 58m

The history of Jews in the United States is often told as if they immigrated, gained citizenship, and almost immediately achieved full legal rights. Yet this story fundamentally misses how citizenship rights worked for Jews and countless others who arrived on American shores. In Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship, Lila Corwin Berman draws on case law, statutes, and debates to argue that both the laws of American citizenship and Jews’ position in them changed repeatedly across the twentieth century. Courts, policymakers, and the public persistently asked what it…