Baptism certificates and passports both served as entry tickets to majority culture

Evidence

Like Hirsi Ali, he too felt the need to compromise to be able to belong in the world that he wished to join. In 1825, he became a Christian for his career. Like Hirsi Ali, he did not try to hide his pragmatism. He commented on this act in what is perhaps his most famous aphorism: ‘The baptismal certificate is the entrance ticket to European culture.’ We may say, therefore, that what her Dutch passport was to Hirsi Ali, his baptismal certificate was to Heine. Interestingly enough, here too a name change was involved, from Harry Heine to Johann Christian Heinrich Heine. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1655

Categorization

• SEED: The parallel between Heine’s baptism and Hirsi Ali’s citizenship could anchor an essay on the transactional nature of assimilation across centuries and religions.
• SHARE: The Heine aphorism ‘The baptismal certificate is the entrance ticket to European culture’ is worth sharing with anyone interested in Jewish emancipation history.