Every American is now more than ever interested in Europe, and
especially in those countries with which we are associated in the War.
France, in particular, claims our attention. It is for this reason
that as Jews we cannot help being interested in the relation of France
to the Jewish people. Many of our sons soon will find themselves on
French soil to take part in the liberation of France, which now means
part of the defense of our own Republic. Not a few of our women, also,
will be there--are there already, engaged in work of relief and
restoration. It is but proper that we should recall what connection
has existed between the Jew and France.
France has played an important part in Jewish history. There have been
Jews in France from earliest times, perhaps from the very beginning of
the Christian era. About the middle of the fifth century we know
definitely that there was a considerable number of Jews in France and
that they lived on terms of friendship with the rest of the
population. When Hilary, bishop of Arles, died in the year 449, Jews
as well as Christians wept at his funeral, the Jews chanting Psalms in
Hebrew. From that early age on, France has been a most important
factor in Jewish history.
The conditions of life for the Jew have not been the same there
always. There is the usual story of vacillation and misfortune. France
also has had her periods of persecution and expulsion for the
Jews--particularly when she consisted of small provinces and factions.
There was the usual story of malign charges and disputations, and
Hebrew books now and then were confiscated and burnt as containing
attacks on Christianity. The public burning of the Talmud at Paris, in
the year 1242, the several expulsions during the fourteenth century,
culminating in the expulsion of 1394--just about a century before the
expulsion from Spain--are among the tragic incidents of medieval
Jewish history. France did not escape the religious fanaticism which
formed one of the dark features of the middle ages.
But all in all, the Jews have had a glorious history in France,
crowned by the fact that she was the first country in Europe to give
full civil and political rights to the Jews, as she did during the
Revolution, on September 28th, 1791. France thus inaugurated a new era
in Jewish history. Indeed, she thus brought about the modern rebirth
of the Jew--the Jew's full entry into modern life. Therefore, when it
is said that every man has two countries--his own and France, we may
justly apply it in particular to the modern Jew.
Nor was the leadership of France in the modern emancipation of the Jew
an accident. It was part of the liberal spirit which has found varied
expression in France, and which could not ignore the Jew and the
maltreatment that was meted out to him all over Europe.
When Montesquieu wrote his great work, _The Spirit of the Laws_, in
the year 1748, he did not forget all the services that the Jews had
rendered to civilization, nor did he fail to deplore the outrageous
way the Jews were dealt with. The Christians, he affirmed, were
treating their Jewish neighbors in a more inhuman way than the
Japanese of those days treated the Christians. Readers of Montesquieu
could not help remembering that remonstrance, and it is quite likely
that Louis XVI was inspired by it to the abolition of the Jewish
poll-tax, as well as to the appointment of a special commission, under
the presidency of Malesherbes, for the study of Jewish conditions,
with a view to their improvement.
But it is not commonly known that about forty years before Montesquieu
issued his book, there appeared in France an epoch-making work, of
which the leading Jewish historian, Graetz, has well said that it
rendered an incalculable service to Judaism.
This work was the _History of the Religion of the Jews_, by Jacques
Basnage de Beauval, a celebrated scholar and writer, published in the
years 1707-11. It marked the first attempt to write a complete history
of the Jews from the time of Christ to modern times, and was designed
by the author as a continuation of the historical work of Josephus.
It was particularly noteworthy coming from a Christian theologian,
seeing that the conventional Christian view was (and often still is)
that the Jewish religion really ceased with the coming of Jesus.
Christianity was supposed to have abolished and eliminated Judaism.
Yet Basnage realized that the contrary was true. Judaism was not dead.
The Jews were still alive.
For five years he gave himself to the task of collecting material, and
he produced a work which, whatever its shortcomings, was remarkable as
the first of its kind, aside from the enormous amount of scholarship
that went into its composition. But there was more than scholarship in
the work; behind it was a realization of the marvel of Jewish history
and resentment of the brutality with which the Jew was treated. Let no
one wonder, said the author, if we denounce certain charges made
against the Jew. "In the course of the centuries people have
developed a spirit of cruelty and barbarism toward the Jews. They
have been accused of being the cause of all calamities and charged
with all kinds of crimes which never entered their minds. Everywhere
they have been mobbed and massacred. Nevertheless, by a miracle of
Providence, they still exist today everywhere. The bush of Moses,
encircled by flames, has always burnt without being consumed."
The liberal spirit of Montesquieu and Basnage found new expression,
and, we may say its culmination, in the men of the Revolution.
Mirabeau, who in Berlin came in contact with Mendelssohn and got to
know Dohm's famous work on the Civil Improvement of the Jews, issued
in 1781, wrote a warm plea for the emancipation of the Jews, under the
title of _Mendelssohn and the Political Improvement of the Jews_. His
plea was supported by Gregoire, a priest, and Duport, a Jacobin member
of the National Assembly, and it finally resulted in the Assembly's
abrogation of Jewish disabilities, and the invitation to the Jews to
take the oath of citizenship.
Thus, on September 28th, 1791, the Jews of France were liberated, and
the Jews of the world celebrated the beginning of a new era of freedom
and of the opportunities that are bound up with freedom.
In the spiritual history of the Jew, also, France has played an
illustrious part. In the middle ages there was no country where there
was so large a number of brilliant and erudite scholars, and so
energetic an activity, as in the numerous Jewish communities of
France. North and South rivaled each other. Some of the most
influential Jewish teachers of all times came from these French
schools.
Think, for instance, of R. Gershom, called the Light of the Exile, in
the eleventh century, who, though he founded a school at Mayence, came
from Metz, and continued to draw disciples from many parts of France.
He was one of the chief organizers of medieval Jewish life. He was the
first to prohibit polygamy among Western Jews.
Then think of Rashi--the greatest of biblical exegetes and
commentators.
At Vitry, on the Marne, was produced the most important work on the
Jewish liturgy, known as _Mahzor Vitry_. R. Moses of Coucy compiled
the most popular work on religious ordinances, the _Sepher Mitzwoth
ha-gadol_.
Thus, we might go on and name the illustrious talmudists, and
commentators, and philosophers of the Jews in France. Though each
possessed his own characteristics and merits, we may justly say that
the rabbis of France as a class were distinguished for that clarity of
thought, directness of expression, and simple piety which we associate
with France.
The Provence, too, was the centre of the great translators, who turned
the classics of Arabic Jewish learning into Hebrew, and thus made them
accessible to those parts of Europe unfamiliar with Arabic. Indeed, to
this day, thanks to these achievements, the spiritual life of Israel
the world over is, consciously or no, under the influence of France.
When we think of this record, we shall not wonder that the Jews of
France are devoted to their country and prominent in its affairs. It
was this very prominence of the Jews that led some base people to
embrace anti-Semitism, and resulted in the Dreyfus scandal some years
ago. But nothing shows the character of France so clearly as her
readiness to right a wrong. In the Dreyfus case, too, she made _amende
honorable_, and today Captain Dreyfus, the martyr of Devils Island,
Major Dreyfus, as he is now, is actively working for the salvation of
his country.
One good result of the War has been the cessation of anti-Semitism in
France. This is demonstrated by such a book as M. Maurice Barres's
_Les diverses familles spirituelles la France_. Formerly, M. Barres,
president of the League of Patriots, as well as one of the most
brilliant writers of France, was an anti-Semite. But now that is all
over. One of his most sympathetic chapters is on the Jews--on their
loyalty and devotion, and he dwells with admiration on the famous
incident of Rabbi Bloch of Lyons, who, in the early days of the War,
died on the battlefield while offering a crucifix to a dying Catholic
soldier, being struck by an enemy's shell. "Here," he says,
"fraternity finds its perfect expression. The aged rabbi offering to
the dying soldier the immortal sign of Christ on the cross, this is a
picture which will not perish." Nor will it perish!
A long history--full of heroism and honor--links the Jew with France.
Let us hope that the future may add to this splendor, and that France
will ever remain the exemplar of liberty, equality, and fraternity,
and that she will continue to play an important part in the spiritual
as well as the secular life of Israel!