Paris-Bruxelles : la polémique suscitée par l'Histoire abrégée des Juifs d'Élie Aristide Astruc (1870)

Abstract

The Brief History of the Jews and their Religious Beliefs, a textbook written for Jewish youth, was published in 1869. Grounded in the “historical” viewpoint of its author, even before it was edited, this book created a sensation and nurtured an important controversy in French Judaism throughout the year 1870. In his Brief History, a significant contribution to Jewish biblical criticism of the xixth century, Astruc sought to free the biblical narration from its legendary aspect in order to present it in its historical context and assert the ethical superiority of religion over dogma, while providing new pedagogical materials for the study of Judaism in France and Belgium. The history of this controversy brings to light the ideas and the personality of the enfant terrible of French Judaism, Astruc, a chief rabbi in Belgium, and Free Mason, co-founder of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. In many respects, Astruc’s relationship to Judaism is not far from the tensions within liberal Protestantism at the same moment. The way he is debated upon at that period, which prevented him from obtaining a position in the French rabbinate, is described here through the analysis of the strong reactions aroused by him in the conservative and orthodox circles of French Judaism. These movements hint at the hardships Reform encountered as it struggled for recognition in France.