Language:
French
Year of publication:
2008
Titel der Quelle:
Les Cahiers du Judaïsme
Angaben zur Quelle:
24 (2008) 89-101
Keywords:
Shvartsbard, Shalom,
;
International Federation of Leagues for Combating Racial Prejudice and Anti-Semitism
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Jews Identity
Abstract:
Examines the French Jewish mentality of the 1920s-30s, which was shaped by Schwartzbard's assassination of Petlyura in 1926, and turned into a program by France's first anti-racist organization, LICA. Regeneration of the Jews into virile agents of their own destiny was the central goal for Bernard Lecache, founder of the Ligue Internationale contre les Pogroms (1927), transformed into the Ligue Internationale contre l'Antisémitisme in 1929. Discusses contradictions in LICA's program between universalism and particularism, an apolitical ambition and siding with the left, and the aspiration to seem honorable while idealizing violence, all of which brought the organization more adversaries (even among Jews) than friends. LICA's radicalism was rejected by the moderate Jews of the Consistoire and they, on the other hand, were accused by LICA of having a ghetto mentality and of cowardice, incarnations of Jewish counter-models. Translating its program into action, LICA created self-defense groups, which successfully prevented many antisemitic meetings in France. Though LICA's assessment of the danger of Hitlerian antisemitism was more accurate than that of moderate French Jewry, the deterioration of the international situation after 1938 and the opposition LICA faced thwared its efforts to give the Jews a new profile. However, during the Shoah Jewish resistance fighters drew inspiration from the image of the self-defending, proud Jew.
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