Francophone Jewish Writers: Imagining Israel by Lucille Cairns (review)

Cairns, Lucille. Francophone Jewish Writers: Imagining Israel. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2015. ISBN 978-1-78138-262-2. Pp. 310. $120. Although France was a close ally of Israel until 1967, and the Jewish community in France is the largest in Europe (approximately 600,000), Franco-Israeli relations have become strained during the Fifth Republic. Cairns attributes the negative transformation in Franco-Israeli relations to a variety of factors, including the repercussions of French decolonization, the aftermath of the Six-Day War, and de Gaulle’s insulting reference (in 1967) to the Jewish people as “élite” and “dominateur.” At the same time, Israel has a significant Francophone Jewish community (approximately 800,000), and French is one of the most commonly spoken languages in Israel. Cairns focuses on the work of Francophone Jewish writers to examine this unique relationship between France and Israel, and to explore the manner in which the writers’literary representations of history, politics, affect, and emotion influence their imaginings of Israel. Dividing her book into six main chapters, Cairns draws from primary and secondary texts by Francophone Jews living in Israel and by diasporic Jews living outside of Israel, including 44 autobiographies, memoirs and novels by 27 different authors, as well as historical, political, social, and psychological analyses. Throughout her book, Cairns quotes and analyzes passages in French and translated into English; frequently she juxtaposes conflicting views of the same issue. In her study of depictions of early Zionist pioneers, for example, Cairns includes texts that range from laudatory, such as Joseph Kessel’s Terre d’amour et de feu (1965)—“Ceux qui, à travers tous les obstacles, au prix de cent épreuves, gagnèrent la Palestine, étaient véritablement le sel de la terre”(23–24)—to more nuanced or cautiously positive, such as Valérie Zenatti’s Quand j’étais soldate (2002), to highly critical, such as Henri Raczymow’s Eretz (2010): “Tu nous racontais ces expéditions du shabbat à la plage [...] Vous grimpiez à trente sur une charrette [...] vous chantiez des chants de pionniers [...] on eût dit un film soviétique à la louange de l’homme nouveau, du travail collectif”(37). Cairns examines literary representations of Maghrebi immigrants as the main constituents of Francophone communities in Israel, and discusses intra-ethnic racism in contemporary Israel, especially literature foregrounding the Ashkenazic elite’s anti-Sephardic and antiMizrahi racism. Cairns additionally explores connections in the primary texts between representations of the anti-Israeli/anti-Zionist bias of certain sectors of contemporary French society, and France’s historical guilt about its collusion in the Shoah. Throughout her study of Francophone Jewish writers’ imaginings of Israel, Cairns uses this literature as a lens through which to better understand the multiple, and often opposing, ideological perspectives on the state of Israel. Cairns’s work will be of significant interest to scholars and students in French/Francophone studies, Israeli and Jewish studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, political science, history, and conflict studies. Northern Arizona University Erika E. Hess 252 FRENCH REVIEW 90.4 ...