Comparing the Jewish experience in Western Europe and the United States in the modern era

Résumé du document

The United-States is a country built by immigrants, especially Jewish European immigrants. Immigrants actively participate in the elaboration of American culture. This country particularly respects ethnic and religious particularism and promotes "affirmative action" in the direction of sexual and ethnic minorities. Multiculturalism and communautarism are encouraged by American culture. On the contrary, commnautarism corresponds to a very pejorative term in France and it is generally assimilated to religious integrity and extremism. Since the French Revolution, France is considered as a country which doesn't respect regional, ethnic and religious particularism. France promotes assimilation in order to integrate immigrants in the French Republic and culture. Besides, the recent presidential election campaign emphasizes the key issue of "French national identity". Both have imagined two deeply different strategies in order to integrate immigrants in the Nation. In those two countries, the Jewish Diaspora, which mainly results from old and recent immigration, represents one of the most important communities. Consequently, we may wonder how the Jewish Diaspora has evolved in those two countries over the past 60 years. In spite of a different model of integration, are there more similarities or differences between French and American Jewish community? Finally, we may wonder as to what extent the French Jewish community is influenced by the American Jewish experience.

Extraits

[...] Those new immigrants represented an incredible chance for metropolitan Jewish community which hoped to rebuild the community after the Shoah. Thanks to them, the number of Jewish community doubled[3]. Unlike Ashkenazis, they were given a very warm welcome and they were quickly integrated. The Algerian Jews essentially settled in Paris and in the Paris region and in the South of France. Half of French Jews were concentrated in the capital and a quarter in PACA and Rhône-Alpes' regions. In the same period, another crucial event mobilized the French and American Jewish communities[4]. [...]

[...] Many French Jews were deeply shocked and few even spoke out publicly for the first time to demounce what they considered to be an anti-Semitic statement, (which described Jews in terms of old anti-Semitic myths), by a French head of state”. BIRNBAUM Pierre, Jewish destinies. About insecurity, in of racist violences' victims were Jews in France”, according to statistics of Department of Interior. In the 1970s, a CAPES of Hebrew is accepted by the Department of Education. Rabi writted in 1962 : le mariage exogamique n'est pas un péril en soi. [...]

[...] What is more, this religious renewal is characterized by a religious pluralism in the United States and in France. New practices and new influences emerge. The size of the three main branches of Judaism in the United States is paradoxically inversely proportional to their degree of liberalism and accommodation to the dominant American culture[10]. The smallest is the Reform; Conservative is next and Orthodox the largest and the one that grew the most during the 1980s. The important rise in Conservative and Orthodox observance is partially an effort by the some in the community to reclaim identity that is eroding. [...]

[...] Both Jewish communities rekindled the religious devotion. The religious pluralism is an uncontestable proof of Judaism's vitality. In spite of many similarities between the French and the American Jewish communities, few differences still exist. Because their own diaspora history, the key issue of Jewish identity is grasped differently in those two countries. Moreover, in spite of its constant efforts, the French Jewish community is not yet a lobby. Contrary to the American community, the French Jewish community is not very homogeneous. [...]

[...] The debate about the separation of the Church and the State is interesting in some respects. Indeed, the Jewish community has reactivated the debate, like a lobby, in order to defend their particularism and their “right to be different”. At the beginning, the French Jewish community perfectly put up with the republican secularism. The resurgence of the Jewish community and Judaism, where there is no distinction between the religious and the political, caused a debate in the community and in the public space about the necessity to adjust the 1905 Law. [...]