# 244 / Editorial

Last week, the French far-right politician Éric Zemmour was all over TV promoting his latest book, The Mass Is Not Over: For a Judeo-Christian Revival[1]. Presented as a civilizational manifesto aimed at restoring hope to those who regret the corruption of French national identity by cosmopolitan forces and other Islamo-leftists, Zemmour nevertheless makes a scathing observation: there are those who refuse to say Mass. This ideological matrix—as secularized and nationalized as it may appear – Gabriel Abensour’s text reminds us of its kinship with Catholic anti-Judaism. Zemmour’s civilizational conception may well claim to be “Judeo-Christian”, but it nonetheless demands that Jews assimilate to the point of renouncing and sacrificing their historical consciousness of themselves. And the media spectacle offered is primarily that of a public conversion to eternal France by the “foreign Jew” who, in the same gesture with which he pronounces the national mass, assigns “remigration” to those who persist in their particularity.

In Switzerland, from the 17th to the 19th century, the villages of Lengnau and Endingen were the only places where Jews were allowed to establish permanent residence. Today, only the stonework remains as a reminder of this bygone era. For K., journalist Évelyne Dreyfus and photographer Éric Béracassat returned to these lands to document the traces of a community that has almost disappeared.

Lastly, we are revisiting Mitchell Abidor’s piece, which is exploring the long and fascinating history of the Sassoon family. A story that takes us from Iraq to England, via India and China. The Sassoons proclaimed themselves descendants of King David, were described as the “Rothschilds of the East”, spoke Judeo-Arabic as well as Hindustani before converting to English civilization. Through a rich selection of works collected by members of the family over the years, the story is told of the gradual integration into Europe of an Iraqi Jewish family who turned into British aristocrats.

Notes

1 Editor’s trandlation of the title. Original book title in French: La messe n’est pas dite : Pour un sursaut judéo-chrétien.
Politics
Eric Zemmour, or the Nationalization of Anti-Judaism

It had vanished long ago, and no one missed it. That old strain of Catholic anti-Judaism, presumed buried in history, resurfaces in Éric Zemmour’s latest pamphlet, La messe n’est pas dite (The Mass Is Not Over), now reborn in a secular and nationalist form. Gabriel Abensour places Zemmour’s rhetoric back within this atavistic tradition, while probing the deep paradox of its author: what does a “foreign Jew” hope to achieve by aligning himself with the legacy of France’s identitarian Catholic far right?

Culture
The Swiss villages where synagogues told the time

In Switzerland, two villages that are now almost empty of Jews preserve traces of a long-forgotten history: for centuries, Endingen and Lengnau were the only places where Jews were allowed to live in Switzerland. Synagogues in the center of the village, houses with double doors, mikvahs, a communal cemetery: a world of fragile balances and forced coexistence. Journalist Evelyne Dreyfus and photographer Eric Beracassat returned to these lands where, in the past, it was the synagogue that told the time—and where the memory of an almost erased community still lives on in the stones and in the names.

History
The Sassoons: the British dream of Iraqi Jews

The Sassoons proclaimed themselves descendants of King David, were described as the “Rothschilds of the East” and spoke both Judeo-Arabic and Hindustani before converting to the English language. Mitchell Abidor, who visited the exhibition ” The Sassoons “, currently on show at the Jewish Museum in New York, tells us their story.

With the support of:

Thanks to the Paris office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation for their cooperation in the design of the magazine’s website.