Esther Benbassa

A prize-winning analysis of the discourse of victimhood in Judaism demonstrates how the representation and ritualization of suffering has shaped the faith, tracing the rise of the "valley of tears" historiography and the ways in which the Holocaust continues to be a central component of Jewish identity. Simultaneous.

The Jewish Paradigm

Suffering as Identity

Reaching from biblical times to the present day, Esther Benbassa's prize-winning exploration of Jewish identity is both epic and comprehensive. She shows how in the Jewish world, the representation and ritualization of suffering have shaped the history of both the people and the religion. Benbassa argues that the nineteenth century gave rise to a Jewish 'lachrymose' historiography, and that Jewish history was increasingly seen to be a 'vale of tears'-a development that has become even more pronounced since the Holocaust. The treatment of the Holocaust in the State of Israel now has the form of a civil religion. In principle within reach of everyone, the 'duty of memory' and the uniqueness of the genocide have mitigated for many Jews the loss of other traditions. The Israeli government invokes the memory of the Holocaust to neutralize threats to its interests-ensuring that suffering continues to be a central part of Jewish identity and positioning the State of Israeli as a redemptive force.

Aron Rodrigue

"Modified and updated version of a book that first appeared in Paris in 1993 under the title Juifs des Balkans ... (Editions La Decouverte)"--Acknowledgments, p. [xi].

A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries

Sephardi Jewry

Jean-Christophe Attias

Nombreuses sont les minorités souffrantes touchées par la " haine de soi", sentiment inventé par Theodor Lessing dans l'entre-deux-guerres et qui intéresse l'ensemble du genre humain. Des psychanalystes, des historiens, des philosophes traquent dans ces pages ses avatars étonnants.

Difficiles identités

La haine de soi

What has the land of Israel meant for the Jewish imagination? This book provides a lively and readable answer, covering Biblical times to the present. Its aim is to pierce the mystery of the images of Israel, to grasp their meaning and function, to trace their origins and history, and to resituate in historical terms the fertile mythology that has peopled and continues to people the Jewish imagination, interposing a screen between a people and their land. Describing the real, however, is not sufficient to disqualify the myths. The authors believe, with the famous French historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet, that: “Things are not so simple. Myth is not opposed to the real as the false to the true; myth accompanies the real.” Today, Israel is an undeniable fact and no longer has to legitimize its existence. It is in the midst of living through the crises of adulthood. The authors simply want to reconstitute and trace the genealogies of these contemporary crises. Only upon a clear understanding of this present and this past can a future be constructed.

Israel, the Impossible Land

In the first English-language edition of a general, synthetic history of French Jewry from antiquity to the present, Esther Benbassa tells the intriguing tale of the social, economic, and cultural vicissitudes of a people in diaspora. With verve and insight, she reveals the diversity of Jewish life throughout France's regions, while showing how Jewish identity has constantly redefined itself in a country known for both the Rights of Man and the Dreyfus affair. Beginning with late antiquity, she charts the migrations of Jews into France and traces their fortunes through the making of the French kingdom, the Revolution, the rise of modern anti-Semitism, and the current renewal of interest in Judaism. As early as the fourth century, Jews inhabited Roman Gaul, and by the reign of Charlemagne, some figured prominently at court. The perception of Jewish influence on France's rulers contributed to a clash between church and monarchy that would culminate in the mass expulsion of Jews in the fourteenth century. The book examines the re-entry of small numbers of Jews as New Christians in the Southwest and the emergence of a new French Jewish population with the country's acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine. The saga of modernity comes next, beginning with the French Revolution and the granting of citizenship to French Jews. Detailed yet quick-paced discussions of key episodes follow: progress made toward social and political integration, the shifting social and demographic profiles of Jews in the 1800s, Jewish participation in the economy and the arts, the mass migrations from Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, the Dreyfus affair, persecution under Vichy, the Holocaust, and the postwar arrival of North African Jews. Reinterpreting such themes as assimilation, acculturation, and pluralism, Benbassa finds that French Jews have integrated successfully without always risking loss of identity. Published to great acclaim in France, this book brings important current issues to bear on the study of Judaism in general, while making for dramatic reading.

Esther Benbassa

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