Jewish Philanthropy and the Question of Jewish Identity

• In Event: France and Algiers

Abstract

My presentation will deal with Jewish philanthropy in France. I understand philanthropy as the tentative of elites to assist the poor and to solve the question of poverty…this tentative takes many ways and can be seen as a collection of discourses and practices. Among these practices we can focus on donations, bequests, creation of charity institutions, almsgivings, visiting the poor, etc…
I will apply this definition to the Jewish elites on a long-term perspective (1800-1939). A first analysis reveals a double tendency: Jewish philanthropists first donated to their own community. These actions toward Jewish poor aimed at protecting them and at maintaining a religious level but also planned to accompany their poor into the path of Emancipation and integration into the French society at a whole. From 1870 onwards, Jewish elites moved into the field of general philanthropy; this time, their generous actions were aimed at helping all French people, regardless of religion. It is these two forms of philanthropy that I wish to focus on in my presentation.
I will give many examples of this fluctuation, focusing on important philanthropists, relevant institutions and interesting publics…Going further, I’m going to link this double philanthropy to the question of identity. I hypothesize that the giving of Jewish elites in our period is a way of proclaiming a social identity, which mirrors the multi-faceted nature of Jewishness and reveals the level of integration into French society. Philanthropy, whether aiming at helping Jews or non-Jews, offers an open and little-contested space where social groups can meet and where Jewish elites can build their social identity, both as Jews and as citizens.

Author

• Celine Leglaive, Université Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne