Jews, Jesus, and the Problem of Postcolonial French Identity
Author(s)
Publication Name
Publication Date
Abstract
In 2004 a French Jewish student union ran an ad against anti-Semitism using defaced images of Jesus and Mary. Denounced by an antiracist organization affiliated with Jewish interests, the ad was immediately pulled. Why? While the union intended the campaign to be provocative for what it suggested about anti-Semitism, it may ultimately have been most problematic for what it implied about “Frenchness.” This article argues that the campaign’s polysemy and ambiguity destabilized religious and national differences presumed to be self-evident in contemporary France. In doing so, it may have undermined mainstream Jewish institutional strategies that relied on the evocation of a stable French national “identity” to both fight anti-Semitism and produce Jewish belonging in France.
Topics
Jewish Identity Main Topic: Identity and Community National Identity Post-Colonial Jewish - Christian Relations Antisemitism Students Student Organisations
Genre
Geographic Coverage
Original Language
Volume/Issue
29(3)
Page Number / Article Number
457–480
DOI
Link
Link to article (paywalled), Jews, Jesus, and the Problem of Postcolonial French Identity
Bibliographic Information
Jews, Jesus, and the Problem of Postcolonial French Identity. 2017: 457–480. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1215/08992363-3869548
