64

Friday, February 8, 1980

THE DETROIT BOSH NEWS

Changes in French Jewry Provide Valuable Lessons

French Jewry's evolu-
tionary changes, the turn
from neo-assimilation to
greater involvement in
Jewish identifications, re-
ceive thorough study in
"From Dreyfus to Vichy:
The Remaking of French
Jewry, 1906-1939" by Dr.
Paula Hyman (Columbia
University Press).
Scholarly in every re-
spect, based on thorough re-
search, Dr. Hyman's
analyses have special merit
in their applicability to
American Jewry. Her con-
clusions relate to the evolu-
tionary changes in world
CAPTAIN DREYFUS
Jewry, as well as to the
many problems that con-
community, which cau-
tinue to irritate the efforts
tiously defined itself as
to stimulate greater con-
cerns in Jewish matters by 'politically neutral,' vul-
nerable to right-wing
the youth.
"From Dreyfus to Vichy" elements.
"For the forces of the
would be incomplete with-
out taking into account the Right had always seen as a
fiction
the elimination by
xenophobia that was ram-
pant in France; or the cul- French Jews of their ethnic
tural pluralism that was a particularity or the descrip-
matter of concern and is of tion of that particularity as
but another French provin-
major interest in the remak-
ing of France in the years cial tradition.
"The social, political, and
that included World War I
ideological ferment of the
and approached the
calamities of World War II. years between the Dreyfus
The author likens Affair and World War II
many of the problems re- belie the illusion, often fos-
lating to French Jewry, tered by both Eastern Euro-
with specific reference to pean and Zionist observers,
French Jewish youth, to that Western European
those that have affected Jewry simply stagnated
after achieving its emanci-
American Jewry.
These interrelationships pation.
"French Jewry gives evi-
find emphasis in a conclud-
ing chapter in which Dr. dence of change, diversity,
and
vigorous attempts to
Hyman asserts:
"The outspoken leaders of find appropriate socio-
the younger generation cultural and political forms
were unwilling to deny—as of self-expression within the
they felt consistorial circles limits established by the
tended ever more fre- conditions of the declining
quently to do — the exist- Third Republic.
ence of specifically Jewish
"Its tragedy lies more
political interests. Rather, in the nature of those
they assumed responsibility limits than in its political
for defining and defending blindness. For none of
Jewish interests, even in the different political
the face of both public courses of action pro-
apathy and antipathy.
posed by various seg-
"The challenges of the ments of French Jewry
1930s revealed to these could mitigate the vul-
young French Jews the nerability of the Jewish
bankruptcy and irrelevancy community.
for their own time of the
"The new trends dis-
ideology of emancipation, cerned in French Jewry in
with its strictly religious the first four decades of the
definition of Judaism. In 20th Century were cut short
their eyes the discredited by the Holocaust, which
ideology was responsible for claimed 30 percent of the
the abject political quietism prewar community. Among
which characterized the na- its victims were large num-
tive French Jewish estab- bers of the emerging leader-
lishment.
ship of the younger genera-
"The ideology of eman- tion.
cipation had proved
"In particular, because
functional for French the Vichy regime was will-
Jewry in the 19th Cen- ing to sacrifice non-citizens
tury, when a triumphant first, the community of
liberalism could be relied Eastern European immig-
upon as a defender of the rants and their offspring
French was decimated; the
equality of
Jewry. However, the ero- ideologies generated and
sion of liberal forces in fed by the immigrant popu-
the last years of the Third lation withered.
Republic left a Jewish
"While the acculturation

of the immigrant commu-
nity would have pro-
gressively reduced the ap-
peal of movements rooted in
Eastern European rather
than French soil, the at-
tempts to adapt immigrant
culture to the French
environment were denied
the test of time.

"Yet the Meeting of
immigrant and French
Jews in the years be-
tween Dreyfus and Vichy
was not without long-
term consequences. The
experience of that con-
frontation prepared
French Jewry to inte-
grate into its midst, with
far more generosity than
it had shown to earlier
immigrants, the 300,000
North African Jews, who
were to make France's
Jewish community in the
1960s and 1970s the
largest in Western
Europe."

The effects of the emanci-
pation hopes and the era of
liberation after the Dreyfus
Affair are evident in the re-
searched data and in the re-
view of the assimilatory
tendencies and the anti-
Semitism that has influ-
enced the thinking of
French Jewry. Dr. Hyman
comments:
"The French Jewish
community which con-
fronted the crises of the
1930s was very different
from and far more complex
than the community which
had faced the Dreyfus Af-
fair.
"In the interwar period
French Jewry, in fact, be-
came two communities,
united neither in acknowl-
edged spokesmen nor in
proposed strategies to deal
with the fierce xenophobia
and anti-Semitism which
arose as responses to the
economic depression and
the social tensions of the
1930s.

"The experiences of the
interwar years and the
new constellation of
French Jewry converged
to erode the French
Jewish synthesis which
had been established
during the 19th Century.
Though most of the
changes in post-World
War H French Jewry
have been attributed to
the impact of the
Holocaust, the estab-
lishment of the state of Is-
rael, and massive immi-
gration from North Af-
rica, in fact they were set
in motion in the years
preceding the war.

"For the growing diver-
sity of France's Jews in the
first four decades of the 20th
Century reopened, for the
first time since the emanci-
pation, the question of the
nature of Jewish institu-

tional and political activity
in France."
The dedication to Israel,
the interest created in
Zionism, had serious effects
on French Jewry. There was
the Communist element,
whose role to the contrary
also had its visibility, and
on this score Dr. Hyman of-
fers these revealing facts:
"While concerned with
anti-Semitism and commit-
ted to the propagation of
Yiddish, the Jewish Com-
munists taught Yiddish
without Yiddishkeit
(Jewishness). Their pro-
gram, which lacked any
specifically Jewish content,
essentially used Yiddish as
a means of evoking
working-class loyalties
engendered originally in
Eastern Europe and as a
means of strengthening
class consciousness.
"It was, therefore, a one-
generation phenomenon,
dependent upon the per-
sonal experience and.mem-
ory of Jewish life in Eastern
Europe. In fact, the
French-born children of
Yiddish-speaking parents
moved with ease into the
general branches of the
French labor movement.

French Jewry and
lamented its profound
assimilation. Focusing on
public opposition to
Zionism and on the fail-
ure of Zionist organizing
campaigns, historians of
French Jewry, too, have
dismissed Zionism as a
force within French
Jewish life prior to the
Holocaust.

"Yet the indirect impact
of Zionism, particularly in
the 1930s, should not be un-
derestimated. It would be
impossible to understand
the transformation of
French Jewry without tak-
ing account of the infiltra-
tion of Zionism into the
French Jewish community.

"During the years of its
ascendancy, however,
the Jewish labor move-
ment vociferously at-
tacked the social and
LEON BLUM
political assumptions of
"Even in the absence of a
native French Jewry. It thriving Zionist organiza-
denied the existence of a tion in France, elements of
Jewish community and Zionist ideology penetrated
of common Jewish inter- into the world view of major
ests across class lines. It segments of French Jewry.
rejected religion as the Zionism attracted the sup-
basis for Jewish identity. port of famous men of letters

"Offering an ideological
analysis of the Jewish ques-
tion, it decried the politics of
neutrality and quietism in
favor of organized and pub-
lic Jewish politics. More
than any other element
within immigrant Jewry,
the Left crystallized the
conflict between native and
immigrant Jews."
The Zionist impacts have
so much merit in France in
relation to Jewries of other
lands that Dr. Hyman's
views have special interest'
for the student of world
Jewish affairs. The author
points to the dignitaries
who have taken leading
roles in advancing the
Zionist cause. In her chap-
ter "The Infiltration of
Zionism" she states:
"As the major supporters
of Zionist activity, immig-
rant Jews wielded a power-
ful tool to strengthen
Jewish cultural life and
self-perception in France.
As one native French Jew
noted in 1935, 'Virtually all
Jewish movement, all the
essential stimulus of Jewish
activity, particularly ... of
Zionist tendency are due to
these newly arrived French
Jews of foreign origin. It is
to them that we Jews resi-
dent in France for genera-
tions owe our being led to
these properly Jewish ac-
tivities to which we had be-
come unaccustomed.

This assessment may
apOear paradoxical, for
the Zionist movement it-
self often despaired of

like Edmond Fleg and
Andre Spire, who came to
represent in their much re-
spected persons the fusion of
French sentiment and sup-
port for Zionism.
"Zionist influence can be
discerned in what was
termed the cultural renais-
sance of French Jewry.
Moreover, Zionism provided
an alternative to the as-
similationist model which
had been the norm for Jews
in post-emancipation
France and which did not
appeal to immigrant Jews
from Eastern Europe."

Major in the cast of
characters in this volume
is Leon Blum, who was
elected to the French
premiership after surviv-

Mg Nazi persecution in a
concentration camp and
who had a leading role in
Zionism and the Jewish
Agency.

When the anti-Semitic
leadership of Col. Francois
de la Roque became a mat-
ter of great concern in
France, there were warn-
ings of impending dangers
to the Jewish community by
Marc Jarblum, who became
a Poale Zion leader in
France, and Leon Blum.
Quoting "From Dreyfus to
Vichy":
"Leon Blum saw a simi-
larity between the attitudes
of the Jews of his time and
the time of the Dreyfus Af-
fair
" The rich Jews, the Jews
of the middle bourgeoisie,
the Jewish functionaries
feared the struggle under-
taken for Dreyfus exactly as
they fear today the struggle
undertaken against fascism
... They imagined that the
anti-Semitic passion would
be turned aside by their
cowardly neutrality . . .
They understood no better
than they understand today
that no precaution ...
would delude the adversary
and that they remained the
victims offered to trium-
phant anti-dreyfusism or
fascism.' "

The Leon Blum role
holds frequent attention
in Paula Hyman's
noteworthy accounts of
the European history
under review in her book.

Scores of incidents are re-
corded by Miss Hyman. She
describes the cultural ac-
tivities in the French
Jewish community, the
progress made in the Yid-
dish theater, the appear-
ance on lecture platforms of
notables like Sholem
Aleichem.
Illustrations in the
Hyman book include a re-
production of a poster in
French and Yiddish urging
immigrant Jews to volun-
teer for army service in
1914. A portrait of Andre
Spire, who was prominent
in French Jewish leader-
ship, is by Maxa Nordau.
Paula Hyman studied at
Radcliffe and Hebrew Col-
lege and earned her PhD at
Columbia University. She
is presently assistant pro-
fessor of history at Colum-
bia.

—P.S.

A 1932 street scene in the "Pletzl," the heart of the
immigrant Jewish quarter in Paris.