Continuité ou rupture ? Des précurseurs aux fondateurs de l'Union libérale israélite

Abstract

In order to determine the reason why the birth of the Jewish Reform movement was delayed compared to other European countries, the author analyses how the various French Jewish intellectuals of the xixth century, such as Joseph Salvador (1820) and the Reinach brothers at the turn of the century, conceptualized the notion of religion and the specificity, in their opinion, of Judaism. These patterns are undeniably linked to the political and institutional upheavals in the history of France during the xixth century, as a consequence of the French Revolution, and fall within the different philosophical and political tendencies to which they adhered. These Jewish intellectuals viewed the political system as a union of the spiritual and the temporal, incorporating Messianism into the political sphere, as well as rationalism inherited from Maimonides. These intellectuals identified religion with ethics and advocated for the rephrasing of the social contract which, they argued, through the respect of religious rites, could help strengthen the links between individualism and the universal Jewish values of justice and equality. Among the precursors, who conceived the Jewish religion as an exceptional archetype, these ideas were accompanied by a commitment to their religious traditions. This latter aspect indicates that the French Progressive movement, founded by the end of the xixth century in the context of a larger movement to internationalize religion, represents a rupture rather than a continuation of the previous attempts to reform Judaism in France.