Translatio Andalusiae. La construction d’une identité juive locale dans le Sud de la France

Abstract

This article explores the question of national group cohesion among the Jews of southern France. The numerous political borders and the expulsion of the Jews from Languedoc (1306) afford us the opportunity to examine local – Provencal – Jewish group identity, in contrast to a broader Jewish conception of nationhood. An analysis of some Hebrew documents demonstrates the significance of the expulsion of the Jews as the “destruction of my native land”. This is one enlightening example of a unitary socio-cultural conception of the Provencal region, which did not recognize political borders. wThe primary marker of this Provencal identity was their Andalusian Jewish tradition.