Edito

Last week, we mentioned the case of Hungary, where Viktor Orbán is a friend of the Jews, at least when he manages to involve them in his reactionary political project. Looking deeper into this oxymoronic phenomenon, David Nirenberg’s lecture, “Anti-Judaism, Critical Thinking, and the Possibility of History,” examines how anti-Jewish ideas have shaped Western thought and culture over centuries. Nirenberg explores how influential thinkers—from the ancient world to modern times—have used Judaism as a symbol of everything they oppose in their quest for universal truth. By exposing these patterns, Nirenberg challenges historians to recognize the biases that shape historical narratives and to rethink the possibilities of history itself.

The reputation of a saintly man is now crumbling under the weight of public opinion. It’s a fitting turn of events, since it appears that Abbé Pierre, far from being an apostle of the universal right to housing, did not hesitate to make it conditional on a sordid sexual barter. But, as Danny Trom points out, the public attribution of pardon or opprobrium obeys mysterious laws. For this was not the only time our Abbot went back on his profession of faith, and refused shelter to those who had none…

Mitchell Abidor visited the New York Jewish Museum’s exhibition 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 exhibition tells the story of the gradual integration into Europe of an Iraqi Jewish family who turned into British aristocrats. 

Wonderful times we live in. Did you dream it was possible to be an ultra-Zionist, a great friend of Netanyahu, and at the same time antisemitic and revisionist? To attack the cosmopolitan cabal of George Soros and his henchmen in the European Union, accusing them of being antisemitic? Viktor Orbán, self-proclaimed friend of Israel and the Jewish people, has done just that, and it’s hard not to see the toothy grin behind this outstretched hand. This week, in partnership with DILCRAH, János Gadó takes us on a tour of the parallel reality of contemporary Hungary. There, the assertion of “zero tolerance” of antisemitism does not prevent the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators and the dissemination of hackneyed antisemitic tropes: only political opponents hate Jews anyway. Gadó’s analysis leaves us with the certainty that, really, there are some friendships we could have done without. And it’s not the least fault of the Netanyahu government to nurture them.

Turning to another part of the world, Renan Antônio da Silva and Eric Heinze inspect Brazil’s complex relationship with its Jewish community and its relationship to Zionism. With comments comparing the Gaza war to the Shoah by the once beloved Lula and with Bolsonaro’s prior ultra-Zionist stance, the Jewish community has felt increasingly alienated from its country’s leadership. Brazil, once a refuge for Jews and Arabs, is now facing rising divisions over the Israel-Palestine conflict, the country’s shifting policies and its antisemitic past rising to the surface again.

German philosopher Jürgen Habermas recently celebrated his ninety-fifth birthday. Bruno Karsenti took advantage of the occasion, in an article that is also a tribute, to examine a work that is, as he writes, “the most solid foundation of European construction as a carrier of the universal”.  A work that is both German and European, or German and then European. Indeed, Jürgen Habermas was the first to understand that it was only by facing up to German crime and guilt that we could, as he did, relaunch a European political project. But Jürgen Habermas did not confine himself to this task. Focusing on some of his lesser-known texts, Bruno Karsenti also shows that Jürgen Habermas not only never turned his eyes away from the uniqueness of the crime – even when some of his colleagues began to defend its necessity – but also recalled the specifically Jewish contribution to German philosophy. A contribution that Bruno Karsenti details here, restoring its importance, certainly for today’s Europeans, but also for Jews who have moved away from Europe.

Over the past year or so, you may have noticed Israel’s extraordinary ability to find itself at the center of the world and its problems. Since we will undoubtedly continue to wrestle with this tendency, it would be useful to clarify why it seems so suspicious. If Israel’s rightful place is not at the center of the world (even if it is Jewish), then where is it? This is the question at stake in the text written by Noémie Issan-Benchimol and Gabriel Abensour, who set out to map diasporisms. Dismissing religious Zionism and the neo-diasporism of those intellectuals who idealize exile from their American campuses, they point to a way out of their political impasse. If Israel is to be grasped as a political reality that can be criticized and improved, it must be stripped of its character as a metaphysical exception, whether thought of as redemption or damnation. In other words, it must be reinscribed in the political situation of the Jews: “there is no outside exile”.
Have you ever wondered whether anti-Zionism might not be our best hope of escaping planetary destruction caused by global warming? No? Then you haven’t read Andreas Malm, whose eco-Marxist theories and call to disarm the fossil fuel industry have found a wide echo in activist circles. Malm places the Palestinian cause at the heart of the ecological struggle, not hesitating to draw inspiration from the “sabotage” of Hamas and to suggest that it would be necessary to destroy Israel in order to put an end to greenhouse gas emissions. Sylvaine Bulle, who takes the defense of political ecology to heart, unfolds for K. the logic of this green anti-Zionism, and shows that this focus on the “Zionist entity” reflects the failure of ecological thinking, making the prospect of emancipation unthinkable.
To close this back-to-school issue, we publish two short pieces by our esteemed collaborator Karl Kraus: “Matters viewed (Jewishly)”. Unfortunately, stupidity never takes a vacation, so he had to stay on the ball and spend the summer tracking it down, even in the scribbles of a bad joker. But this need to stay on the lookout, this impossibility of letting the mind take a vacation in a world that seems to know only the logic of the worst, is tiring. In this fatigue, everyone can easily recognize themselves.

Dear readers,

The last week of our summer break is upon us, and we’ll be resuming our usual rhythm of publications with the next issue. However, the editorial team decided at its back-to-school meeting that it needed to express its views on current events in Israel. The discovery of the summary execution of six hostages by Hamas has inflamed the political situation there, leading to a massive mobilization of society against the government’s conduct of the war. In “Israel held hostage”, we look back at what is at stake for Israel at this moment, both as a traumatic repetition of the event that opened the sequence in which it has found itself locked for the past eleven months, and as an injunction to finally give itself the means to get out of it.

Since a return from summer and the soon to be arriving new Jewish year bring a degree of introspection and reflection with it, our latest summer feature looks at the complexity of Jewishness – whether through Ivan Segré’s examination of the bipolarity of Jewish identity, Mona El Khoury’s fiction piece on grappling with history and our past, Ruben Honigmann’s recurring confrontation with amazement at hostility, an analysis of the get (Jewish traditional divorce) and legal pluralism by Astrid von Busekist or Noémie Issan-Benchimol’s analysis of what Jewish thought has to say about hostage redemption, this week’s feature provides a plethora of food for thought and maybe even some answers for ourselves. 

During this summer break, the magazine is pausing its regular publications. Until the new season arrives, we’re offering our readers a weekly feature exploring a theme that has often engaged us. It’s an opportunity to discover the article you missed, to rediscover the one that caught your eye, and to share some of K.’ s publications with friends who don’t yet know us. As a reminder, our archives are open, and we invite you to browse through the hundreds of texts we’ve already published over the last three and a half years, all of which bear witness to the magazine’s ambition: to move between topicality and historical depth, to report on contemporary issues that call for reflection on the situation of European Jewry.

This week, the spotlight is on literature, and its relationship to memory, transmission and identity. Between analyses offering unexpected insights into such classic works as Albert Cohen’s and Franz Kafka’s, original fiction by Israeli writer Moshe Sakal, an interview with the provocative and disturbing Yishaï Sarid, fresh Yiddish literaure by Berl Kotlerman, Julia Christ’s reading of the subversive Jewish Cock and Danny Trom’s of Joshua Cohen’s novel The Netanyahu, there’s no doubt there’s something for every reader.

Also, in the wake of Alain Delon’s death, Jean-Baptise Thoret’s article on Mr. Klein is worth reading or re-reading.

During this summer break, the magazine pauses its regular publication schedule. However, in anticipation of the new season, we’re offering our readers a weekly feature exploring an important theme that has mobilized us this year and which, in our current context, remains topical. It’s an opportunity to discover the article you missed, to rediscover the one that caught your eye, and to share some of K.’s publications with your friends who don’t yet know us. As a reminder, our archives are open and we invite you to browse through the hundreds of texts we’ve already published over the last three and a half years.

During this summer break, the magazine is pausing its regular publications. However, while we await the start of the new school year, we’ll be offering our readers a weekly feature exploring an important theme that has mobilized us this year and which, in our current context, remains topical. An opportunity to discover the article you missed, to rediscover the one that caught your eye, and to share some of K.’ s publications with your friends who don’t yet know us. As a reminder, our archives are open, and we invite you to browse through the hundreds of texts we’ve already published over the last three and a half years, all of which bear witness to the magazine’s ambition: to move between topicality and historical depth, to take account of contemporary issues that call for reflection on the situation of European Jewry.
We hope you enjoy this week’s feature and wish you a good rest of the summer!

The Editors

During this summer break, the magazine is pausing its regular publications. However, while we await the start of the new school year, we’ll be offering our readers a weekly feature exploring an important theme that has mobilized us this year and which, in our current context, remains topical. An opportunity to discover the article you missed, to rediscover the one that caught your eye, and to share some of K.’ s publications with your friends who don’t yet know us. As a reminder, our archives are open, and we invite you to browse through the hundreds of texts we’ve already published over the last three and a half years, all of which bear witness to the magazine’s ambition: to move between topicality and historical depth, to take account of contemporary issues that call for reflection on the situation of European Jewry.

This week, our feature offers a glimpse into the sometimes intimate world of Jewish life. Each of the first-person testimonies provides an insight into the diversity of contemporary Jewish experiences and identities. These appear in turn under the sign of strangeness, a shift, duality, disarray, incomprehension or doubt. Perhaps it is Ivan Segré’s reflection that best captures the impression that emanates from the whole, as he sees the experience of Jewish identity irremediably divided between the inescapability of genealogical inscription and the singularity of subjective affirmation.

During this summer break, the magazine is pausing its regular publications. However, while we await the start of the new school year, we’ll be offering our readers a weekly feature exploring an important theme that has mobilized us this year and which, in our current context, remains topical. An opportunity to discover the article you missed, to rediscover the one that caught your eye, and to share some of K. ‘s publications with your friends who don’t yet know him. As a reminder, our archives are open, and we invite you to browse through the hundreds of texts we’ve already published over the last three and a half years, all of which bear witness to the magazine’s ambition: to move between topicality and historical depth, to take account of contemporary issues that call for reflection on the situation of European Jewry.

This week, we return to the Jewish-American symbiosis, and the prospect of its deterioration. The days when Motl discovered New York with his eyes full of stars seem long gone. Today, it’s more a kind of malaise that seems to grip American Jews, particularly in their relationship with the progressive camp or through reflections on heritage and belonging. From the media coverage of Jewish victims in the United States, to the press of Hasidic communities to the history of relations between Jews and African-Americans, the articles in this dossier explore the tensions in the American Jewish community.

This summer, as we prepare for the new school year, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all our donors and invite regular readers who have not yet done so to support us (via PayPal orHelloasso). We are currently developing projects to give the magazine a greater impact, which we feel is more necessary than ever in these troubled times. We know that many of our readers share this view, as their numbers have more than doubled since October 7th brought the Jewish world to its knees and to the center of national debates, as witnessed by the recent elections in France.

Wishing you a good summer and happy reading!

The Editors