Trudy Gold
Modern French Antisemitism
Trudy Gold - Modern French Antisemitism
- Okay. Well, good evening, everyone. And welcome to a very, very cold England, about to be snowy. And following on from William’s lecture on Monday when we looked at the huge differences in French society and the instability in French society, I’m now going to look at the role of Jews in the 19th century, early 19th century in France. Now, remember that there were only 40,000 Jews at the time of the French Revolution, and then there were only 100,000 by 1900, out of a population of 38 million. So they were a tiny percentage of society. But by the 1860s, 1870s, Two thirds of Jewry are actually living in Paris. So. Also, and I think we illustrated that when we looked at Napoleon and the response to the Grand Sanhedrin. The Jews of France were desperate to become part of French society. France dazzled them and now they can really be part of it. And because he’d broken down the ghetto wars in so many other countries, he was really seen to the Jews of the West as something very special. Of course, we looked at the infamous decree and we also looked at how a lot of Eastern European Jewry welcomed Napoleon. Don’t forget the crisis of modernity, danger and opportunity. But I think what we should say is the majority of French Jews now want to be Frenchmen of the Jewish religion. And also Napoleon wanted to create a more egalitarian state.
So there were all sorts of opportunities for gifted children. So as a result, we’re going to see Jews flooding into the arts, to finance, trade, and even government. I think it’s best personified by a man called Adolphe Cremieux. And unfortunately I don’t have a picture of him, but I’m going to talk briefly about his life before we get onto the role of the Jews in finance. Now, the first thing I want to say is that although Jews are going to be very prominent in French society, very much as the pioneers of modernity, you need to differentiate between prominence and power. And you need to think where power really was in France, in France that couldn’t make up its mind, whether it was a monarchy or whether it was a republic. And amongst the monarchists changing various times. First the brother, the two brothers of Louis XXI, and then the nephew of Napoleon also becoming the emperor of the French, and then of course, the dazzling Third Republic. What sort of society did France want? And against the backdrop of huge modernity, plus of course huge insecurity, think about the peasantry, think about the rural population of France. France is a much bigger country than England as a comparison. And the peasantry, more and more suffering, in the cities, the poor, and also as against modernity, a wish to go back to the old ways, the old values. So France is completely divided and something else, don’t forget the incredible power of the Catholic Church.
But to give you a notion of Adolphe Cremieux, he came from a wealthy Jewish family. Under the new laws, he becomes a lawyer. He is both a Jew by religion and a proud Frenchman. After the 1830 revolution, he comes to Paris and he comes from a wealthy family. He’s a very clever man, he becomes part of the salons. He has connections with political influence. He meets Louis Philippe and he becomes an incredible advocate of liberal ideas and policies, both in the courts and in the press. Because the other point about France, if you think about the press, it’s so divided between the liberal press that push the values of the republic and the ideas of the Enlightenment, and of course, the right wing and Catholic press. He becomes a Deputy in the General Assembly in 1842. And until 1834, until his death, he is head of the Consistory, the Jewish Consistory in Paris. If you remember, Napoleon had set up consistories. He wanted every Jew to register as a Jew by religion so that he could control and know the numbers. In 1848, the Revolution, he’s chosen as a member of the provisional government as Minister of Justice. Back in 1830, he was responsible for the last demeaning law against the Jews, the Jewish Oath. He has that removed. He was a great man.
And also don’t forget, France has a liberal tradition. It has an Enlightenment tradition. He secured the abolition of the death penalty for political offences. He’s instrumental in declaring the end of slavery in the French colonies. And at first he was a great supporter of Louis Napoleon. But when he realised he had imperial aspirations, he broke with him. He was arrested and on his release, he leads a private life until, of course, 1870, when he’s a Republican deputy. And he becomes Minister of Justice in the New Republic. Back in 1860, he was one of the founders of the Alliance. And I will come back to the Alliance in another lecture. It’s very, very important. It was an organisation to look after Jews worldwide. And not only that, to spread French culture. So in love with French culture were the Jews of France, that the Alliance is the organisation that spreads French culture. And if you think about what happens in the French colonies in Algeria, in Morocco, and really throughout the French world, what you have is the opening up of schools to promote French culture amongst Jews. Now, he’d actually, Cremieux worked at the Congress of Berlin for Jewish rights. The first schools were opened in Morocco, a school was opened in Baghdad. And in 1870, Charles Netter, who was a founding member of the Alliance, received a grant of land from the Ottoman Turks to open an agricultural school in Palestine. By 1900, there were 100 schools.
And these are Jews living in the colonies who are going to be educated in French culture. He also was responsible for Jews of Algeria being seen as citizens of France, not the same for the Muslims, which caused a lot of bad blood. But the point was, he believed passionately in French culture, he believed in France and he was a proud Jew. And he worked a lot with Moses Montefiore in England. And I wanted to start with him as an illustration of how so many Jews who threw themselves into France succeeded and also succeeded along with other liberal colleagues. Don’t forget that. But this isn’t power, this is influence. You need to ask where power really is. Power is with the Church, it’s with the Army, it’s with politicians. And though certain Jews are in politics, power only works if every Jew is in league with every other Jew. And believe me, that never happened. Now, that is the French stock exchange. By the 1840s, about a third of the bankers in France were Jewish. And this is going to set the scene for people really believing in the power of the Jew. And can we have a look at some of those families please, Judi? Here you see the extraordinary James de Rothschild and his wife, Betty.
Now James was the youngest son of Amschel. Amschel was of course the founder of the Rothschild dynasty, And he is sent to Paris. He changes his name from Jacob to James, and he marries Betty von Rothschild, who is of course, she is the daughter of the Austrian Rothschild. So the niece marries the uncle. And not only were they incredibly wealthy, not only does the bank become one of the most powerful banks in the world, don’t forget de Rothschilds, all the brothers working together. In July, 1830, it was James who put together the loan to stabilise the new government. The new government gave him the Legion of Honour. And he also was very involved in the beginnings of the railway network. And again, one of the faces of modernity, the creation of the railway network. Now Betty, very great beauty. Her salon in Paris was where everybody wanted to go. She was a patron of Chopin and who dedicated some music to her. Heine spent a lot of time in her salon. And she was 19 when she married her uncle. The guests at her salons included politicians, painters, artists, musicians. She sat for Ingres, and I know Patrick is going to do a session on that. So, also they were great philanthropists. The Rothschild Hospital in Paris was opened in 1852.
Originally it was to serve the Jewish community, but later on it was for others as well. Huge amount of money given to the poor, foundations for social housing, orphanages, set up a TB sanatorium in Paris and later on in Cannes. And of course, after her husband’s death, she spent most of her time in the Villa Rothschild in Cannes. Can we see it please, if you don’t mind, Judi. There, that’s the beautiful estate in Cannes. So on one level you do have this small cadre of incredibly wealthy bankers. But the majority of Jews who who had settled in Paris in the main became middle class. Some of them were writers, some of them were intellectuals, and some of them of course, are going to be very, very left wing. Can we see the next slide, please? Here you see Alphonse de Rothschild, who is the son of James. And he marries Leonora de Rothschild, who is the daughter of Nathan. So they kept on inter-marrying. What was incredible about the Rothschilds, the same thing didn’t happen to them, that happened to the Hapsburgs, they remain very, very acute. And he becomes a major force in the world of finance. He is the regent of the Bank of France. He goes into the wine business with his brother Gustav and developed a huge rivalry with his cousin Nathaniel.
And Nathaniel works at the bank. And of course they’re very, as I said, they’re very involved in the wine business and this very much. And Alphonse and Gustav inherited the Chateau Lafite vineyard. He is also the major shareholder in the Northern Railway Company, which is created in 1845. Can we see the next slide please? Now I want you to see this. He’s in partnership here with another Jewish family, the Pereire brothers. Now look what they created. Now, this is really the modernization of France, and Alphonse is the chairman of Chemins de Fer du Nord. So have a look. They create the Paris-Lille Railway. Just go through the list. The Boulogne, Lille, Arras, Amiens, this is opening up the country. Is it good? Is it bad? Well, for those who loved modernity and wanted France to industrialise and to benefit from the modern world, it’s wonderful. But what is it also about? During the Franco-Prussian war, because of course, France is not only going to be beset by different changes as government. In 1870, 1871, the terrible Franco-Prussian war, and he was a loyal Frenchman. He was on the ramparts and also later on, helped to raise the money to pay Prussian reparations. The Prussians demanded a huge amount of money, and he was responsible for really establishing with the Pereire brothers, financial stability in France.
And he had to face the really, all the financial crisis that are going to rock France. He was given the Legion d'honneur and later he was elevated to the Grand Cross, which is the highest honour any Frenchman can have. Now, his great passion, Alphonse’s great passion was horses. You know, also this wanting to be part of the upper classes, the same thing was happening in England. Age 24, he becomes a member of the French Jockey Club. He was an enthusiastic horse breeder. He won many prizes. Now can we move on to the next Rothschild, please? This is Baron Edmond de Rothschild. He’s the youngest child of Betty and James. He grew up in the Second Republic and Second Empire, and was also a guard during the war, the Franco-Prussian war. He marries Adelheid von Rothschild of the Naples branch. He took little interest in banking and becomes a major philanthropist. He helps to finance scientific institutes. Remember, this is also the development of science and technology, including the Henri Poincare Institute for International Exchange between mathematicians and theoretical physicists. It becomes part of the Sorbonne. He was a member of the French Academy of Beaux Arts and sponsored many archaeological digs.
He was an incredibly important art collector. And he bequeathed to the Louvre more than 40,000 engravings, 3000 drawings, 500 illustrative books, including 1,000 engravings and drawings by Rembrandt. And part of his art collection. he bequeathed to his son James. It’s now part of the Waddesdon Collection. But he was a great French patriarch. He later cuts back on his sales of art, buying art, beg your pardon, to help with funding certain institutions in Palestine like Rishon LeZion and Zikhron Ya'akov. He also supplies a glass factory in Palestine. In fact, I’m going to leave that till Thursday when I talk about Theodore Herzl because he wanted to help poor Jews in trouble. Was he a Zionist? We’ll discuss that next week. But he was considered to be a great benefactor of the Jewish state. And his remains later were transported back to Israel after Israel was created. And he is buried on a hilltop near Haifa, Ramat HaNadiv. He is the great generous one, HaNadiv, the generous one. And the eulogy at his reinterment was given by, of course, Ben-Gurion. But more about him. So you’ve got this incredibly powerful family. And now can we go on please, to another important powerful family. Remember what I’ve just told you, a third of the bankers in France were of Jewish birth. He had a huge influence on financial affairs in the 1848 provisional government. During the presidency of Louis Napoleon, he was four times Minister of France. He plays a key role in economic reforms. And, in 1855, he was the Director of the Paris Exhibition.
They throw themselves into French culture. And in 1852, he’s behind the scheme to establish the credit bank, Credit Mobilier it became. Also was involved with the Rothschilds and the Pereire brothers in the constructions of new harbours, railways. And he is a member of the Academy of Fine Arts. He, in 1858, he so wants to become a real Frenchman. He converts. So the Pereire brothers, the two brothers, also very important bankers. They’re part of the second empire of Louis Napoleon. At one stage, they almost rivalled the Rothschilds. They were the railway kings. They also went into the wine business. They set up the Paris Transport System, the Paris Gas Lighting concession, involved in transatlantic shipping, hotels, insurance, international banking, all of the beacons of modernity, also coal mining, newspapers. They had a terrible financial fall at the end of the second empire but they were very important in the Paris landscape. For example, the Gare Saint-Lazare was financed by them, so was the Parc Monceau. A relative, a man called Benoit Fould was the first Jew to be elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He’d married Helen Oppenheimer, who was a founder of the Oppenheimer Private Bank. And they came from a whole tradition of court Jews. Now this is what Heine said, when Benoit was elected to the Chamber of deputies, the great cynic Heine, “Emancipation is complete now that a Jew without brains, talent, ability, or any endowment save wealth can like the Christians, similarly endowed, be elected to the highest legislative chamber.” Now, there was the Reinach family, French bankers of German-Jewish origin.
And I should mention here, that particularly after the Franco-Prussian war, when Alsace becomes part of Germany, many of these bankers and many Jews who’d been living under French rule, chose to stay under French rule. And they moved out of Alsace to France, particularly to Paris. “How loyal were they?” in inverted commas. So the Foulds had an incredible, incredible mansion in the Parc Monceau. As did the Reinachs, and of course we know what happened to them. Now, one of the Foulds was also involved in the scandals that are going to rock France. But before I do that, I need to give you a taste of some of the other characters who were seen, who were very much seen as part of the Jewish establishment and what they really were, were entrepreneurs in love with France. When I say part of the Jewish establishment, seen almost as a network. And can we come onto the next one please? Meet Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Now Baron Maurice de Hirsch was of course of German extraction, but he had an incredible estate in France and he was really the railway king of Europe. He built the railway of the Turkish empire. He spent much of his time in London. He was a close friend of Edward VII. More about him when we look at the Jews of Germany in February, March.
But Baron Maurice de Hirsch with his wonderful townhouse in Paris, he’s going to be visited by Theodore Herzl. So more about that on Thursday. Can we go on please? Here we see a fascinating man called Theophile Bader. Now, I expect those of you who have not studied this period in depth will not have heard of him. He and his cousin, Alphonse Kann, German Jews, but now living in Paris, opened a novelty store on the corner of Rue La Fayette. In 1896, can we see the next slide? because everybody will know what I’m talking about now. They created, of course, the Galeries Lafayette, one of the great wonders of the world. It becomes a gigantic department store. The cousins take over the entire building. And the best artists were charged with the decor, it’s art nouveau, it’s absolutely wondrous. There were 96 different departments. There was a tea room, there was a reading room, there were smoking rooms. And the terrace with the most incredible panoramic views of Paris. Now, this is of course one of the great landmarks of Paris after the Eiffel Tower. It’s evidently the second most visited spot in Paris. And it’s created by these Jewish cousins. And in fact, Bader was, as I said, he come from Alsace. They’d started out as livestock dealers and owning vineyards. And the name Bader occurred after Napoleon required Jews to change their names. And they opened the stores in Liesse, in Lyon, in land, Montpelier. And they also sold ready-to-wear.
By 1940, unfortunately, it was aryanized and the sons-in-law joined the resistance. One of the sons-in-law, Max Heilbronn, he actually founded Monoprixx and he, of course you all know the Monoprix stores. And in that family, there’s an incredible problem over their looted art. They were huge art collectors. And I’ll be dealing more with this issue as we come into the 20th century. But this is where it all starts. This period where Jews are plunging into the modernity of France and enriching it and loving it as French citizens. And it’s not just in the department stores. Can we turn to the next person please? Here you see Andre Citroen. Well, you know what he was responsible for. An important industrialist. He was born in Paris to a diamond merchant, a man called Levy Citroen. He of course was founder of the French car company. Ironically, his cousin is AJ Ayer, the great philosopher at Oxford, the great friend of Isaiah Berlin, who was the only son of his aunt. His father, he had a sad background. His father had committed suicide after the failure of a South African diamond venture. He becomes an engineer. And he founds Citroen in 1919 by 1930s. By the 1930s, it’s the fourth largest car business in the world. He died in Paris in 1935. He was brilliant.
During World War I, he was responsible, he was such a loyal Frenchman. He becomes the chairman before the First World War of the automotive company. He was instrumental behind the double chevron logo. He’d great attention to detail. And during the First World War, mass production of armaments, he was brilliant at mass production. His activities were connected to the Renault plant, which employed 35,000 men during the war. So he was also a great pioneer in the use of advertising and the development of dealership networks. Totally modern man, very much part of the France, the modern side of France, the liberal enlightenment side of France. And now, I’m going to show you a couple of other faces. Of course, Karl Marx. Now why am I showing you the converted German Jew? Because he spent a lot of time in Paris. He was actually in Paris in 1848 at the time of the revolution and had to flee for his life to London. And of course that was when he had written “The Communist Manifesto.” So he was responsible for that terrible phrase that the God of the Jews is mammon and that Jews are about capitalism. He suffered from a phrase I don’t often use lightly. He was a real self-hating Jew. And who was he very friendly with though, when he was in France? Can we see the next slide, Judi? Of course, Heinrich Heine, the great German Jewish poet who had exiled himself to France, the doubly alienated poet who lives much of his life in France, also at its centre of radicalism. Characters like Fourier, Proudhon, also radicals. The problem was that Proudhon, Marx and Fourier also saw Jews as capitalists. So left wing ideas in France were quite often coloured with anti-Jewish feeling. So. What is going to happen is this, 1870 to 71, the Franco-Prussian War, a humiliating defeat ushers in the Third Republic.
The Third Republic for the liberals, for the enlightened, for those who loved art and culture, it was wondrous. For those who were conservative, who hankered after monarchy, who were strong Catholics, it was a terrible, terrible place. And to make matters worse, there were a series of financial scandals. In 1873, the stock market crashed. So thousands of middle class Frenchmen lost their savings. And then in 1882, the Catholic Union Bank collapsed. More and more thousands of ordinary folk, Catholic, small Catholic shareholders, lost everything. There wasn’t one Jew involved, but Jews were blamed. In 1884, the Panama Canal Company collapsed. This time Jews were involved, the Isaac brothers. And also one of the Reinachs. And again, Jewish financiers were blamed, although the majority of those involved were not Jewish. So it’s important to remember that there were a group now who were badly suffering. Now just think, a humiliating defeat in war, plus of course the Communard revolution. And who do we have on the papal throne between 1846 and 1878? One of the most conservative popes in history. Can we see that? There you have Pope Pius IX, 1872 to 1878. And on the papal throne between 1846 to 1878. When he first comes to the papacy, it was believed that he was going to be a champion of liberalism. But the 1848 revolutions changed all that.
Upon the assassination of one of the Vatican cardinals, he had to escape to Rome. And he excommunicated all those in the short-lived Roman Republic. There was a revolution in Rome. And after its suppression by the French army and his return, he becomes more and more reactionary. In 1854, he came up with a doctrine. He was a great believer in the cult of the Virgin Mary. And he actually came up with the doctrine that Mary herself was born without sin, the Immaculate Conception. 1864, the syllabus of errors, the condemnation of liberalism, modernism, moral relativism, secularisation, and any notion of the separateness of the Church and the state. 1870, his doctrine of papal infallibility, the Pope can never be wrong. He is God’s representative on Earth. And anything he says is God-given and must be right. Ironically, in 2000, in the year 2000, Pope John Paul beatified him. There were huge protests, led particularly by the descendants of the Mortara family. The Mortara case was a terrible case in 1858 when a young Jewish boy living in one of the papal states was secretly baptised by his Catholic nurse and taken to the House of Corrections, the Jesuits, and they wouldn’t give him back and the Pope would refuse to interfere. He said, no, he’s a Catholic boy.
And in fact refused to see. When Montefiore, the English patron of the Jews went to try and intervene, the papal nuncio for foreign affairs actually said, “How much money did you have to pay, did the Rothschilds pay after the Damascus affair?” When again, a terrible blood libel, the sultan of Turkey said it didn’t exist. So you have a very, very anti-Semitic pope. And if you look at some of his speeches. “Of these dogs, Jews, there are too many of them in Rome. And we hear them howling in the streets and they are disturbing us in all the places.” And the 1872 speech, “The Jews are the enemies of Christendom and civilised society.” So this is the kind of man that we now have on the papal throne. He’s an incredibly staunch Catholic. And this is a letter that he wrote to Leopold II. “The church has always kept Catholics in as much as possible from having any contact with the infidels. Otherwise it would open to the way to request from other civil rights for the Jews and other non-Catholics.” This is from the “Catholic Encyclopaedia.” “The long papacy of Pius IX rescued the Church from its darkest days in the aftermath of the French Revolution. By 1815, the Church as an institution in continental Europe had nearly been destroyed. When Pius IX died in 1878, after a 32 year reign, the Church had been reborn.” So what you have in France, France is regarded as the, if you like, the first flower of the Church, and France, Catholic France.
If you don’t believe me, those of you who love travelling in France. Outside of Paris, every little village you go to will have a shrine, will it not? On the outskirts of the village. It is a deeply Catholic country. Think of the oppression of the Huguenots, the Protestants in France. So more and more after the terrible defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, it wasn’t just the Communard revolution, the army, the very conservative army is dishonoured. The terrible defeat at the hand of the Prussians. You have an incredibly conservative pope, and it’s all going to blow. And it’s going to blow particularly because of there are writers in France who are going to inflame the situation. And the first of those is a man called Alphonse Toussenel. Can we see the next slide please now? “I wish to point out to the reader that the word used in the popular sense of Jew is banker and usurer.” He was a very important writer in France. He was a naturalist, he was a very popular journalist. He starts out as a utopian socialist. And he was one time an editor of “La Paix.” He studied natural history and it becomes his vehicle for political ideas. And he drew, unfortunately, on the tradition of French socialist anti-Semitism. And he’s going to have a lot of impact in the rural districts. He was anti-British, he was anti-foreign, he was anti-Protestant. And he becomes the inspiration for those behind Dreyfus, anti-Dreyfus.
He said, “The English, the Dutch and the Swiss in particular are just like the Jews, merchants and birds of prey.” In 1845, he wrote an incredibly popular book, “Jews, Kings of the Epoch.” He is very popular as a writer of ornithology and wildlife. You find so many of his books in ordinary French homes. He was called the Balzac of the animal world. He celebrates the forest, he celebrates the woods. He dreamt of returning France to a new time, which was really an old time. France has been destroyed, by what? It’s been destroyed by the railways. It’s been destroyed by modernity. Let’s go back to the rural peasantry, the wonderful France that there once was. And of course we now turn to the other character. And that of course is Edouard Drumont. Edouard Drumont, 1844 to 1917. He actually starts out, his father worked for the Rothschild Railway at one time. He starts out as a socialist and gradually he turns into a violent antisemite. He writes his book “Jewish France”, in which he says, “The Jews possess half the capital of the world.” And he wants a revolution. He says this, “500 determined men in the suburbs of Paris and a regiment surrounding the Jewish banks would suffice to carry out the most fruitful revolution of modern times. Thus the beautiful saying of Peter, Abbott of Cluny, let the wealth of the Jews, against their will, serve the Christian people.” He worked in government service, he becomes an independent journalist.
His book “Juive France” really makes his name, but it’s in 1882, that he starts his newspaper “La Libre Parole”, France for the French. He’s going to climb up the ladder. He’s later going to represent Algiers in the Chamber of Deputies 1898 to 1902. And he’s actually sued for accusing a deputy of taking bribes from the Rothschilds. He very much exploited the Panama Canal Company. He becomes one of the most influential writers in the country and also is going to become the inspiration behind the anti-Dreyfusades, because it’s all going to explode into the Dreyfus case. So I’m going to give you a few more quotes from this man, Edouard Drumont. “What is the exact meaning of the frenzied campaign organised by world Jewry to panic France, dishonour the French army and in doing so, put it in no condition to play a role in Europe. I would turn the big Jews and their accomplices over to a court martial and have them executed.” This is another very powerful statement. All from “La Libre Parole.” “The Jews formally had a nationality. They lost it because of their divisions. Thanks to their geniuses, conspirators and traffickers, they constitute a money power. They have models of society where money is the true master. Their money is only inspired by their own interests.
At the time of the revolution, it was for us, they supported Bonaparte. In 1815, it was against him. And at the time of Waterloo, it fought with Rothschild as energetically as Wellington. It was for the second empire at the beginning and against it at the end. Today it supports internationalism and anarchy. If the antisemites don’t manage to save France by the means used by Danton.” Of course he was killed, he was assassinated. “This liquidation will be carried out in the blink of an eye.” So basically what he is saying is the Jews can never be Frenchman. Now, we are going to deal a lot more with this man when we come to the Dreyfus next week, because of course it’s going to be the Dreyfus affair that is going to turn Theodore Herzl. The Dreyfus affair is more than just the division in French society, it’s the impact it had on a Hungarian-born Viennese Jew who comes to Paris as the correspondent of a Viennese newspaper. And he falls in love with France, who can’t fall in love with France. So what I’m trying to show you there is two Frances. Now let me read to you a quote of Theodore Reinach, who is a very important historian and a member of the Academie Francaise. This is liberal France. “Jews in the Academie Francaise, the immortals. The Jews, since they have been ceased to be treated as pariahs, must identify themselves in heart and in fact, with the nations that have accepted them, renounce their practises and aspirations, the peculiarities of custom and language, which tended to isolate them from their fellow citizens and in a worse cease to be a dispersed nation and henceforth only be considered as a religious domination.”
Maurice Barres, another important member of the Academie Francaise, on the other side. “The Jews do not have a country in the sense that we understand it. For us, La Patri is our soul and our ancestors, the land of our dead. For them, it is the place where their self-interest is best preserved. Their intellectuals susurrate at their famous definition. La Patri is an idea, but which idea? That is what is most useful to them. For example, the idea that all men are brothers, that nationality is a prejudice to be destroyed. You will not deny that the Jew is a different being.” Another interesting comment by very important French writer, Charles Peguy, “Being everywhere, the great vice of that race, their great secret virtue. The great vocation of that people is to disturb society by calling for justice for all.” George Sorel, another brilliant French writer, “They represent an assault on tradition, a brilliance untempered by the concern for hallowed institutions.” You see, this is the story. Jews land in planet France, think of the Isiah Berlin story. They fall in love with it. They want to push it forward as socialists. They want to reform it, but they still love it. But some of them are internationalists. They have no respect for the old traditions because they see those traditions as holding the people back. Rolin, one of the greatest writers, “The past does not exist for the Jews.” Now I want to turn to, can we see the next slide please? Zadoc Kahn. This is Zadoc Kahn, who was the Chief Rabbi of Paris. And he is the one who is going to introduce Theodore Herzl to Rothschild.
He was born in Alsace. He was the son of a village peddler. And his mother was the daughter of a rabbi and whose father was a member of the Sanhedrin and Chief Rabbi of the Lower Rhine District. So he comes from a long rabbinic family. He was educated at a yeshiva in Strasbourg and then at the Rabbinic college in Metz and later in Paris. He was a brilliant man. And in 1889, he becomes the Chief Rabbi of Paris. And after Cremieux’s death in 1880, remember Cremieux was head of the Consistory. He was the one who fought so hard for Jewish rights and also for French culture throughout the world. He was recognised, he was the great secular leader. And after Cremieux’s death, he is very much the leader of French Jewry. Now… the other point to make that I haven’t brought into the story yet. After 1881, you begin to see the mass exodus of Eastern European Jews. And some come to Paris. And what he tries to set up is charitable institutions through the Alliance for helping Eastern European Jews. Many of the established Jews though, what they wanted to do, they wanted to put money towards Jewish colonisation in Argentina. And plans for that was sent by Kahn to Hirsch, who of course bought tracts of land in Argentina for settlement for Eastern European Jews. He was head of Hibbat Zion in France. And of course, as a result of that, he’s very close to Baron Edmund de Rothschild.
He was a great writer. But he was madly in love with France. And in 1889, it is the anniversary of the Revolution, remember, and I’m going to read his speech. But before that, it’s interesting that numbers begin to come into France. Poor Jews from Eastern Europe, and it’s going to cause problems for the Jewish establishment. They want them to go somewhere else. Same thing happened in Britain. Same thing happened in Germany. So this is now Zadoc Kahn. “We’ve adopted the customs and traditions of the country, which has generously adopted us. And today, thanks to God, there are no longer any but Frenchmen in France.” And he calls for the great tradition of the Republic. Remember France, the liberal Republic of the Enlightenment. “France will not repudiate her past, her traditions and her principles, which constitute the best of her moral patrimony. As for us, we will continue to love our country and bear witness in all circumstances, to our gratitude and to our devotion.” Now another rabbi, Chief Rabbi of Lyon, this is also his speech at the time of 1889, Rabbi Abraham Bloch. “The Jews have enriched the arts, letters, politics, the military, industry and commerce, with avidity and love and not without success. Better to show how they cherish their new home and to make themselves worthy of her love and protection.” So very much the Jewish leadership believing that the more Jews give to France, the more they would be loved in France.
“And by the way,” said the leadership. “Let’s keep the numbers down.” Rabbi Bloch was an extraordinary man. In World War I, he worked with soldiers in infirmaries. He was a huge humanitarian. He actually blessed a dying Christian soldier giving him a crucifix because the chap wanted Mass said for him. He was killed in the First World War and there’s a statue, in 1934, a statue was put up to him. So what I’ve tried to show is an incredibly split society. But I’m going to finish on Zadoc Khan’s son, Leon. Zadoc Kahn had six children,. His son Leon, his dates are 1870 to 1943 because there’s a terrible poignancy to all this. His son becomes a doctor. He’s the Chief Medical Officer at the Rothschild Hospital. He’s the treasurer of the Marie Curie Foundation and Chair of Keren Hayesod. In World War I, he was a military doctor for France. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He actually rallied Salonican Jewry to the Allied side. His wife founded, he was also a Zionist, but he loved France. His wife became the head of the French section of WIZO. And in 1925, he was a member of the editorial board of the “Review Juif”. What he realised was that Jews were losing their Jewish knowledge. He wanted to work towards a revival of Jewish knowledge in France.
And others on the board, by the way, were Freud and Einstein and George Brandis, who was very much, another Jew who was very much the theorist of modern culture in Scandinavia. Now, after the fall of France, Zadoc Kahn shot himself in despair. Catherine Graham, who was the owner of the “Washington Post” had her father, the US financier, Eugene Meyer offer to resettle the family, but he was too devastated by, because what happens is, they decide they’re not going to go. Zadoc Khan shoots himself. He’s in terrible despair at the, I beg your pardon, his son. I’m going completely crazy. Leon Kahn shoots himself because of despair of Vichy. And Catherine Graham, the editor of the “Washington Post” her father had tried to get him out with his family, but he was too devastated. His son had committed suicide. Zadoc Kahn, I beg your pardon, it’s his son Leon, who commits suicide, because his son had committed suicide. And what happens is he’s taken away, he dies in Auschwitz and killed on arrival. So the father who believed so passionately in France, his son, who was a great Frenchman, a great humanitarian and a great Jew, his son kills himself and he is too immobilised by it. He and his wife cannot take up the offer of their relative. He was a wealthy man, he managed to get a lot of people out. So his son commits suicide because of the horror of it all.
And he and his wife are transported by the French, French soldiers, French policemen take him away where he’s killed on arrival. I’m sorry about the muddle. It is the grandson who commits suicide. And as a result, the father offered a place in America, refuses to go and is taken to Auschwitz and assembled by the French Gendarmerie. So that was one terrible story. So I suppose what I’m saying is this is the division of French society, which I believe passionately has not really altered. What is the role of Jews in French society? Don’t forget, you’ve also got incredible Jews in the arts. Don’t forget Proust, don’t forget some of the great artists. Don’t forget the many of the gallery owners putting forward French art. I mean, Patrick’s going to talk a lot about this. What kind of country would France become? And I don’t think it’s ever really been sorted. What is France? Is it Catholic, right wing, monarchist France? Or is it the France of the rights of man and liberalism? And don’t forget also, it was also the France of scientific and technological revolution. Think of the Curies. There was a great liberal tradition in France which will succeed. So I think we will stop there and let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Yes, Cremieux had a street named after him and thank you, Yehudi.
Oh, and this is from Jacqueline. My mother went to an Alliance school in Istanbul, Constantinople, until the family moved to Paris. I missed the name of Alfred Dreyfus, I think.
This is Carol. Last Saturday was at Musahariz Museum in the Rothschild Pavilion. From the 19th and 20th centuries, the family poured millions into Palestine to establish wineries, schools, villages. I’m not sure what Israel would’ve been without them. Yes, it’s interesting. And what I’m going to be discussing when I talk about Herzl was what exactly did that particular Rothschild want? Later on some of the Rothschilds became great Zionists. You see there’s a huge difference between philanthropy and actually wanting a Jewish state. And that’s what we’ve got to talk about. And Susan talking about the Commando family, they all wanted to be considered French. Reading suggestions for this period of history. So much interesting information. What I am trying to do, when the website is up, look, basically, I’m often asked what is the best book on modern Jewish history? If you only want one, Howard Morley Sachar, “The Course of Modern Jewish History.” But obviously every subject I’m looking at now, there are many, many different books. So what I will try and do is to come up with a few.
Oh this is from Tiersa. You mentioned that Jacob Rothschild established the wine making industry. No, it wasn’t Jacob, it was Edmond. Established the wine making industry in Zikhron Ya'akov. We lived in Zikhron and my father who worked in the wine cellars and was a fluent English speaker. When Rothschild’s body was brought for burial at Hanadiv, he was asked to be the translator. And if my memory serves me, Yehudi Menuhin was also present. Oh that’s amazing, Tiersa. Yes. That makes a lot of sense. Of course it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, thank you for that information. And it was Ben Gurion who gave the address. Hanadiv, of course the benefactor. Yes. Thank you for that. Yes.
Marx and Engels wrote “The Capital” in Chatham. Yes, of course they did. But he had to flee Paris, I said, at the time of the revolution. And of course don’t forget that there’s a wonderful story when he was on the boat, Dr. Marx, and of course when he came to England, he was absolutely furious there wasn’t a revolution. If I remember rightly, wasn’t it Disraeli’s great quote, “The English don’t have revolutions because of the fog.” You know, it is fascinating that Marx and Disraeli, and I can recommend something for you to read, Isaiah Berlin in his brilliant book “Against the Current.” There is a brilliant chapter comparing Marx and Disraeli. Two brilliant alienated Jews who lived much of their lives in England. And in 1878 when Disraeli was prime minister, Marx applied for English citizenship. And it was turned down because he was not loyal to his own king. Yes, France was called the Eldest Daughter of the Church. Thank you.
Q: Francoise. What is the climate in France like today? Are there Jews in key making roles in the French government?
A: Yes, I believe there are. And there are also the rise of fascism in France. So, nothing’s changed.
Q: Ah, would you speak on how the French bankers viewed their Jewish religion practises and their views on modernity?
A: The majority of them were still Jews. They were Frenchmen of the Jewish religion. Ford converted to Christianity. What happens though, is many of their children married into the French aristocracy and they were madly in love with the modern world. And they were madly in love with the France that they thought gave them modernity. Look, I’ve tried to steer a course, obviously I’ve had to introduce to you and I called it “Modern French anti-Semitism” because the term is not coined till 1878. This is different from the Jew hatred that existed before. This is racial. It’s also a modern term, racial anti-Semitism. And Edmund Drumont is very much the main pillar of it in France with “La Libre Parole”. So what I’m saying to you is they believe passionately in the modern world, they would’ve had much of the services in the vernacular. They were loyal Frenchmen. Unfortunately, many of the originals do assimilate. The French community today is mainly either Jews from North Africa or some descendants of Eastern European Jews. The women of Rothschild, yes, that’s fascinating.
Q: Did many Jews leave Paris for Argentina?
A: I’m going to have to check that for you, Janet. I know there was a large Jewish settlement, 25,000, the majority of them came straight from Eastern Europe.
Q: Do I think that the majority of France is still antisemitic?
A: Oh, that’s a very interesting question. I honestly don’t know that people spend much time thinking about Jews until it’s brought to their attention. What I think is this, when society is going through great fractures, when there’s economic, political and social unrest, prejudice comes to the fore and many groups are targets of prejudice. I mean, if you look at France, I would think the Muslim immigrants have a very hard time in France. What is really problematic about today is many other victim groups see Jews as perpetrators. So anti-Semitism is even more complicated, I think, than other kinds of prejudice. I think there is a core of anti-Semitism in Western civilization. There’s a great quote, and I can’t remember what historian said, “anti-Semitism is to dislike Jews more than is reasonable.” It’s an incredibly cynical, world weary quote. Look, 2000 years of anti-Judaism, which then in the 19th century spawns into anti-Semitism. It leaves a big mark. And I think one of the problems that Jews face, they do from country to country, they’re a small minority, but they do go into high profile occupations. So it’s always exaggerated or people always think there are far more Jews than there really are in the world. So I think it’s complicated. There is a great strand of anti-Semitism in France. There’s a great strand of conspiracy theory. The fact that Macron once worked for the Rothschilds. I know conspiracy theories still believe the Rothschilds control the world. I mean that does not go away. But they also talk about the Marx-Rothschild axis. Please don’t ever try and apply logic to any of this because it’s not illogical. The dream of going back to the French peasantry, you have the same thing in Germany, the volk. It’s absolutely nonsensical because, but nevertheless, people create romantic fantasies.
Tierza is telling us Edmund’s Jewish name is Yaakov, hence Zikron Yaakov, yes. Yes, I’m afraid, Russian railways, many of them were financed by Jewish entrepreneurs in Russia.
Q: What would France be today without the contribution of the Jews?
A: You could say that about much of Europe couldn’t you? And America. I mean particularly I think, if you look at America, it’s complicated, isn’t it? But be careful. Not all Jews become rich and famous. There are Jews who are poor at this time. All you had to do was turn to Eastern Europe where 40% of them were on poor relief from Jews who made it to America.
I didn’t mention the Ephrussi family. No, because I had to make choices. And of course the Ephrussi family and we had a session with Edmund Deval, actually.
Q: If anti-Semitism is racial, how could converts marry into the French aristocracy?
A: You are being very, very logical, Shelly. Now, of course, not all French aristocrats were anti-Semitic. Be careful here. In the end, what I mean is it becomes a racial term and in the end it’s going to explode into Vichy. And of course there are going to be race laws in Vichy. And I suppose the best example I can give you is the Catholic convert, Edith Stein, who died in Auschwitz as a Jew. She’s a martyr to the Catholic Church. But she died because she had Jewish blood. Being a Jew, I’ve said this to you before, define Jew for me. The word race I hate because it’s a completely spurious term, but when you talk about the Jewish race, a French aristocrat can marry the daughter of a wealthy banker and and her children in the main will be brought up as Catholics.
My husband left France as a teenager because of this statement from De Gaulle, “The Jews are people sure of themselves in dominating.” Well, de Gaulle got very cross with the Israelis in 1967. Because if you remember, they’d already purchased some boats from the French and the French because of the war, there was an embargo. So a group of Israeli Israeli agents went in to Cherbourg and took them.
This is from Myra. I know several French born Jews in the 1950s who did not admit to their Judaism in Paris because of anti-Semitism. Yes, yes, of course.
Q: Martin, can we explain human behaviour by understanding our primal biological inheritance of having to be superior with joyful emotion and avoid being inferior with humiliation emotion involved. Humans fundamentally can be seen as competitive individuals with their accompanying emotions.
A: Hmm, let me take that in very carefully. Yes, but it doesn’t solve the problem, does it? You see, if we’re going to say that, what we manage to do each generation is to have scientific and technological explosion. We have got to progress as a species. I believe that.
Q: Can I differentiate between anti Judaism anti-Semitism?
A: Yes. Quite easily. Anti-Judaism is theological hatred. If a Jew converts, they become part of it. The Christian world is the hatred of Jews because of theology. Anti-Judaism is one thing. Anti-Semitism, you cannot convert out of it. It’s about race. Thank you Rose.
I think that’s it, Judi. Bye.