France and its Jews

By RACHEL KAPLAN

THE ANTI-SEMITIC MOMENT
A Tour of France in 1898
By Pierre Birnbaum.
Translated by Jane Marie Todd.
378 Pages. Hill & Wang. $35.

Although France has the world's fourth largest Jewish community, and one that has made its mark in politics, business, and the arts, many American Jews still maintain that France is a profoundly anti-Semitic country. Such an impression–while not entirely accurate–may be further reinforced reading Pierre Birnbaum's history The Anti-Semitic Moment: A Tour of France in 1898.

The "moment" Birnbaum refers to is the turbulent period of anti-Semitic and anti-Dreyfusard demonstrations that took place throughout France after the novelist Emile Zola published an open letter to the president of the French republic, under the blistering headline "J'Accuse." At the time, the letter did the unthinkable: it denounced the army and the civil authorities for unjustly convicting Captain Alfred Dreyfus of treason.

Within hours of the letter's publication, demonstrations broke out all over France, in favor of the Army and the Catholic Church and against both Zola and the Jews. Under the banner of extreme nationalism resulting from France's shameful defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, a motley group of Catholics, Boulangists (who supported the General Georges Boulanger who attempted an aborted coup d'état in 1889), workers and reactionaries united under the slogans "France for the French," "Down with Zola," "Long live the army," and "Death to the Jews!"

To document this period, Birnbaum undertook "a new kind of tour of France, a random wandering from one department seat to another." His method is "unbridled microhistory" that "turns its back on meticulous research methods, on the desire to explain, on the goal of providing carefully selected evidentiary proof."

With his unorthodox approach to history, Birnbaum sometimes takes for granted his audience's familiarity with the France of 1898 and the causes of this terrible wave of anti-Semitism. The lay reader is forced to continuously refer to the chronology of events surrounding the Dreyfus affair in the back of the book, and the social and political context of the Dreyfus Affair is not fully presented.

Nonetheless, Birnbaum's dabbling in the prefectoral archives of more than a dozen French cities and towns unearths a rich hoard of descriptive material culled mainly from tracts and newspaper articles. Birnbaum quotes extensively from these sources, many of which have lain dormant for more than a century, to recreate the terrifying atmosphere of local resentment, ignorance, and slander that fueled a vitriolic outpouring of anti-Semitism.

Contrary to views expressed by Léon Blum and Hannah Arendt, Birnbaum argues that not all French Jews reacted passively to this wave of anti-Semitism. For example, Jewish factory owners successfully used the threat that they would shut down their businesses–with dire economic consequences for their non-Jewish employees–to convince the authorities to provide police protection. Still, Birnbaum points out that religious leaders at the highest level hesitated to fight back. The Archives, a moderate Jewish newspaper, bitterly observed that while Jews were being assaulted with insults and threats, "the central consistory, our natural, legal organization, our intermediary with the government, is speechless. We are, to use the biblical expression, like a flock without a shepherd, wandering aimlessly."

Yet, although anti-Semitic local factions verbally threatened the Jewish community, the state apparatus of police and local prefectures prevented these threats from leading to a Kishinev or a Kristallnacht. "No one would make fools of the prefectural corps, the police and the gendarmerie, who maintained public order and suffered blows to protect the Jews and the civil peace," Birnbaum writes. "Even when firearms went off and caused panic, and when blades of all sorts appeared from the rioters' pockets, police officers and gendarmes tirelessly cleared the streets, made mass arrests, and protected shops, office buildings and synagogues." The French government, despite the violent and malicious intentions of some of its disgruntled citizens, extended protection to its Jews.

Of course, the issue of French attitudes toward the Jews is hardly one which can be looked at purely through a historic lens. France's contemporary Jewish community continues to fight against overt anti-Semitism, most of which travels under the guise of anti-Zionism. Quite a few anti-Zionist public outbursts took place during recent anti-war demonstrations held in Paris and in other parts of France in March, prior to the outbreak of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "A bas Israel! Down with Israel" was a common chant heard from members of the pro-Palestinian anti-war contingent. Inspired by turmoil in the Middle East, France's Jews have recently been prey to anti-Semitic attacks from members of France's six million strong Muslim population.

As an American Jew residing in France since 1993, I am comforted by my knowledge that, as it did in 1898, the French government today protects its Jews against domestic anti-Semitism. Any anti-Semitic act is regarded as a hate crime and is considered a felony under French law. Recently, the education minister, Luc Ferry, publicly criticized anti-Semitism in the schools and warned that it would no longer be tolerated. At the same time, the government has extended police protection to all synagogues and Jewish day schools. While one can only hope for a utopian future when Jews will no longer need such protection, it is gratifying to note that in our troubled times, France's politicians, intellectuals, and Jewish leaders are working closely together on a variety of issues, including the pursuit of peace in the Middle East.

In timely fashion, The Anti-Semitic Moment underscores this dual nature of France's relationship with its Jews. It reveals to the current Jewish reader both the roots of underlying anti-Semitism within a certain segment of the French political class, as well as demonstrating how this single landmark case was a catalyst in the fight against anti-Semitism–fought by both Jews and Gentiles, all living under the same flag and trying to uphold the same human rights.