Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France

Daniella Doron

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At the end of World War II, French Jews faced a devastating demographic reality: thousands of orphaned children, large numbers of single-parent households, and families in emotional and financial distress. Daniella Doron suggests that after years of occupation and collaboration, French Jews and non-Jews held contrary opinions about the future of the nation and the institution of the family. At the center of the disagreement was what was to become of the children. Doron traces emerging notions about the postwar family and its role in strengthening Jewish ethnicity and French republicanism in the shadow of Vichy and the Holocaust.

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. "Their Children? Our Children!:" Holocaust Memory in Postwar France
2. "A Drama of Faith and Family:" Custody Disputes in Postwar France
3. Notre Vie en Commune: The Family Versus the Children's Home
4. The Homes of Hope?: Trauma, Universal Victimhood, and Universalism
5. From Competition to Cooperation: Redefining Jewish Identities
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• 20th Century
• Modern
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Modern history
• Cold War
• General officer
• Judaism
• History of Europe
• French Revolution
• General
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• France
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 28 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253017468
• Langue: English

Extrait

JEWISH YOUTH and IDENTITY in Postwar France
THE MODERN JEWISH EXPERIENCE
Deborah Dash Moore and Marsha L. Rozenblit, editors Paula Hyman, founding coeditor
JEWISH YOUTH and IDENTITY in Postwar France
Rebuilding Family and Nation
DANIELLA DORON
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2015 by Daniella Doron
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Doron, Daniella, author.
Jewish youth and identity in postwar France : rebuilding family and nation / Daniella Doron.
pages cm - (The Modern Jewish experience)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-01741-3 (cloth : alk. paper)- ISBN 978-0-253-01746-8 (ebook) 1. Jewish youth-France-History-20th century. 2. Jewish children-France-History-20th century. 3. Jewish youth-France-Social conditions-20th century. 4. Jewish children-France-Social conditions-20th century. 5. France-Civilization-1945- 6. France-Social conditions-1945-1995. I. Title.
DS 135. F 83 D 64 2015
305.235089 92404409045-dc23
2015017064
1 2 3 4 5 20 19 18 17 16 15
TO MY PARENTS
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Their Children? Our Children!
Holocaust Memory in Postwar France
2 A Drama of Faith and Family :
Custody Disputes in Postwar France
3 Notre Vie en Commune:
The Family versus the Children s Home
4 The Homes of Hope?
Trauma, Universal Victimhood, and Universalism
5 From Competition to Cooperation:
Redefining Jewish Identities
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IT IS MY PLEASURE to have the opportunity to thank the many people who have left their imprint, in multiple ways, on this work and my life.
Words fall short in expressing my deep gratitude to Marion Kaplan, first my doctoral adviser and now my dear friend, for her care, her time, and her rigorous scholarly example. The thousands of e-mails exchanged over the years, coffee dates on the Upper West Side, and our independent study meetings conducted over coffee and a shared black-and-white cookie mark some of my fondest memories of graduate school. Her comments on my work have forced me to refine my writing and thinking; her own scholarship has kindled my initial interest in the field and continues to serve as a source of inspiration. As my career has taken me further away from New York than either of us would have ever imagined, Skype dates have replaced coffee dates, and she has remained my first port of call for advice and good cheer. For all of this, Marion will forever have my gratitude, admiration, and lasting friendship.
I consider myself tremendously fortunate to have found such a nurturing environment at New York University. Herrick Chapman and Mary Nolan generously read more drafts than they would probably care to remember, and their comments have sharpened the analytical focus of this study. The more I progress in my career, the more fully I appreciate their commitment to mentoring graduate students and the scholarly erudition they display in their own work. I first met Laura Lee Downs in a setting quite far away from Greenwich Village-in the cafes and archives of Paris. Her seminar at the EHESS on children and war, our many conversations (both scholarly and otherwise) over wine in Paris and New York, as well her incisive comments have made the research and the writing of this study far more pleasant and intellectually gratifying. She has shaped my thinking on the history of childhood and the family, and I hope that she will see her influence in the following pages. I also extend my thanks to Paula Hyman for her kindness in reading the first version of this work and her advocacy of this book during its early stages. Her own path-breaking work in French Jewish history and Jewish history have informed my own perspective on these fields.
Fellowships from the Council of European Studies, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Fondation pour la m moire de la Shoah, and the Center for Jewish History provided critical funding for the research and writing of this book. The statements made and views expressed, however, are solely the responsibility of the author. In particular, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Center for Jewish History offered spaces that fostered productive research and animated conversations with colleagues, including Eran Neuman, Paul Jaskot, Jonathan Judaken, Noah Shenker, and Avi Patt. I am grateful to the post-doctoral fellowships offered by the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto and the Jewish Studies Program at Colgate University and am especially indebted to Doris Bergen, Hindy Najman, Lesleigh Cushing, and Alice Nakhimovsky for their guidance and generosity of time and spirit.
In addition to the collegial atmosphere offered by these institutions, I have benefited from multiple writing groups as this book has transformed and taken shape. My cohort at NYU read several chapters, and our regular meetings greatly improved this study. I thank Nathan Marcus, Elisabetta Bini, Michelle Standley, Sasha Disco, Maggie Clinton, Quinn Slobodian, Lauren Kaminsky, Sherene Seikaly, Andrew Lee, and of course Molly Nolan. Another writing group was formed not by NYU students, but by a motley group of modern European historians all writing in New York. Every month I eagerly anticipated escaping Butler Library for our enjoyable and constructive Ortsgruppe Upper West Side evenings with Noah Strote, Emily Levine, Eli Stern, and Joshua Derman. While at Colgate, I greatly enjoyed my interdisciplinary writing group made up of Dan Bouk, Noah Dauber, and Liz Marlow, and at Monash University, my research group composed of David Garrioch, Leah Garrett, Michael Hau, Paula Michaels, Karen Auerbach, Randall Geller, Julie Kalman, Jane Drackard, and Seamus O Hanlon offered a warm and rigorous scholarly community.
I would like to thank the editorial team at Indiana University Press-Sarah Jacobi, Darja Malcolm-Clarke, and Debra Hirsch Corman-for their support of this book as well as their editorial input. A special thanks goes to Dee Mortensen for being such a talented editor and a pleasure to work with. Amy Hackett and Evelyn Bence have offered their honest editorial feedback and have helped tighten and transform the prose. I am grateful to the anonymous readers who provided valuable suggestions for revisions. They have left an indelible imprint on this book, and I consider myself exceedingly fortunate that the manuscript was placed with such insightful and generous readers. This work would have not seen the light of day without the support of the series editors Deborah Dash Moore and Marsha Rozenblit. It is especially fitting that this book is being published under the editorial leadership of Marsha Rozenblit, since I first fell in love with modern Jewish history in her undergraduate classroom. Without her infectious enthusiasm for Jewish history and dedication to her students, I surely would not be writing these pages.
The friendships I have made over the last several years, in New York and points across the globe, have brought many needed moments of levity to my life. In New York, my dearest and most steadfast friends Lauren Kaminsky, Shane Minkin, and Michelle Standley have been my touchstones. I am not sure I would have made it through graduate school and beyond without our regular stammtischer, many late-night phone calls, and our memorable trips to Berlin (a halfway point between Paris and Moscow). A special thanks also goes to my friend Tara Zahra. She has always provided friendship and a formidable scholarly example; our days shared in the archives made research infinitely more enjoyable. At the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU, Lara Rabinovich, David Kofman, Rachel Kranson, Flora Cassen, and Shira Kohn formed a cohort of Jewish historians and friends. In Paris, I shared many welcome glasses of wine and archival breaks with Kelly Ricciardi, Emily Machen, and Ethan Katz. A once committed New Yorker, I found myself surprisingly happy living in Hamilton, a small town in upstate New York. The friendships I forged while at Colgate University are too numerous to mention, but I would like to particularly thank Lesleigh Cushing, Heather Roller, Noah Dauber, Robert Nemes, David McCabe, Dan Bouk, Alice Nakhimovsky, Liz Marlow, and Ben Stahlberg. My subsequent move to Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, could have been jarring given the distance. But instead my friends and colleagues at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation-Mark Baker, Leah Garrett, Andrew Marcus, Andrew Benjamin, Nathan Wolski, and Helen Midler-as well as those in the History Department have ensured that it was a remarkably easy transition. I thank them for creating a