Challenges of Equality: Judaism, State, and Education in Nineteenth-Century France

5. A Tale of Two Cities: From Metz to Paris

91 5 A Tale of Two Cities: From Metz to Paris While the consistorial leadership worked to assure that all Jews in France became cultured israélites, the best integration strategy remained a point of contention. French Jewish leaders not only disagreed with government definitions of Judaism; they actively (albeit subtly) sought to tailor them to suit their own conceptions. The process that Ronald Schechter has identified in the eighteenth century thus continued throughout the nineteenth: rather than assimilating themselves into France, French Jews tended to assimilate France into themselves.1 Where these ideas and government definitions met, conflict often followed. This description echoes the political historian Sudhir Hazareesingh’s analysis of the formation of the idea of citizenship in modern France. Citizenship, he argues, represented not a single concept, but the amalgamation of different notions emanating from separate political factions. The final definition of “citizen of France,” he concludes, sprung from the accumulation of these ideas, a swirl of formulations that coalesced around a common core of principles. The doctrinal building blocks of French citizenship were not imposed from “above” but grew up gradually from “below.”2 Similarly, the concept of Jewish citizenship in France formed first among the Jews themselves, a group whom its leaders portrayed as united despite serious internal divisions. Evolving ideas about the relationship between Judaism and France interacted with the expectations and demands that government officials handed down from above to produce Franco-Jewish citizenship. 92 C H A P T E R 5 Here, though, the French Jewish experience diverges from Hazareesingh’s model, in that Jewish attitudes did not take shape independent of outside forces. The financial relationship between Judaism and state enabled government officials to influence the development of Jewish self-perceptions by favoring one approach to integration over another. Through the application of political and financial pressure, the French bureaucracy helped to mold consistorial integration strategies, thereby shaping the public image that they expected French Jews to internalize. The protracted controversy over the location of the central rabbinical school demonstrates the state’s concrete power to influence Jewish views of the rabbinate and its place in France. As discussed in the previous chapter, a vocal faction of reform-minded French Jews had opposed locating the École Rabbinique in Metz from the very beginning. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the school’s perceived deterioration prompted louder calls for action, and some movement toward substantive change. Although the upheavals of 1848 derailed these plans, Jewish calls for reform resurfaced as the general climate stabilized. With this renewed focus on the school’s problems, Jewish leaders and government authorities revisited a question raised publicly by Adolphe Franck in 1841: Should the rabbinical school remain in Metz or should it move to Paris? The question of moving the École Rabbinique from Metz to Paris gave a physical dimension to preexisting fissures within French Judaism. Arguments over the particular virtues of Metz or Paris became vehicles for broader disputes, such as the proper guidelines for rabbinical training, the growing prominence of Parisian Jewry within the consistorial system, and a general tension between the capital and the provinces. Moving thus presented an opportunity to recalibrate both the official image and internal dynamics of French Judaism through one of its most visible institutions. The rabbinical school also represented a tangible Jewish space within France, where government financial participation legitimated the perpetuation of French Judaism. The relocation question therefore emphasized the civic role in shaping Jewish religious life. Ideological and financial considerations had justified the school’s establishment; both criteria would eventually rationalize its transfer to the capital. The indictment of the Metz location and, by extension, its Jewish community , represented one of the most serious rifts opened by the debate. A common criticism alleged that Metz lacked sufficient secular educational resources, while Paris offered access to the finest institutions and personnel of the French University as well as more than adequate religious instruc- 93 A Tale of Two Cities tion. Moreover, the Metz Consistory’s influence had declined since the first half of the century. In 1815, Metz had been the second largest consistorial district with approximately 6,600 Jews (more than 14 percent of French Jewry). By 1841, the Metz district retained approximately 8,000 Jews, dropping it behind Colmar (which had grown to approximately 14,000) and Paris...