Editor's Introduction: Jewish Studies in France

Editor's Introduction EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: JEWISH STUDIES IN FRANCE by Alan Astro Alan Astro, Associate Professor of French at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, is the author of Understanding Samuel Beckett (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990) and special editor of the volume Discourses of jewish Identity in Twentieth-Century France (Yale French Studies 85 [1994]). 1 "France is now firmly 'on the map' of Jewish studies," wrote a contributor to a recent volume on Jewish studies the world over.1 This issue of Shofar testifies to the vigor of research in France on Jewish subjects, as each article here takes an overview of an aspect of this multifaceted field. Alessandro Guetta's contribution speaks of the nineteenth-century French Jewish thinkers, who combined concerns from the Wissenschaft des judentums with the universalistic ideology of the French revolution to produce stirring defenses of Jewish spirituality. Charles Mopsik's article shows how the preoccupations of these thinkers and earlier scholars bear upon the interest the Kabbalah has generated in the course of this century. Sylvie Anne Goldberg, in turn, examines how the· Wissenschaft des judentums and the Polish-Russian Jewish historical school (whose finest representatives were Simon Dubnow and the YIVO historians) set parameters still relevant for present-day Jewish historiog- 'Nicole Goldmann, "Regional Leadership (France)," in Moshe Davis, ed., Teaching Jewish Civilizdtion: A Global Approach to Higher Education (New York: New York University Press, 1995), p. 232. 2 SHOFAR Spring 1996 Vol. 14, No.3 raphy, in France and elsewhere. In Lee Shai Weissbach's contribution, we see how studies of smaller French Jewish communities have fared within the "Pariso-centric" world of French academic concerns. Several of our articles focus on language and literature. Karla Grierson interprets the differences in French and American critical response to accounts by Holocaust survivors. Juliette Hassine compares Hannah Arendt's analysis of the Dreyfus Affair in Proust's masterpiece with commentary on the same subject by Julia Kristeva, one of the foremost literary critics in France today. The renewed interest in Yiddish language and literature-a phenomenon noticeable in Paris as it is in New York-is addressed at length in the article by Gilles Rozier and in the interview by Jean Baumgarten with Rachel Ertel, a leading French Yiddishist. Paris is also the site of study of another Jewish languageJudezmo (somewhat imprecisely referred to as "ladino")-as we learn in the article by Michael T. Ward. We are graced as well in this issue with a contribution of a more playful sort: a short story about a French expert in the field of Jewish studies. The author-Cyrille Fleischman, a writer enjoying ever more critical acclaim as the Parisian Sholem-Aleichem-donated this tale, published here for the first time in both the French original and the English translation. Let me correct an impression this issue may make. Despite the creation in France of chairs, departments and institutes of Jewish studies ,2 the field there has in no way attained the degree of implantation it enjoys in American higher education. Though some observers may attribute that difference to anti-Jewish sentiment,3 I would trace it to other factors. In comparison with what has happened in the U.S., the prestige accorded to classical humanistic education has been far less eroded in France by ethnic studies and other manifestations of the concerns of marginalized groups. Despite the presence in France of significant numbers of immigrants-nowadays, most of all North Mricans, black 2For specific information on some enhancements in Jewish studies in France during recent decades, see Roland Goetsehel, "France," in Davis, ed., Teaching Jewish Civilization , pp. 60-61. 3For example, Goetschel sees a decline in the last few years in Jewish studies in France, one of whose causes he believes is "the French media, which has systematically portrayed a negative image ofIsrael" ("France," in Davis, ed., Teaching Jewish Civilization , p. 61). Editor's Introduction 3 Africans, Asians-and of the traditional regional ethnic groups-Bretons, Basques, Alsatians, Proven<;aux, Corsicans-most French still see their society as essentially homogeneous. They are reluctant to promote the development of what they consider to be American-style ghettoized ethnic· communities. Another factor relevant to the slighter rise of Jewish studies in France is the more secularistic nature of French society, as evinced (for example) by much lower rates of church attendance! As in the States, a formal separation of Church and State prevails, but in addition, the French national education system-ever since its development in the Third Republic (1871-1940)-is held to be secular in orientation.5 There have been forces countervailing this societal discomfort with ethnic particularism and religion. The 1970s saw the call for "Ie droit 11 la difference," a demand by women and ethnic and sexual minorities for recognition of their specific situations.6 Since then, there has been as well some renewal of religious life/ which has led in the Jewish sphere to growing numbers of traditional study groups-a non-academic but still significant aspect of the development ofJewish studies in France.s The burgeoning of French university research on Jewish subjects enhances a field dominated by American and Israeli specialists by providing perspectives from a different horizon. As :mother commentator writes in speaking of young French scholars of J;:wish studies: "It is important that they be able, in Jerusalem or New York, to present knowledge ofJewish cultural facts understood in terms of the concepts 'Forty percent of Americans attend church or synagogue in a typical week, whereas 12 percent of French go to mass on a weekly basis.. For this and other statistics shOWing lesser religious observance among the French than Americans, see George Gallup, Jr. and Jim Castelli, The People's Religion: American Faith in the '90s (New York: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 46-48. SSee Gerard Cholvy, lA religion en Fraru:e: de la fin du XVllle a nos jours (paris: Hachette, 1991), pp. 73-74. ~e, for example, Henri Giordan, D{m'lOcratie culturelle et droit a la differeru:e: rapport alack lAng, ministre de la Culture (paris: I.a Documentation Fran~ise, 1982). 'See Cholvy, lA religion en Fraru:e, pp. 161-70. 8See Frank Alvarez·Pereyre and Jean Baumgarten, "Introduction: les etudes juives en France: pour une evaluation du domaine," in Alvarez-Pereyre and Baumgarten, ed., Les etudes juives en France: situation et perspectives (paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1990), p. 12. This volume is heartily recommended to readers of French interested in a further overview ofJewish studies in France. 4 SHOFAR Spring 1996 Vol. 14, No.3 and ways of reasoning that characterize French scholarship."9 The reader of this issue of Shofar will have ample occasion to appreciate how the French intellectual style-with its love of theorizing and speculating, and its attentiveness to language and rhetoric-can manifest itself in Jewish studies. * * * I would like to express my gratitude to Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, for the travel funds extended to me in order to meet with contributors to this issue of Shofar. As well, part of an academic leave granted to me by Trinity University was used to edit the articles in this volume and complete the translation of many of them. I would also like to thank Joseph Haberer, editor of Shofar, and Nancy Lein, managing editor, for their patience and encouragement. 9Jacques Lautman, "Avant-propos," in Alvarez-Pereyre and Jean Baumgarten, ed., Les etudes juiues en France, p. 10 (trans. mine). ...