{"id":24213,"date":"2026-09-29T21:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/?p=24213"},"modified":"2026-09-30T01:54:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T01:54:53","slug":"la-fin-du-judaisme-en-terres-dislam-deconstruire-lideologie-dominante-par-shmuel-trigano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/la-fin-du-judaisme-en-terres-dislam-deconstruire-lideologie-dominante-par-shmuel-trigano\/","title":{"rendered":"La fin du juda\u00efsme en terres d’Islam : d\u00e9construire l’id\u00e9ologie dominante, par Shmuel Trigano"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Le saviez-vous ? 900 000 Juifs ont \u00e9t\u00e9 exclus ou expuls\u00e9s des Etats arabo-musulmans entre 1940 et 1970. <\/b><\/p>\n

L\u2019histoire de la disparition du juda\u00efsme en terres d\u2019islam est la clef d\u2019une mystification politique de grande ampleur qui a fini par gagner toutes les consciences. Elle fonde le r\u00e9cit qui accable la l\u00e9gitimit\u00e9 et la moralit\u00e9 d\u2019Isra\u00ebl en l\u2019accusant d\u2019un pseudo \u00ab p\u00e9ch\u00e9 originel \u00bb. <\/b><\/p>\n

La fable <\/strong> <\/p>\n

La fable est simpliste : le martyre des Juifs europ\u00e9ens sous le nazisme serait la seule justification de l\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Isra\u00ebl. Sa \u00ab cr\u00e9ation \u00bb par les Nations Unies aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 une forme de compensation au lendemain de la guerre. Cependant, elle aurait entra\u00een\u00e9 une autre trag\u00e9die, la \u00ab Nakba \u00bb, en d\u00e9poss\u00e9dant les Palestiniens de leur propre territoire. <\/b><\/p>\n

Dans le meilleur des cas<\/em>, ce r\u00e9cit autorise \u00e0 tol\u00e9rer que cet \u00c9tat subsiste pour des causes humanitaires, malgr\u00e9 sa culpabilit\u00e9 cong\u00e9nitale. Cette narration a, de fait, tout pour sembler r\u00e9aliste. Elle surfe sur le sentiment de culpabilit\u00e9 d\u2019une Europe doublement responsable : de la Shoah et de l\u2019imposition coloniale d\u2019Isra\u00ebl \u00e0 un monde arabe innocent.<\/p>\n

Dans le pire des cas<\/em>, cette narration ne voit en Isra\u00ebl qu\u2019une puissance colonialiste qui doit dispara\u00eetre. Ce qui explique l\u2019int\u00e9r\u00eat d\u2019accuser sans cesse Isra\u00ebl de g\u00e9nocide et de nazisme : sa seule \u00ab raison d\u2019\u00eatre \u00bb (la Shoah) est ainsi sap\u00e9e dans son fondement. La \u00ab Nakba \u00bb est le pendant de la Shoah.<\/b><\/p>\n

La synth\u00e8se politiquement correcte<\/em> de ces deux positions extr\u00eames est trouv\u00e9e dans la doctrine de l\u2019\u00c9tat bi-national ou du \u00ab retour \u00bb des \u00ab r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s \u00bb qui implique que les Juifs d\u2019Isra\u00ebl mettent en oeuvre leur propre destruction en disparaissant dans une masse d\u00e9mographique arabo-musulmane. <\/b><\/p>\n

Les implications<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ce discours manich\u00e9en a plusieurs implications symboliques et id\u00e9ologiques :
– Il d\u00e9l\u00e9gitime l\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Isra\u00ebl et justifie sa destruction
– Il implique que les Juifs ne sont pas un peuple et qu\u2019ils n\u2019ont aucun lien avec la \u00ab Palestine \u00bb
– Il entra\u00eene que leur constitution en nation est en soi une violence et une mystification
– Il leur interdit la jouissance du droit \u00e0 l\u2019autod\u00e9termination qui est le privil\u00e8ge de tout groupe humain quel qu\u2019il soit.
– Il accuse le sionisme d\u2019avoir mis fin \u00e0 la \u00ab coexistence pacifique \u00bb jud\u00e9o-arabe : il aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 responsable du d\u00e9part des Juifs des pays arabo-musulmans
– Il innocente par principe les Palestiniens et les Etats arabo-musulmans
-Il \u00ab autochtonise \u00bb les \u00ab Palestiniens \u00bb alors que l\u2019adjectif \u00ab palestinien \u00bb d\u00e9signait auparavant les Juifs du Yichouv. La \u00ab Palestine \u00bb d\u2019aujourd\u2019hui est, en effet, une invention r\u00e9cente qui date des ann\u00e9es 1970.<\/b><\/p>\n

Or<\/strong>,<\/b> ce r\u00e9cit s\u2019expose <\/b> \u00e0 une contradiction majeure<\/strong>
– La majorit\u00e9 de la population isra\u00e9lienne n\u2019est ni originaire d\u2019Europe ni rescap\u00e9e de la Shoah, et ce, d\u00e8s les ann\u00e9es 1950. Originaire des pays arabo-musulmans, elle est partie prenante de l\u2019histoire politique et humaine de la r\u00e9gion.<\/b><\/p>\n

La mystification<\/strong><\/p>\n

Le destin de cette population est significatif : entre les ann\u00e9es 1940 et 1970 elle a \u00e9t\u00e9 expuls\u00e9e ou exclue et pouss\u00e9e au d\u00e9part. 900 000 Juifs d\u2019alors ont d\u00fb fuir des pays o\u00f9 ils \u00e9taient pr\u00e9sents bien avant l\u2019invasion islamique du VII\u00b0 si\u00e8cle: 600 000 se sont r\u00e9install\u00e9s en Isra\u00ebl, le reste, en majorit\u00e9 en France.<\/b><\/p>\n

– Dans leur grande majorit\u00e9, ces populations ne sont pas parties volontairement mais sous le coup d\u2019un v\u00e9ritable \u00ab statut des Juifs \u00bb, d\u2019un antis\u00e9mitisme d\u2019\u00c9tat, souvent syst\u00e9matique, soutenu par un arsenal de lois et de r\u00e8glements.<\/b><\/p>\n

– Cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement massif et consid\u00e9rable, concernant 10 pays, sur une longue p\u00e9riode, commen\u00e7ant dans les ann\u00e9es 1920 pour certaines r\u00e9gions, est l\u2019objet d\u2019une v\u00e9ritable mystification qui prend la forme du mythe de la symbiose jud\u00e9o-arabe que toute l\u2019histoire d\u00e9ment, y compris l\u2019\u00e2ge andalou.<\/b><\/p>\n

– Ce mythe n\u2019est pas inoffensif : il est la couverture d\u2019un projet de destruction de l\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Isra\u00ebl et conna\u00eet une diffusion mondiale, dans les pays les plus \u00e9loign\u00e9s de l\u2019ar\u00e8ne du conflit. Il retentit sur la condition des Juifs dans les pays occidentaux et sur la r\u00e9ception de l\u2019islam en leur sein.<\/b><\/p>\n

Il est temps de restaurer le r\u00e9cit historique juif !<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ce n\u2019est pas une question de m\u00e9moire, ni de dignit\u00e9 ou de reconnaissance, mais une question politique qui engage la justice. <\/b><\/p>\n

Car les populations concern\u00e9es sont toujours vivantes : la plus grande partie des Juifs du monde arabo-musulman constitue la majorit\u00e9 des citoyens isra\u00e9liens et des Juifs de France. <\/b><\/p>\n

Ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 victimes de violences, de graves spoliations \u00e9conomiques et financi\u00e8res de la part des nouveaux Etats arabes. <\/b><\/p>\n

L\u2019histoire des 40 derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es a montr\u00e9 que les passer sous silence se retournait n\u00e9cessairement contre elles. <\/b><\/p>\n

Leur pr\u00e9sence en Isra\u00ebl n\u2019est pas une cause humanitaire \u2013 m\u00eame si leur expulsion en fit des r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s contraints de quitter leur pays et d\u2019abandonner leurs biens. R\u00e9fugi\u00e9s, ils le furent clairement au Y\u00e9men, en Irak, en Egypte, en Libye. Ailleurs, ils le furent objectivement si partir pr\u00e9cipitamment, sous la menace, en abandonnant ses biens, d\u00e9finit la condition de r\u00e9fugi\u00e9.<\/b><\/p>\n

L\u2019enjeu inavou\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n

– Les Juifs du monde arabe constituaient une nation domin\u00e9e, assign\u00e9e au statut inf\u00e2me de dhimmi. La seule tol\u00e9rance qu\u2019ils connurent dans ces pays fut l\u2019\u00e9poque coloniale o\u00f9 ils \u00e9chapp\u00e8rent \u00e0 cette condition d\u00e9gradante de parias.
– Il faut voir dans l\u2019immigration de ces populations en Isra\u00ebl le processus d\u2019autod\u00e9termination d\u2019une nation domin\u00e9e du monde arabo-musulman au moment m\u00eame o\u00f9 le nationalisme arabe conduisait \u00e0 la cr\u00e9ation d\u2019Etats qui n\u2019existaient pas auparavant.
– Cette autod\u00e9termination s\u2019identifiait naturellement avec le sionisme en qu\u00eate d\u2019auto-\u00e9mancipation.
– C\u2019est ainsi que l\u2019existence d\u2019Isra\u00ebl et le sionisme sont per\u00e7us dans la perspective du monde arabo-musulman : comme la r\u00e9bellion d\u2019une nation domin\u00e9e contre la loi de l\u2019islam et la oumma<\/em>. C\u2019est la cause unique du conflit isra\u00e9lo-arabe.
– La Palestine n\u2019a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 une entit\u00e9 politique, culturelle, identitaire. Il n\u2019y a pas de \u00ab Palestine \u00bb avant l\u2019instauration du mandat britannique par la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Nations, en 1920. Une partie des Palestiniens sont des immigr\u00e9s du monde arabe, install\u00e9s l\u00e0, \u00e0 la fin du XIX\u00b0 si\u00e8cle et au d\u00e9but du XX\u00b0, favoris\u00e9s par la politique ottomane et attir\u00e9s par la prosp\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00e9conomique, apport\u00e9e par les Juifs. Ils sont au plus aussi \u00ab palestiniens \u00bb que les Juifs. Yasser Arafat comme Edward Sa\u00efd \u00e9taient des Egyptiens.<\/b><\/p>\n

C\u2019est un tout autre paysage historique et politique <\/strong> qui transpara\u00eet sous la chape de plomb de la mystification.<\/b><\/p>\n

– L\u2019\u00c9tat d\u2019Isra\u00ebl, reconnu en 1948 par le Conseil de s\u00e9curit\u00e9, est aussi l\u00e9gitime que les \u00c9tats arabes, pure invention post-coloniale. Ils n\u2019existaient pas auparavant. Avant la colonisation europ\u00e9enne, leurs territoires \u00e9taient sous le pouvoir colonial – mais musulman – de l\u2019empire ottoman.
– Il n\u2019a pas de dette envers les Palestiniens. Un \u00e9change de populations s\u2019est produit \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque d\u2019apr\u00e8s guerre : en Europe pour environ 18 000 000 de personnes (dont le d\u00e9placement vers l\u2019Allemagne de 12 000 000 de ressortissants d\u2019origine allemande, provenant de 5 pays) ; en Asie, pour les 12,5 millions d\u2019Indous et de Pakistanais \u00e0 la suite de la s\u00e9cession du Pakistan musulman en 1947-1948. Rappelons le transfert avant-guerre de 1,3 millions de Grecs et de 400 000 Turcs, de 200 000 Bulgares en 1923-1933, et combien d\u2019autres \u00e9changes de populations dans le monde entier. <\/b>Parmi elles, 900.000 Juifs et 600.000 Palestiniens.<\/strong>
– Par contre, la dette arabe est r\u00e9elle: les biens juifs spoli\u00e9s sont 500 fois sup\u00e9rieurs \u00e0 ceux des Palestiniens.
– Les Palestiniens et les \u00c9tats arabes sont les seuls responsables de leur situation :<\/b><\/p>\n

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* Ils ont syst\u00e9matiquement refus\u00e9 tous les partages de la Palestine mandataire alors que les Juifs l\u2019acceptaient.
* Un Etat palestinien s\u2019est n\u00e9anmoins d\u00e9j\u00e0 cr\u00e9\u00e9 sur les deux tiers de la Palestine : la Jordanie. 75% de sa population est \u00ab palestinienne \u00bb, m\u00eame si le pouvoir est aux mains d\u2019une minorit\u00e9 b\u00e9douine qui n\u2019h\u00e9sita pas \u00e0 massacrer les \u00ab r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s palestiniens\u00bb lors du dramatique \u00ab Septembre noir \u00bb de 1970 (10 000 morts, 110 000 bless\u00e9s).
* C\u2019est la \u00ab Transjordanie \u00bb (cr\u00e9\u00e9e en 1922 par l\u2019empire britannique) qui a occup\u00e9 et annex\u00e9 les territoires de Jud\u00e9e et Samarie et J\u00e9rusalem-Est lors d\u2019une guerre de conqu\u00eate en 1947-1948. Elle dev\u00eent alors la \u00ab Jordanie \u00bb et les territoires occup\u00e9s, la \u00ab Cisjordanie \u00bb. Aucun mouvement de lib\u00e9ration palestinien ne se leva contre cette occupation, ni contre celle de la bande de Gaza par l\u2019Egypte. La \u00ab Palestine \u00bb n\u2019\u00e9tait pas encore n\u00e9e.
* Les r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s palestiniens ne sont pas innocents : ils \u00e9taient partie prenante de l\u2019agression des \u00c9tats arabes contre Isra\u00ebl. Leur d\u00e9part ou expulsion est directement li\u00e9 \u00e0 cette situation.
* Les Juifs des 10 pays arabo-musulmans, n\u2019\u00e9taient pas sur le terrain du conflit arm\u00e9, ni ne constituaient une puissance mena\u00e7ant les \u00c9tats arabes o\u00f9 ils r\u00e9sidaient.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

– Les Etats arabes n\u2019ont pas int\u00e9gr\u00e9 les r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s palestiniens, \u00e0 l\u2019inverse d\u2019Isra\u00ebl pour ses r\u00e9fugi\u00e9s, pour en faire des foyers de guerre permanents.
– Les Palestiniens, y compris les \u00ab mod\u00e9r\u00e9s \u00bb, refusent toujours aujourd\u2019hui le partage du territoire mandataire restant apr\u00e8s la cr\u00e9ation de la Transjordanie, en refusant \u00e0 Isra\u00ebl le droit \u00e0 son caract\u00e8re national juif, alors qu\u2019ils d\u00e9finissent la Palestine comme arabe et islamique, une terre o\u00f9, selon leurs documents constitutionnels et leur pratique, il n\u2019y aurait plus aucun juif et o\u00f9 il n\u2019y a d\u00e9j\u00e0 quasiment plus de chr\u00e9tiens.
– L\u2019existence d\u2019Isra\u00ebl pose le probl\u00e8me du droit de vivre en sujets libre et souverains des nations non musulmanes dans l\u2019aire musulmane. L\u2019extermination des Arm\u00e9niens, d\u2019abord par l\u2019empire ottoman, puis par le nouvel Etat turc a repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 la premi\u00e8re r\u00e9pression d\u2019une population dhimmie en qu\u00eate d\u2019ind\u00e9pendance nationale. Il n\u2019y a quasiment plus de Juifs aujourd\u2019hui dans le monde arabo-islamique et les chr\u00e9tiens y sont en voie de disparition.<\/b><\/p>\n

L\u2019enjeu contemporain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Le crit\u00e8re d\u00e9terminant d\u2019appr\u00e9ciation de la situation d\u2019Isra\u00ebl n\u2019est pas seulement la Shoah des Juifs d\u2019Europe mais celle dont le monde arabo-islamique menace l\u2019Etat d\u2019Isra\u00ebl qui r\u00e9sume l\u2019impasse tragique que le \u00ab statut des Juifs \u00bb, mis en oeuvre lors de la fondation des nouveaux \u00c9tats arabes, y annon\u00e7ait et que la cr\u00e9ation de l\u2019\u00c9tat et sa victoire militaire ont suspendue. <\/b><\/p>\n

Elle plane toujours sur sa t\u00eate et la menace nucl\u00e9aire iranienne lui donne toute sa cr\u00e9dibilit\u00e9.<\/b><\/p>\n

Le peuple juif n\u2019est pas une cause humanitaire mais un peuple de l\u2019histoire et il a le droit \u00e0 la souverainet\u00e9 sur une terre qui a connu trois Etats juifs et depuis la plus haute antiquit\u00e9, en un temps o\u00f9 ni le mot arabe, ni le mot islam n\u2019\u00e9taient encore connus. La condition des Juifs n\u2019est pas vou\u00e9e \u00e0 la marginalit\u00e9 ou \u00e0 la soumission par on ne sait quelle fatalit\u00e9. <\/b><\/p>\n

Ces quelques v\u00e9rit\u00e9s constituent le B-A BA d\u2019une vision saine et objective de la situation, fond\u00e9e sur la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 des faits.
Tels sont les \u00e9l\u00e9ments historiques et politiques qui doivent inspirer le discours juif aujourd\u2019hui. Il est temps de reprendre l\u2019initiative morale, symbolique, id\u00e9ologique du d\u00e9bat et du combat.<\/b><\/p>\n


Document \u00e9laborant le mod\u00e8le historique de la fin des communaut\u00e9s juives en terres d\u2019islam<\/a> . <\/b><\/p>\n

Bibliographie de l\u2019auteur : <\/strong>
La fin du juda\u00efsme en terres d\u2019islam<\/em>, (livre collectif sous sa direction), Editions Deno\u00ebl, 2009.
\u00ab L\u2019exclusion des Juifs des pays arabes \u00bb (livre collectif sous sa direction), Pard\u00e8s<\/em>, 28\/2000, Editions In Press.
\u00ab La m\u00e9moire s\u00e9pharade \u00bb (livre collectif sous la direction de H\u00e9l\u00e8ne et Shmuel Trigano), Pard\u00e8s<\/em>, 34\/2003.
Le Monde S\u00e9pharade, histoire et civilisation<\/em>, (livre collectif en 2 tomes sous sa direction), Le Seuil, 2006.<\/b><\/p>\n

Jewish Peoplehood: a Unity of Opposites?*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shmuel Trigano<\/strong>**<\/b><\/p>\n

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*This paper was presented at the President\u2019s conference \u201cTomorrow 2009<\/em>\u201d, Jerusalem.
**Professor of sociology at Paris University, head of the Coll\u00e8ge des \u00e9tudes juives de l\u2019Alliance Isra\u00e9lite Universelle. http:\/\/www.shmuel-trigano.fr\/<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is a strange irony to talk about unity of the Jewish people in times of what can be seen realistically as a war of the Jews. But it is critical to analyze the reason of this war in order to understand what is at stake when speaking of unity in relation to the Jewish people. <\/b><\/p>\n

Two camps<\/strong>
Among the larger part of today lost Jews, two camps confront each other. Their importance is different if you are in diaspora or in Israel. One is the ultra-orthodox trend and the other the post-something\/anything movement, post-Zionist, post-modernist, and so on.<\/b><\/p>\n

The two camps aim at the same target. They question de facto and de jure the existence and the legitimacy of a Jewish people. <\/b><\/p>\n

The main consequence of such a position is that they are opposed to the will to sovereignty of this people, as it is carried out by the State of Israel. <\/b><\/p>\n

An Israeli-limited camp<\/strong>
This questioning is passive for the ultra-orthodox and mostly Israel-limited. It expresses itself through a national inertia, a default regarding the common life and a sectarian choice to be a counter society. <\/b><\/p>\n

In diaspora as in Israeli society these two camps stand aside from the Jewish people, but the phenomenon is much more developed in Israel where exists a real Jewish society. <\/b><\/p>\n

The Diasporic Pompeian syndrom<\/strong>
On the contrary, for the other camp, this dispute is aggressive and activist. It develops mainly in diaspora and gathers a large part of the Jewish intelligentsia. Its harsh criticism of Israel and Jewish community, its permanent denunciation of other Jewish intellectuals are directed toward global society. <\/b><\/p>\n

I call that the Pompeian syndrome, when in the Second Temple period a political party asked Romans ( and the consul Pompeius), to intervene in their internal affairs in order to win on its rivals.<\/p>\n

It is a nightmare to state the fact that the theoretical impulse of their position comes from sectors of Israeli intelligentsia, academia and medias. <\/b><\/p>\n

The global background<\/strong>
These two ideological trends are fighting the rest of the Jewish people on behalf of what they think to be Jewish ethics or on behalf their own definition of Judaism as a religion. <\/b><\/p>\n

This dispute occurs in a political arena where the existence of a Jewish people is demonized and delegimized. <\/b><\/p>\n

I cannot stop thinking that these two ideologies are the same ones that disarmed the Jews in the decades preceding the Shoa and that they are the more vocal, the more systematic and the more organized in today public arena, in this prodigious period of an existent Jewish sovereign state. <\/b><\/p>\n

That is to say that the ideological political forces that are the most active today are those who risked the life of the Jews, before the Shoa and the creation of the state. <\/b><\/p>\n

At stake: the Jews as a people<\/strong>
What is at stake \u2013as we see\u2013 is the Jewish condition as a people. <\/b> <\/p>\n

From one side, it is attacked on behalf of a secular spiritualism, from the other side on behalf of a religious sacred, on behalf of an immanent, inworldly principle or of a transcendant, outworldly principle. <\/b><\/p>\n

A twofold identity<\/strong>
This is an indication that there are two entries into Jewishness: as a people or\/and as a creed (will it be secular or religious). <\/b> <\/p>\n

This indication helps us to understand that the Jewish people is twofold: a people and a church. <\/b><\/p>\n

From one side, a specific people. And not a people of peoples as the Christian Katholikos and the Moslem Oumma. <\/b><\/p>\n

From the other side, a church, and not a clergy, as the Christian church. <\/b><\/p>\n

This unique characteristic is pretty well illustrated by the founding narrative of this people: the Sinai revelation is granted to the whole of a people. <\/b><\/p>\n

Cross relationships<\/strong>
This twofold identity implies that the people does not depend on the state for the principle of its existence. <\/b><\/p>\n

The people is greater than the nation. That is why it can exist outside the Israeli state (diaspora). <\/b><\/p>\n

It implies also that religion is not limited to the needs of the people (as pretended Spinoza) but has also a universal scope, significance. <\/b><\/p>\n

Different expressions<\/strong>
This twofold dimension expresses itself in different ways: Diaspora\/Israel, religious\/secular, Sefardi\/Ashkenazi, people\/nation, State\/religion. <\/b><\/p>\n

In the same way, according to the Book of Genesis, humanity which is only one, is basically man and woman.<\/b><\/p>\n

In quest of unity<\/strong>
It is upon such a joint of these two components that we have to lean in order to think of unity as a unity of opposites. <\/b><\/p>\n

The new situation created by the existence of a State is that the federative element cannot be exclusively the Book as it was in exile. The State has to be added. <\/b><\/p>\n

If the Book is the federative element of the church, the State became the federative element of the people. <\/b><\/p>\n

A challenge<\/strong>
We have to seek for a way to federate the State and the Book.<\/b><\/p>\n

It is a totally new theological problem for Judaism as a religion. <\/b><\/p>\n

It is a totally new political problem for Judaism as a people. <\/b><\/p>\n

*This paper was presented at the President\u2019s conference \u201cTomorrow 2009<\/em>\u201d, Jerusalem.
**Professor of sociology at Paris University, head of the Coll\u00e8ge des \u00e9tudes juives de l\u2019Alliance Isra\u00e9lite Universelle. http:\/\/www.shmuel-trigano.fr\/<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

The Future of European Jewry*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prof. Shmuel Trigano<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

* A lecture at the International Conference \u00ab European Jewry: A New Jewish Centre in the Making?<\/em> \u00bb
(Berlin. May 10th \u2013 May 12th 2009), organized by the Moses Mendelssohn Centre of European Jewish Studies in cooperation with Centrum Judaicum, Klal Yisrael and Tel Aviv University .<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Before asking ourselves if a new Jewish center is appearing in the European Community, there is a need to define the notion itself? What were the characteristics of the Jewish centers which developed in different places of the world through the ages? A comparison between them would show that their constitution depended on a set of previous conditions.<\/b><\/p>\n

Seven requisits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seven \u201crequisits\u201d were necessary to make the constitution of a Jewish center possible:
1)A sufficient demographic concentration of Jewish population
2)The appearence of a new power which is not yet consolidated nor institutionalized
3)The need of this power, in its rising phase, for the Jews to help it to organize itself, for two reasons:
a)As a minority, the Jews are a prey to a global hostility and that situation secures a total fidelity that the new power cannot expect from the majority population.
b)As a world network, the Jews have useful connections for this new power throughout the world
4)A Jewish center will appear when a rising new Jewish elite will bring about a top cultural production concerning Judaism or linked to Judaism
5) A Jewish center will appear when it will federate under its umbrella, as Dubnow theorized it, a network of Jewish lesser centers in other countries.
6) The Jewish center will last as long as a new elite of a same (ethnic-religious) origin than the new power elite has not appeared.
7)As soon as this elite will be constituted, the decline of the Jewish center will begin and the Jewish elite will be driven away from its positions.<\/b><\/p>\n

A strategical approach<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are the various criteria which permit to assess if a new Jewish center is in the making in Europa. Without dismissing such a possibility, I will express my perplexity, not only when I consider the state of European Jewry today (but I won\u2019t do this examination here, it is indeed a secondary element) but especially when I consider the strategical landscape of nowadays Europe. I will take as a basis the presentation of the leaflet presenting our conference.
The idea that Europe is on the way to a \u201ccoherent entity\u201d seems to me a pious wish, especially when this coherence is defined in the words of a \u201cpolitical unification\u201d.<\/b><\/p>\n

The axis of any strategic interpretation of the state of things in the united Europe is the conjunction of two developments<\/b><\/p>\n

a)The destructuration\/deconstruction of the European nation-states and national identities upon which the European international structure was built
b)The coming of an important Arab-Moslem immigration, the religion of which did not go through the process of modernization.<\/b><\/p>\n

In this background, the Jewish condition underwent a very problematic change of strategic status. It is important to remember its genealogy from the 1950es.<\/b><\/p>\n

1)The Shoah has been a turning point and the sign of the end of the Emancipation era, that is to say of a status according to which the Jews were recognized as individual and unidentified, anonymous, citizens. The Shoah was the tragic outbreak of the collective and not voluntarist fate of the Jews transcending the frontiers of the European national states (1).<\/b><\/p>\n

2)A Jewish life has been again possible in this continent (on a voluntary basis in the Free Europe and a de facto imposed basis in the Communist Europe), only according to the lesson (most of the time unconscious) drew from this cataclysmic event. Jewish life was reconstructed on the basis, I won\u2019t say of \u201ccommunities\u201d, but of communal identities: the French Jewry case is from this viewpoint the most illustrative case of the Jewish condition not in de facto empires like the USSR but in Western nation-states, that is to say in Western Europe. <\/b><\/p>\n

The element of the Jewish collective destiny has been re-integrated into the emancipated Jewries as a datum of Jewish existence and also as a value (not only a tragedy, except for assimilated Jews re-discovering their Jewishness because of the Shoah).These identities took again on themselves the responsibility for the Jewish people, without abandoning or neglecting nevertheless the citizenry. They necessarily and naturally leaned on the new State of Israel and more largely Zionism which constitute today the only instance of an assumed, positive and constructive collective Jewish destiny, contrasting with Jews\u2019fate in the Shoah. This development was assumed with no problem by Western Europe states so that it found its place without a problem.<\/b><\/p>\n

The societal change in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n

This situation totally changed from the beginning of the 1990es (2nd Gulf war 1990-1991). A double development explains it: a societal one and a social one.<\/b><\/p>\n

The societal change concerns the political structure of Europe. The progress towards the unification of European states weakened the existing framework of the nation states. The national identity they produced has been plunged into a vacuum and confusion. At the same period occurred a huge immigration which stressed the consequential disorientation and loss of the usual points of reference. This double phenomenon had dire consequences for the Jewish communities and for the integration of the immigrants. <\/b><\/p>\n

Indeed, the framework of the after-war Jewish communal identities has been shaken. Their identity has been built onto the national identities and one of their efforts has been to maintain a symbolical equilibrium: to balance their link with a Jewish people on their loyalty to their nation-state. With the decline of the European nation-states this type of identity has been ruined. <\/b><\/p>\n

The leaflet of our conference presents the Jewish community as a minority in a landscape defined according to the criterium of ethnic and religious minorities. That is indeed what is at stake. Is the status of minority desiderable for European Jews? I am not sure: they will lose the protection of the democratic citizenship which compensate for their numerical weakness, especially when confronted with another powerful minority. The majority\u2019s choice will be done quickly and easily. Such a possibility has been proved since the beginning of the 2000 years. One of the lessons of those years was that the prevailing ideology of muticulturalism is not a positive factor in the recognition of a Jewish \u201cminority\u201d but, on the contrary, an incentive to anti-Semitism.<\/b><\/p>\n

Concerning the immigrant populations, the absence of a clear model of integration, because of the decline of the nation states identities, has not helped their integration and perhaps will not permit it totally in the future. We might witness the constitution of an important semi-national Arab-Moslem minority in the new Europe.<\/b><\/p>\n

Last but not least, if the nation-states have been shaken by the European unification it is not yet clear what sort of state will be this United Europe. I can only see it as a new Empire, but where is the emperor? There were no empire during history without an emperor and a dynasty, a sacro-sanct figure, who, by his charisma, was able to unify a chaos of peoples and languages.<\/b><\/p>\n

The social change in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n

These structural changes went hand in hand with the second Gulf war in 1990-1991 and worsened with the burst of the war in Iraq and especially the second intifada.
A virulent anti Americanism burst out in Europe and the second Intifada was globalized on a world wide scale. From now on, the \u201cArab street\u201d passes through the European cities. <\/b><\/p>\n

These were favorable circumstances for the Arab-Moslem minority to climb on the European political stage. The abusive criticism of Israel that developed in Europe was a point of agreement between the new minority and European public opinion. It was not only in fact a matter of opinion. There was a real terrorist threat coming from the global Jihad, that the Madrid and London attacks afterwards proved. The Jews felt that the condemnation of Israel and the lenience concerning the antisemitic attacks were a sort of appeasement related to this threat . In this circumstances, they understood that civil society in a number of European countries and at least the European Union had chosen the Arab camp. This choice can be illustrated as much for the medias as for European diplomacy.<\/b><\/p>\n

The new atmosphere in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n

The present failure of the immigrant populations\u2019 integration led to a new situation: the European inner problems became spontaneously international and global problems. The antisemitism coming from the Arab-Moslem milieu is not fighted as it ought to be because there are threats on Europe coming from outside. If it is possible to condemn harshly Israel and the Jewish communities, a very cautious discourse is used to protect the Moslem world opinion.An Orwellian language has even been invented not to name the things as they are. <\/b><\/p>\n

The hate of the Jews became the meeting point between the extreme right, the extreme left and Islamic fundamentalism. Globally the larger part of the Western European elites are anti-zionist, the politically correct term for the new antisemitism. Antizionism cannot define the criticism of the Israeli government\u2019s policies. It concerns the essence itself of the existence of the state of Israel, its legitimacy.
Concretely, in Europe, what we have said of the post WWII development showed that what is at stake with Zionism for European Jewries is the Jewish people identity. To deligitimize the moral right of existence of Israel as a state and as a Jewish state is to undermine the basis of the restoration of a Jewish life in Europe after the Shoa and because of the Shoa.<\/b><\/p>\n

To summarize, Israel and the Jews appear today in Europe as the main obstacle to the inner peace in Europe. This is confirmed by all the European scale surveys of public opinion.<\/b><\/p>\n

All these causes explain why the hypothesis of an ascent of a Jewish center in Europe seems to me unlikely. There is no opportunity that the Jews will become the privileged minority that the coming European power will need to impose itself on the remains of the Nation-states powers (in the same way as the new European nation states, according to Hannah Arendt in On Antisemitism, needed in 19th century, a Jewish people to help them to realize their major public projects).<\/b><\/p>\n

The third symbolical change<\/strong><\/p>\n

The development I tried to outline is not so clear to everyone. The situation is ambivalent. This ambivalence is also one of the characteristics of the new anti-Semitism. The current deligitimization of the State of Israel in European public opinion, indeed, goes hand in hand with the celebration of the \u201cMemory of the Shoa\u201d. This ambivalence explains how the new anti-Semitism can accuse Israel on behalf of this memory. <\/b><\/p>\n

In order to understand this dialectical ideology it is important to understand the major symbolical change that occurred in Europe during these 20 last years. After a long latency period of psychological and intellectual repression, the memory of the Shoa has been institutionalized and became even state-controlled. A sanctuarization of the memory of the Shoa occured and this new deal constitutes a major symbolical-ideological turning point for European Jews.<\/b><\/p>\n

If it is possible today to deligitimize the State of Israel on behalf of the Shoa, it is because this sanctuarization-sacralization was only possible at the expense of the main lesson of the Shoa: the assomption of the Jewish destiny as a people\u2019s destiny. This state-controlled memory in Museums, memorials, foundations has untied the so called \u201cuniversal\u201d victims from their Jewishness and from the exterminated Jewish people. It seems that it was the necessary condition to honour and celebrate them. The celebration of a late Jewish people.<\/b><\/p>\n

From now on, Jewish existence was identified with the exclusive condition of victim and martyr, till suffocation. The consequence was the depoliticization \u2013sanctuarization of the Jewish people in the European perspective: a dead people, a people of victims but not a sovereign people, not an actor among the actors of human history, that is what the state of Israel incarnates. <\/b><\/p>\n

The Jewish communities became the repository of the memory of the Shoa so that their concrete life became an excess, a reprehensible abuse. The celebration of a dead people opened the way to the deligitimicization of a living people.<\/b><\/p>\n

The question which is asked to Europe is to know what type of Israel will it recognize in the Jews. If Zionism was born it was to find a solution for the Jewish people which did not find a place in the modern political order after being excluded for religious reasons under the Ancien R\u00e9gime. In the Shoah, this people was destructed. After WWII, all the Jewries in Arab-moslem states were expelled or excluded so that there are no remnants of them in those lands.Today when there is a state of Israel which incarnates the Jewish collective destiny, will Europe recognize it as a living and legitimate people or as a dead and celebrated people?<\/b><\/p>\n

1 – See my book: The democratic Ideal and the Shoah,The Unthought in Political Modernity <\/em>
(translated by Gila Walker), SUNY Press, 2009. http:\/\/www.sunypress.edu\/details.asp?id=61810<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n


Shmuel Trigano is professor at Paris-Nanterre University (Sociology of Politics and Religion), founder-director of the Coll\u00e8ge des \u00c9tudes Juives de l\u2019Alliance Isra\u00e9lite Universelle (http:\/\/www.aiu.org\/<\/a>), founder-director of two journals, Pard\u00e8s(www.inpress.fr<\/a>), a European journal of Jewish Culture, and Controverses, a journal of ideas (http:\/\/www.controverses.fr). He published 18 books (http:\/\/www.shmuel-trigano.fr\/<\/a>). One of his book The democratic Ideal and the Shoah,The Unthought in Political Modernity (translated by Gila Walker) was published in English, SUNY Press, 2009 and is announced this fall in its Hebrew translation (Avner Lahav) at Ben Gurion Uinversity Press .Philosophy of the Law, the beginnings of politics in the Torah will be published soon by Shalem Press, in English.<\/b><\/p>\n

* A lecture at the International Conference \u00ab European Jewry: A New Jewish Centre in the Making? <\/em>\u00bb
(Berlin. May 10th \u2013 May 12th 2009), organized by the Moses Mendelssohn Centre of European Jewish Studies in cooperation with Centrum Judaicum, Klal Yisrael and Tel Aviv University .<\/b><\/p>\n

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<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Le saviez-vous ? 900 000 Juifs ont \u00e9t\u00e9 exclus ou expuls\u00e9s des Etats arabo-musulmans entre 1940 et 1970. L\u2019histoire de la disparition du juda\u00efsme en terres d\u2019islam est la clef d\u2019une mystification politique de grande ampleur qui a fini par gagner toutes les consciences. Elle fonde le r\u00e9cit qui accable la l\u00e9gitimit\u00e9 et la moralit\u00e9… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":23296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-histoire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28176,"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24213\/revisions\/28176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harissa.com\/news-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}