Franco-Judaism: Diverse, in Flux, and Transnational
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Abstract
This chapter analyzes developments that profoundly transformed French Judaism over decades. The former paradigm of French Judaism, dating back to the nineteenth century, was of Judaism united and unified under the auspices of the Consistory, the central religious institution Napoleon created. In this model of "Israelitism," the symbiosis between Jewish and French affiliations was based on Judaism as a faith and French citizenship. International links were established towards the end of the 19th century, notably through the Alliance israélite universelle and intellectuals supporting the Zionist project, but it was the post-1945 world that witnessed a gradual departure from this confessional model. A new Franco-Judaism emerged in the 1970s-1980s, combining Jewish and French identities in new ways: solidarity with Israel, an attachment to diasporic Jewish cultures, an increasingly public affirmation of Jewishness, and advocacy against forms of Holocaust denial. It marked a definitive rupture with the older paradigm of Israelitism. This chapter also focuses on the development of religious pluralism and the increasing internationalization of French Judaism. It examines the four branches of French Jewish Orthodoxy (ultra-Orthodoxy, Chabad, Religious Zionism, and Modern Orthodoxy), as well as the more liberal Reform and Massorti movements. It provides a broad overview of the environments and actors constituting this reconfiguration of a new French Judaism, henceforth anchored in pluralism and internationalization.
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Jewish Identity Jewish Community Denominations Main Topic: Identity and Community Jewish History Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism Conservative / Masorti Judaism Orthodox Judaism Chabad-Lubavitch Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews Israel-Diaspora Relations
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9781003399728
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Link to article (paywalled), Franco-Judaism: Diverse, in Flux, and Transnational
