Language:
English
Year of publication:
1991
Titel der Quelle:
Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
Angaben zur Quelle:
36 (1991) 305-338
Keywords:
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Jewish refugees
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Analyzing the attitudes of French Jewish organizations towards Jewish immigrants in the 1930s, refers to the polemics concerning the restrictive government legislation against immigrants, mostly Jews. Documents the dilemmas of the Jewish leaders caught between the obligation to their persecuted co-religionists and the obligation to their French compatriots. The Jewish refugee crisis gained unprecedented proportions after the "Kristallnacht" pogrom in November 1938, followed, in France, by harsh administrative measures against immigrants, including internment in prisons and camps. Concludes that the policy of French Jewish leaders towards the refugees underwent a dramatic transformation during the 1930s: from a hard-line anti-refugee policy (until 1935) to an impressive effort to ameliorate the refugees' plight, and opposition to their own government by challenging the laws. A certain ambivalence remained in a tendency to blame the immigrants for provoking antisemitism.
Note:
Another version appeared in the "Journal of Modern History" 65 (1993).
DOI:
10.1093/leobaeck/36.1.305
URL:
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