The Beginnings of a French Jewish Literature

This chapter explores the tension between universalism and particularism as expressed in the pre-war poetry, novels, and essays of André Spire, Edmond Fleg, Henri Franck, and Jean-Richard Bloch. It examines the question of Jewish identity in the modern world through writers that paved the way for the much more widespread phenomenon of Jewish self-questioning in the post-war years. It also looks at André Spire's ground-breaking Poèmes juifs and Quelques Juifs that offered a scathing critique of both Jewish assimilation and French antisemitism. It discusses Henri Franck's prose poem La Danse devant l'arche, which describes a young man's quest for the meaning of life and reveals a similar tension between affirming the specificity of Jewish roots and embracing a larger French cultural heritage.

The Media and the Arts

This chapter focuses on the expansion of the Jewish press, the development of a lively Jewish art and music scene, and the strengthening of the interfaith movement. It discloses the creation of a wide variety of journals of differing Zionist, literary, and religious orientations that marked an important change in contemporary French Jewish life. It also investigates the journals that served as a vehicle to discuss new developments in the Jewish associational and cultural life of the day and provided a forum to discuss diverse aspects of Jewish culture and history. The chapter discusses the prominence of Jewish artists in the international Ecole de Paris as another important development in Jewish cultural life during the 1920s. It also describes French Jews that formed musical societies and choruses to perform Jewish music, from traditional religious compositions to Yiddish folk songs, in public settings.

Setting the Stage: Jewish Identity in the Nineteenth Century and the Impact of the Dreyfus Affair

This chapter provides a background on Jewish social and cultural history in the nineteenth century and describes the complex impact of the Dreyfus affair on French Jewry. It looks at the first generations of post-revolutionary Jewish intellectuals and communal leaders that had been primarily concerned with promoting Jewish integration and acculturation. It also recounts how the emergence of ethnic nationalism and the modern antisemitic movement forced French Jews to negotiate between a commitment to universalist Enlightenment principles and the racialized discourses of identity. The chapter investigates the explosion of the Dreyfus affair that openly questioned Franco-Judaism and confronted the complexity of Jewish identity in the modern world head-on. It looks at the antisemitism in France, the affair prompted more sympathetic attitude towards Jews in French leftist circles.

Enlivening the Public Sphere: Jewish Sociability in the 1920s

This chapter describes the expansion of Jewish associational life over the course of the 1920s. It talks about the growth of a whole variety of youth movements that created unprecedented opportunities for young Jews to educate themselves about Jewish history and culture. It also examines the meaning of Jewish identity in the modern world. The chapter mentions the first national youth movement and the religiously oriented Chema Israël that aimed to provide an institutional structure of educational and recreational activities in order to transmit Judaism to future generations. It includes the Union Universelle de la Jeunesse Juive (UUJJ), which reached the height of its popularity and influence in the mid-1920s in the hope of appealing to as wide a range of Jewish youth as possible and to build bridges between different communities.

Conclusion

This chapter reviews the process of Jewish self-questioning and cultural activity in France that began with the Dreyfus affair and reached its peak in the late 1920s. It recounts important changes in France and on the international stage that changed the priorities, concerns, and activities of French Jews in the mid-1930s. It also discusses the problem of antisemitism, which remained a relatively minor issue for French Jews in the 1920s and became a central concern in the 1930s. The chapter cites the advent of a virulently antisemitic dictatorship that enacted discriminatory legislation against Jews in western Europe, which sent shock waves through the French Jewish population. It talks about Action Française, which by the mid-1930s regularly sent hooligans and other right-wing political leagues, who had taken a decided turn towards antisemitism, into immigrant neighbourhoods.

Jewish Literature in France 1920–1932

This chapter covers a set of concerns surrounding the emergence of a modern Jewish literature in the French language. It explains what the novelty of a few maverick intellectuals in the pre-war years that became a recognized genre of writing in the 1920s. It identifies Jewish writers who began to publish novels, plays, poems, collections of folklore, and short stories about different aspects of Jewish life and the issues of assimilation and acculturation in modern society. The chapter discusses Jewish literature in translation that comprised important components of literary renaissance. It also details how French readers were introduced to the world of east European and North African Jewry through novels and short stories written in French by writers who had migrated to France.

Introduction

This chapter reviews the Jewish cultural innovation and self-definition in early twentieth-century France that highlights the complex and ambivalent nature of Jewish grappling with the issue of identity in the modern world. It cites French Jews that began to question how they should define Jewishness in a society where Jews enjoyed full political equality. It also talks about writers with Jewish identity who explore biblical themes, traditional Jewish folklore, and issues of identity and assimilation. The chapter looks at journals focusing on Jewish religion, history, and culture that came into being in France between 1900 and 1932. It explores the complex ways in which both 'Jewishness' and 'Frenchness' were renegotiated in the early twentieth century.

Between Religion and Ethnicity: Zionism and Reform Judaism before the First World War

This chapter focuses on the beginnings of the Zionist movement and Reform Judaism in France. It provides a close study of the activities and publications of the Fédération Sioniste de France, which was created at the turn of the century that reveals French and east European cultural and political sensibilities. It suggests how Zionism may have had a broader influence on the outlook of French Jews even before the First World War. The chapter discusses the 1905 separation of church and state that paved the way for the founding of the first Reform congregation in France in 1907. It describes the modernization of Jewish liturgy and Jewish religious practice along the lines of the German and English Reform movements.

Reshaping Franco-Judaism 1920–1932

This chapter provides a typology of themes in the Jewish press and discusses Zionism as the most important influence on French Jewish discourse in the 1920s. It explains how Zionism and Jewishness were often equated with values held in high esteem in French society in the Zionist-oriented press. It also explores the idea of the Jew as a 'link' between East and West, which provided a way for Jews to express their difference while simultaneously reinforcing the idea that they formed a vital and necessary element in Western culture. The chapter mentions Zionist advocates in France who remained committed to the idea of Zionism as a secular 'replacement' for a religiously based Jewish identity. It then looks at a common discourse that emphasized the spiritual and religious aspects of Zionist ideology by extending the idea that the visions of Judaism should not be posed in oppositional terms.

The First World War and the Shifting Landscape of French Jewry

This chapter highlights the impact of the First World War and the changes in French Jewish society that paved the way for the expansion of Jewish associational and cultural life in the 1920s. It discusses how the war marked an important moment at which antisemitism subsided and Jewish belonging to the French nation was confirmed. It also talks about how Jewish participation in the war helped to popularize the notion that Jews were no less French for proudly affirming their unique spiritual and cultural heritage. The chapter outlines the link between issues of Jewish identity and national minority rights at the 1919 Peace Conference, the growth of the Zionist movement, and increase in Jewish immigration from eastern Europe. It describes the diversity within French-speaking natives and impoverished, Yiddish-speaking immigrants.