Syrian naturalization arguments foreshadowed Jews’ postwar Judeo-Christian identity claims

Evidence

Notably, George Dow referred to the 1911 Dillingham Report of the Immigration that found Syrians belong to the Semitic branch of the Caucasian race, in contrast to their Turkish rulers, who were categorized under the Mongolian race. Little did Dow know at the time that his argument that Syrians should be treated like European Jews based on the historical connections between Jewish and Christian people would be mirrored by American Jews’ calls for a Judeo-Christian American national identity a decade later, after World War I. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 547

Categorization

• XREF: The 1911 Dillingham Report’s racial taxonomy of Syrians vs. Turks echoes contemporary anti-Asian racial science and connects to the ‘Semitic vs. Mongolian’ civilizational framing used across immigration debates.