Life

Essay Examines Dual Citizenship ‘In This New Nationalist Era’

Manuel Valls at a Paris café. Note the English-language menu offering snails and bagels. Image by Getty Images

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy March 13, 2017

Writer Pamela Druckerman, who is Jewish, has a brilliant, timely essay in the New York Times about her experiences as an American acquiring French citizenship, in the era of Brexit and Trump. A taste:

[D]uring my [citizenship] interview, I froze when asked why I wanted to become French. I remembered hearing that when a rabbi asks someone why he wants to convert, the best answer is that he just feels a burning need to be Jewish. Maybe acquiring Frenchness is similar, and I should say it’s a spiritual calling? I finally just told the truth: I like it here.

It’s Paris. A challenging city in many ways, but with a lot, quite a lot, to like.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at bovy@forward.com. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.

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