The Jews of France

by Benbassa, Esther; Debevoise, M. B.

• ISBN13: 9780691090146
• ISBN10: 0691090149
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-02
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

In the first English-language edition of a general, synthetic history of French Jewry from antiquity to the present, Esther Benbassa tells the intriguing tale of the social, economic, and cultural vicissitudes of a people in diaspora. With verve and insight, she reveals the diversity of Jewish life throughout France's regions, while showing how Jewish identity has constantly redefined itself in a country known for both the Rights of Man and the Dreyfus affair. Beginning with late antiquity, she charts the migrations of Jews into France and traces their fortunes through the making of the French kingdom, the Revolution, the rise of modern anti-Semitism, and the current renewal of interest in Judaism. As early as the fourth century, Jews inhabited Roman Gaul, and by the reign of Charlemagne, some figured prominently at court. The perception of Jewish influence on France's rulers contributed to a clash between church and monarchy that would culminate in the mass expulsion of Jews in the fourteenth century. The book examines the re-entry of small numbers of Jews as New Christians in the Southwest and the emergence of a new French Jewish population with the country's acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine. The saga of modernity comes next, beginning with the French Revolution and the granting of citizenship to French Jews. Detailed yet quick-paced discussions of key episodes follow: progress made toward social and political integration, the shifting social and demographic profiles of Jews in the 1800s, Jewish participation in the economy and the arts, the mass migrations from Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, the Dreyfus affair, persecution under Vichy, the Holocaust, and the postwar arrival of North African Jews. Reinterpreting such themes as assimilation, acculturation, and pluralism, Benbassa finds that French Jews have integrated successfully without always risking loss of identity. Published to great acclaim in France, this book brings important current issues to bear on the study of Judaism in general, while making for dramatic reading.

Table of Contents

Translator's Note	xi
Note to the French Edition	xiii
Preface	xv
Foreword	xxi
Aron Rodrique
The Origins of the Jewish Presence in Gaul	3	(10)
During the Roman Conquest	3	(2)
Under the Franks	5	(1)
The Church and the Jews	5	(2)
The Carolingian ``Golden Age''	7	(1)
Toward Royal Alliance	8	(1)
Ecclesiastical Reaction	9	(2)
Economy and Culture	11	(2)
Nobles' Jews, Kings' Jews	13	(13)
In the Seigneuries	13	(2)
Kings' Jews	15	(2)
The Religious Zeal of Saint Louis	17	(1)
Between Church and Temporal Power	18	(2)
Conditional Liberty	20	(1)
The Era of Crises	21	(1)
Another Return	22	(2)
North/South	24	(2)
Jewish Life in the Middle Ages	26	(15)
Communal Space	26	(7)
Cultural Space	33	(8)
The Jews of the South	41	(17)
The Comtat Venaissin and Avignon	41	(6)
New Christians and Jews: Spanish and Portuguese in France	47	(11)
The Jews of the East and of Paris	58	(15)
Metz and Lorraine	58	(6)
Alsace	64	(6)
Paris	70	(3)
On the Way to Emancipation	73	(11)
The Enlightenment and the Jews	73	(6)
A Policy of Emancipation?	79	(5)
New Perspectives	84	(12)
The Terror	85	(1)
Under Napoleon	86	(3)
The Grand Sanhedrin	89	(1)
The Consistories	90	(2)
Internal Divisions	92	(2)
In a Secular State	94	(2)
Entry into French Society	96	(18)
A Spectacular Integration	97	(2)
From Tradition to Integration	99	(4)
Paris: The Nerve Center	103	(3)
Socioeconomic Profile	106	(4)
Demography	110	(4)
Advancement and Identity	114	(20)
Advancement through Education	114	(1)
In the Arts and Literature	115	(2)
In the Academy and State Administration	117	(2)
Alternative Paths	119	(4)
And Women	123	(1)
Integration and Jewishness	124	(1)
From Jew to Israelite	125	(3)
Modern Solidarity	128	(3)
Scholarship and the Perpetuation of Tradition	131	(3)
Breaches in Franco-Judaism	134	(14)
Immigration	134	(3)
Anti-Semitism	137	(4)
The Affair	141	(5)
Zionism	146	(2)
Between the Wars	148	(18)
Migration	148	(1)
Neighborhoods and Trades	149	(2)
Conception of Judaism	151	(2)
Revival of Anti-Semitism	153	(3)
Reexamining Judaism	156	(1)
Youth Movements	157	(2)
Repositioning Zionism	159	(2)
The Nazi Peril	161	(5)
The Dark Years	166	(13)
The War	166	(1)
From Citizen to Pariah	167	(4)
The Roundups	171	(3)
Public Opinion	174	(1)
The UGIF	175	(2)
The Resistance	177	(2)
Recovery	179	(22)
The Influx of North African Jews	185	(4)
The New Face of French Jewry	189	(12)
Chronology	201	(20)
Notes	221	(20)
Bibliography	241	(30)
Index	271