This course is no longer offered

10308 French Jewry from the French Revolution to the Dreyfus Affair 1

Credits: 6 advanced credits in Modern History of the Jewish People

Prerequisites: 36 credits, including Jews in an Era of Transition or Anti-Semitism. Students must also fulfill all English requirements and take bibliographic instruction in the Library.

The course is based on a reader edited by Michael Graetz, Yaron Tsur and Jacques Ehrenfreund, and on The Jews of France: A History from Antiquity to the Present, by Esther Benbassa (Princeton University Press, 2001).

Jews in an Era of Transition (10204) discussed changes which took place in Jewish communities under the influence of processes characteristic of the modern age. In this course, students enhance their knowledge and concentrate on changes in one Jewish community: France. The French Jewish community was the first Jewish community in Europe to attain legal emancipation and to go through processes of integration into modern society. At the end of the 19th century, France witnessed a severe outburst of anti-Semitism surrounding the Dreyfus affair, which ended in the failure of the anti-Semitic bloc. The history of French Jewry is one of the most exciting and fascinating stories in the history of the Jews in the 19th century.

Topics: The transition from autonomy to a centralized community structure – from the end of the old regime through the end of the Napoleonic period; From “reclusive” Judaism to an all-encompassing orientation, 1815-1870; The Emancipation crisis – French Jewry with the rise of anti-Semitism and rising immigration from Eastern Europe.

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1Students enrolled in this course may only take one additional course from among the following: German Jewry and the Challenge of Modernization (10573), Modernization of East European Jewry (10310).