History

How can we explain the disarray of the European conscience in the face of the rise of antisemitism it promised itself it would “never again” tolerate? In this text, historians Henriette Asséo and Claudia Moatti examine the paradoxes of a Europe faced with the temptation of identity.

The Jews, “ Happy as God in France ”? In this lecture, given at the CRIF symposium “ The Jews in the Republic”, historian Pierre Birnbaum looks back at the history of Jewish emancipation in France, and the dangers it faces today.

In Last Words, Philip Schlesinger weaves a deeply personal narrative about the final moments of his parents’ lives, Béla and Martha Schlesinger, Jewish refugees who escaped Nazi persecution. Their poignant last words recount their early lives in pre-war Europe, marked by war, displacement, and resilience. As Schlesinger reflects on their stories, his own identity emerges—torn between his British upbringing and deep-rooted European heritage.

What if anti-Judaism were not just an irrational prejudice against Jews, but a fundamental structure of Western thought? This is the thesis defended by David Nirenberg in Anti-Judaism, which the Collège de France conference presented in June 2023 on the occasion of its translation into French. In it, we discover a vertiginous problem: the dependence of our moral, philosophical and critical systems on a repulsive figure of the imaginary Jew.

How can we escape the sterile confrontation between messianic Zionism and obsessive anti-Zionism? In this diagnostic text, Noémie Issan-Benchimol and Gabriel Abensour suggest a way out of this fatal alternative. What is at stake? Reinscribing the State of Israel in the exilic condition, and thus stripping it of its exceptional character that inflames radical passions.

Each week this summer, K. brings you a selection of six texts that have already appeared in our pages, and have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover K. ‘s work about the realities of and stories to be told from life in Eastern Europe. With texts by Benny Ziffer, Gabriel Rom, Romano Bolkovic, Yeshaya Dalsace, Emmy Barouh and János Gadó.

Each week this summer, K. brings you a selection of texts that have already appeared in our pages, but have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover K.’s work on the words of conflict. With texts by Bruno Karsenti, Julia Christ, Danny Trom, Diana Muir and David Lemler.

In Georgia, the local Jewish community is referred to in the past tense. And yet, this community has never experienced antisemitism. Here, Clément Girardot and Yoann Morvan reveal the story of this surprising Georgian exception, a nation whose philosemitism is not enough to ensure the continuity of its Jewish presence.

Pogrom is the term by which the memory of persecution in Eastern Europe has found its way into Jewish memory. But when did it appear, and how was it used? For this text, Elena Guritanu delved into the dictionaries of the last two centuries, in order to trace the history of this term which, because it designates an undeniable horror, has itself been the object of omissions and denials.