Starting around 1840, French Jews began to reach out in new ways to Jews elsewhere, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. In describing these activities, they spoke of feelings of solidarite and a mission to bring civilisation to Jews everywhere, a language more meaningful in the French public arena than in Jewish tradition. Far from a remnant of ancient feelings, Jewish solidarity is a modern phenomenon with roots in its inventors' integration into French political culture. Why did acculturation inspire elite French Jews to affirm their Jewishness through...
Starting around 1840, French Jews began to reach out in new ways to Jews elsewhere, especially in North Africa and the Middle East. In describing thes...
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Jewish historian Zosa Szajkowski gathered up tens of thousands of documents from Nazi buildings in Berlin, and later, public archives and private synagogues in France, and moved them all, illicitly, to New York. In The Archive Thief, Lisa Moses Leff reconstructs Szajkowski's story in all its ambiguity. Born into poverty in Russian Poland, Szajkowski first made his name in Paris as a communist journalist. In the late 1930s, as he saw the threats to Jewish safety rising in Europe, he broke with the party and committed himself to defending his...
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Jewish historian Zosa Szajkowski gathered up tens of thousands of documents from Nazi buildings in Berlin, and late...
