History of the Jews in France
The history of the Jews in France deals with Jews and Jewish communities in France since at least the Early Middle Ages. France was a centre of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, but persecution increased over time, including multiple expulsions and returns. During the French Revolution in the late 18th century, on the other hand, France was the first European country to emancipate its Jewish population. Antisemitism still occurred in cycles and reached a high in the 1890s, as shown during the Dreyfus affair, and in the 1940s, under Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime.
Before 1919, most French Jews lived in Paris, with many being very proud to be fully assimilated into French culture, and they comprised an upscale subgroup. A more traditional Judaism was based in Alsace-Lorraine, which was taken by Germany in 1871 and recovered by France in 1918 following World War I. In addition, numerous Jewish refugees and immigrants came from Russia and eastern and central Europe in the early 20th century, changing the character of French Judaism in the 1920s and 1930s. These new arrivals were much less interested in assimilation into French culture. Some supported such new causes as Zionism, the Popular Front and communism, the latter two being popular among the French political left.
During World War II, the Vichy government collaborated with Nazi occupiers to deport a large number of both French Jews and foreign Jewish refugees to concentration camps.[8] By the war's end, 25% of the Jewish population of France had been murdered in the Holocaust, though this was a lower proportion than in most other countries under Nazi occupation.[9][10]
In the 21st century, France has the largest Jewish population in Europe and the third-largest Jewish population in the world (after Israel and the United States). The Jewish community in France is estimated to number 480,000–550,000, depending in part on the definition being used. French Jewish communities are concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Paris, which has the largest Jewish population among all European cities (277,000),[11] Marseille, with a population of 70,000, Lyon, Nice, Strasbourg and Toulouse.[12]
The majority of French Jews in the 21st century are Sephardi and Mizrahi North African Jews, many of whom (or their parents) emigrated from former French colonies of North Africa after those countries gained independence in the 1950s and 1960s. They span a range of religious affiliations, from the ultra-Orthodox Haredi communities to the large segment of Jews who are entirely secular and who often marry outside the Jewish community.[13]
Approximately 200,000 French Jews live in Israel. Since 2010 or so, more have been making aliyah in response to rising antisemitism in France.[14]
Carolingian period[edit]
The presence of Jews in France under Charlemagne is documented, with their position being regulated by law. Exchanges with the Orient strongly declined with the presence of Arabs in the Mediterranean sea. Trading and importing of oriental products such as gold, silk, black pepper or papyrus almost disappeared under the Carolingians. The Radhanite Jewish traders were nearly the only group to maintain trade between the Occident and the Orient.[20]
Charlemagne fixed a formula for the Jewish oath to the state. He allowed Jews to enter into lawsuits with Christians. They were not allowed to require Christians to work on Sundays. Jews were not allowed to trade in currency, wine, or grain. Legally, Jews belonged to the emperor and could be tried only by him. But the numerous provincial councils which met during Charlemagne's reign were not concerned with the Jewish communities.
Louis the Pious (ruled 814–840), faithful to the principles of his father Charlemagne, granted strict protection to Jews, whom he respected as merchants. Like his father, Louis believed that 'the Jewish question' could be solved with the gradual conversion of Jews; according to medievalist scholar J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, some people believed this tolerance threatened the Christian unity of the Empire, which led to the strengthening of the Bishops at the expense of the Emperor. Saint Agobard of Lyon (779–841) had many run-ins with the Jews of France. He wrote about how rich and powerful they were becoming. Scholars such as Jeremy Cohen[21] suggest that Saint Agobard's belief in Jewish power contributed to his involvement in violent revolutions attempting to dethrone Louis the Pious in the early 830s.[22] Lothar and Agobard's entreaties to Pope Gregory IV gained them papal support for the overthrow of Emperor Louis. Upon Louis the Pious' return to power in 834, he deposed Saint Agobard from his see, to the consternation of Rome. There were unsubstantiated rumors in this period that Louis' second wife Judith was a converted Jew, as she would not accept the ordinatio for their first child.
Jews were engaged in export trade, particularly traveling to Palestine under Charlemagne. When the Normans disembarked on the coast of Narbonnese Gaul, they were taken for Jewish merchants. One authority said the Jewish traders boasted about buying whatever they pleased from bishops and abbots. Isaac the Jew, who was sent by Charlemagne in 797 with two ambassadors to Harun al-Rashid, the fifth Abbasid Caliph, was probably one of these merchants. He was said to have asked the Baghdad caliph for a rabbi to instruct the Jews whom he had allowed to settle at Narbonne (see History of the Jews in Babylonia).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the : Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "France". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
