JEWS AND OTHER RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS AS SEEN IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE PERIODICALS PUBLISHED BY THE HUGUENOTS IN THE UNITED PROVINCES (1680-1715)

Abstract

Huguenots and Jews were both minorities in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. When the majority of the Huguenots arrived to the country, Jews had already resided there and had become part of Dutch society. The French newcomers, contrary to the Dutch, had little contact with the Jews and it was probably their first encounter with them. The majority of the Huguenots arrived there after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Among the Huguenot refugees we find a certain number of intellectuals who established gazettes and journals. Those periodicals, published in French, open us a window in the perception that the Huguenots and the local Dutchmen had on the Jewish community and individual Jews, as well as on the Jewish nation as such. While journals refer to more scientific periodicals, the gazettes were collections of news and gossip both from the United Provinces and from other parts of Europe. The article focuses on the distinction between the different categories of Jews that appear in these periodicals and places them in the appropriate historical and scientific context.