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The Vanishing State: Religious Education and Intolerance in French Jewish Schools
Author(s):
Arkin, Kimberly A.
Editor(s):
Seligman, Adam B.
Date:
2014
Topics:
Main Topic: Education, Jewish Schools, Jewish Identity, National Identity, Religious Education
Abstract:
France does not offer religious education in public schools. The French state does, however, fund private religious schools. The author focuses on the unintended consequences of one aspect of this practice—the decision to finance, but not regulate, Jewish day schools. The French Department of Education intends for Jewish school students (like their Catholic school counterparts) to see themselves as simultaneously French AND religious. But in the mid-2000s, the reality was quite different. The author argues that the content of religious education did not necessarily stop day schoolers from generalizing their trust beyond other Jews. Rather, it was the context of Jewish schooling that allowed Jewish students to understand themselves as “not French.” By funding and ignoring day schools, the State made this context, and thus the separation of religious and national identities, possible.