Being Jewish in France (Parts I & II)
Barcode: 58994579
Call Number: V-FRE 297
Material Type: Video -DVD
Time: 185 min
Date: 2007
System Requirements: NTSC; all?
Language: French
Creator: Yves Jeuland
Description: "Yves Jeuland’s extraordinary documentary captures centuries of Jewish life in France in two episodes broadcast on French television to critical acclaim. French Jews have always had a complex relationship to their Frenchness and their Judaism. From revolutionary cries of “Vive la France!” in Yiddish through Vichy’s betrayal of Jewish citizens to the absorption of Mizrahi Jews in the 1960s, French Jews have remained staunchly French. But with the influx of Arab immigrants into France and the French Left’s support for Palestinian human rights (including on the part of some Jews), the French Jewish community has had to adjust to a multicultural society in which it is one of many minorities seeking liberté, egalité and fraternité. Episode One opens with the controversial Dreyfus Affair, which inflamed passions and anti-Semitic hatred in the country at the turn of the 20th century. As Jews became more assimilated, especially after serving in World War I, they solidified their French identity. The series documents the insidious rise of fascism, leading up to the community’s deportation to concentration camps—with the help of the French police. Episode Two picks up in the aftermath of the Holocaust, when surviving Jews worked towards recovery and regeneration. During the wave of Jewish immigration from North Africa, the Jewish community joined together despite cultural differences among European Jews who had been in France for decades and newly arrived Mizrahi and Magrhebi Jews. Recent arson attacks on synagogues and the rise of anti-Semitic violence have caused some French Jews to reexamine living in France, while others view France as their homeland, in joy or sadness."