The Sephardic Jews of Bordeaux
176 pages, 6 x 9
Paperback
Release Date:02 Dec 2003
ISBN:9780817350789
The Sephardic Jews of Bordeaux
Assimilation and Emancipation in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France
SERIES:
Judaic Studies Series
University of Alabama Press
Sephardim of Bordeaux—the first in Europe to be recognized as a Jewish community
This book focuses on a small community of French Jews, the first in Europe to encounter the requirements of an emerging nation-state and to be recognized by that state as full and equal citizens. The Sephardim of Bordeaux were typical of neither the majority of the Jews of France nor those of Western Europe. They had entered France as Catholics; only after more than a century of public adherence to Catholicism was their community officially recognized as Jewish. Nevertheless, their assimilation and conformity to the standards of French society as well as their commitment to a Judaism fashioned as much by contemporary political and economic concerns as by tradition reveal a legacy bequeathed to French Jewry and an important model for the development of the modern Jew.
Describing the tensions that existed between the Sephardic community of Bordeaux and the Ashkenazic Jews of France, the author also depicts their role in the relation of the Jews with Napoleon and the forming of the Grand Sanhedrin.
This book focuses on a small community of French Jews, the first in Europe to encounter the requirements of an emerging nation-state and to be recognized by that state as full and equal citizens. The Sephardim of Bordeaux were typical of neither the majority of the Jews of France nor those of Western Europe. They had entered France as Catholics; only after more than a century of public adherence to Catholicism was their community officially recognized as Jewish. Nevertheless, their assimilation and conformity to the standards of French society as well as their commitment to a Judaism fashioned as much by contemporary political and economic concerns as by tradition reveal a legacy bequeathed to French Jewry and an important model for the development of the modern Jew.
Describing the tensions that existed between the Sephardic community of Bordeaux and the Ashkenazic Jews of France, the author also depicts their role in the relation of the Jews with Napoleon and the forming of the Grand Sanhedrin.
Malino’s work is a welcome addition. . . . [She] describes very clearly the tensions that existed between the Sephardic community of Bordeaux and the Ashkenazic Jews of France [and] clearly depicts their role in the relation of the Jews with Napoleon and the forming of the Grand Sanhedrin.’
—CHOICE
Malino writes . . . in such a fashion that the whole transit of Jews to modernity is illumined.’
—Christian Century
Malino’s book is valuable to students of both the early state and Jewish history.’
—American Historical Review
Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Wellesley College and chair of the Jewish Studies program. She is the author of A Jew in the French Revolution: The Life of Zalkind Hourwitz.
