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The nature of philanthropy in nineteenth-century France and thementalité of the Jewish elite

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Notes

  1. Zadoc Kahn, “Le Dieu du judaïsme” inSermons et allocutions, 2nd series (Paris, 1903), 191ff. The Hebrew quotation is from tractate Sota 14a.

  2. Emile Lévy,La morale religieuse et la morale laïque (Bayonne, 1905), 9–10. The Hebrew quotation is from Deuteronomy 14:1.

  3. See, for example, Patrick Girard,Pour le meilleur et pour le pire: Vingt siècles d'histoire juive en France (Paris, 1986), 286–87, 300–01, 304–05, 320; Phyllis Cohen Albert,The Modernization of French Jewry: Consistory and Community in the Nineteenth Century (Hanover NH, 1977), 124–28, 135–40, 196, 237–38, 313; Michael Marrus,The Politics of Assimilation: The French Jewish Community at the Time of the Dreyfus Affair (Oxford, 1971), 77–83, 157–61; Michael Graetz,Ha-periferyah haytah le-merkaz: perakim be-toldot yahadut Tsorfat ba-me'ah ha-tesha” esreh (Jerusalem, 1982), 65–71; and Michael M. Laskier,The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco: 1862–1962 (Albany NY, 1983), 31–34.

  4. Aron Rodrigue,French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925 (Bloomington IN, 1990), 7; Derek J. Penslar,Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870–1918 (Bloomington IN, 1991), 16.

  5. See Office central des oeuvres de bienfaisance,Paris charitable et prévoyant (Paris, 1897). See also John H. Weiss, “Origins of the French Welfare State: Poor Relief in the Third Republic, 1871–1914,”French Historical Studies 13 (Spring 1983): 53.

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  6. On the motives for charity under the Old Regime, see, for example, Olwin H. Hufton,The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750–1789 (Oxford, 1974), 131ff; Cissie C. Fairchilds,Poverty and Charity in Aix-en-Provence, 1640–1789 (Baltimore, 1976), 18ff; and Colin Jones,Charity and bienfaisance (Cambridge, 1982), 76ff. The quotations here are from Fairchilds,Poverty and Charity, 28.

  7. Emile Cheysson, quoted in Ann-Louise Shapiro,Housing the Poor of Paris, 1850–1902 (Madison, WI, 1985), 84.

  8. See Joseph-Marie de Gérando,Le visiteur du pauvre (Paris, 1820).

  9. Armand de Melun, quoted in Charles de Riancey, “Distribution des prix aux jeunes apprentis des quartiers Saint-Denis et Saint-Martin,”Annales de la charité 7 (1851): 507; Paul Decaux,Les patronages d'apprentis et les cercles d'ouvriers (Paris, 1874), 4.

  10. See Weiss, “Origins of the French Welfare State,” esp. 60n.

  11. On the specific subject of apprenticeship training for the poor, see Lee Shai Weissbach, “Oeuvre Industrielle, Oeuvre Morale: TheSociétés de Patronage of Nineteenth-Century France,”French Historical Studies 15 (Spring 1987). On thephilosophe's view of manual labor, see William H. Sewell, Jr.,Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848 (Cambridge, 1980), 64–66.

  12. Le patronage des jeunes ouvriers à Paris (Paris, 1865), 1–2.

  13. For a discussion of philanthropic activity that assumes a more organized plan of social control, see Jacques Donzelot,The Policing of Families, Robert Hurley, trans. (New York, 1979), esp. 55ff.

  14. Compare Jan Goldstein,Console and Classify: The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1987), 279. Goldstein, who chronicles the transformation of care for the mentally ill, observes that nineteenth-century “philanthropy” was “rational, methodical, and far-reaching,” in contrast to traditional “charity,” which had been “more personally fervent but less effective.” It is interesting to note that toward the end of the nineteenth century theAnnales de la charité changed its name to theRevue philanthropique; see Donzelot,Policing of Families, 67.

  15. On abandoned children see Rachel Ginnis Fuchs,Abandoned Children: Foundlings and Child Welfare in Nineteenth-Century France (Albany, NY, 1984). On child labor, see Lee Shai Weissbach,Child Labor Reform in Nineteenth-Century France: Assuring the Future Harvest (Baton Rouge, 1989). On housing reform see Shapiro,Housing the Poor.

  16. See Donzelot,Policing of Families, 88–90.

  17. On thebureaux de bienfaisance, see Weiss, “Origins of the French Welfare State,” 49–51.

  18. See Léon Bourgeois,Solidarité (Paris, 1896). Weiss “Origins of the French Welfare State,” 55–58, provides a good brief description of Solidarism.

  19. Edouard Guillon,Les colonies française, quoted in John L. Heineman, ed.,Readings in European History (Dubuque IA, 1979), 255.

  20. On France'smission civilisatrice in general see, for example, Henri Brunschwig,French Colonialism, 1871–1914, William Granville Brown, trans. (New York, 1966), 167ff.; Winfried Baumgart,Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880–1914 (Oxford, 1982), 13–17; and Raymond F. Betts,The False Dawn: European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (Minneapolis, 1975), 150–56, 173–183.

  21. See Lee Shai Weissbach, “The Jewish Elite and the Children of the Poor: Jewish Apprenticeship Programs in Nineteenth-Century France,”AJS Review 12 (Spring 1987).

  22. Zadoc Kahn, “Instruction et travail,” inSermons et allocutions adressés à la jeunesse israélite (Paris, 1878), 162.

  23. See, for example, “De l'oeuvre des apprentis,”Annales de la charité 1 (1845): 473; and “Du patronage des enfants employés en manufacture,”Annales de la charité 3 (1847): 115.

  24. Société protectrice de la jeunesse israélite et des arts et métiers de Bayonne (Bayonne, 1867), 4–5.

  25. Compte-rendu de l'école de travail ⋯ de Paris, années 1884, 1885, 1886 (1887), 12; Decaux, “Les patronages d'apprentis,” 4.

  26. Virgile Léon, quoted inSociété protectrice, 20; Abbé de Poterat,Le patronage des apprentis d'Orléans (Orleans, 1902), 24.

  27. For the example of opposition to vocational training programs for poor children, see Albert,Modernization, 137, and Jonathan Isaac Helfand,French Jewry during the Second Republic and Second Empire (1848–1870) (Ph.D. diss., Yeshiva University, 1979), 142.

  28. Compte-rendu de la Société de patronage des apprentis et ourviers israélites de Paris, année 1877 (1878), 3.

  29. Archives israélites 64, 9 (26 February 1903). Emphasis added.

  30. See the brochureSociété de l'orphelinat de la Seine pour l'assistance et l'apprentissage des orphelins et des enfants abandonnés in the Archives nationales, Paris, carton F17–12530;Patronage de l'enfance et de l'adolescence: Société de protection des enfants en danger moral (Paris, c. 1905), 9;Bulletin de la Société de protection des apprentis et des enfants des manufactures 1 (1867): 39–44, and 5 (1872): 8; and Weiss, “Origins of the French Welfare State,” 517.

  31. Simon Schama,Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (New York, 1978), 16.

  32. Ibid., 13.

  33. Perhaps even Rothschild himself did not comprehend how fully his work reflected the nature of nineteenth-century philanthropy; “I am not a philanthropist,” he objected in explaining his intense involvement in the work of Palestinian settlement; ibid., 17.

  34. Ibid., esp. 52, 81–84, 343.

  35. Robert Cohen,Jews in Another Environment: Surinam in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century (Leiden, 1991), passim.

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    Lee Shai Weissbach

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Weissbach, L.S. The nature of philanthropy in nineteenth-century France and thementalité of the Jewish elite. Jew History 8, 191–204 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01915914

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