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The Anti-Semitic Moment

A Tour of France in 1898

In 1898, the Dreyfus Affair plunged French society into a yearlong frenzy. In Paris and provincial villages throughout the country, angry crowds paraded through the streets, threatening to attack Jews and destroy Jewish-owned businesses. Anger about the imagined power of Jewish capital, as well as fears of treason and racial degeneration, made anti-Semitism a convenient banner behind which social and political factions could fall in line. Anti-Semitic feelings that had been simmering in France for decades came boiling to the surface.

Here Pierre Birnbaum guides readers on a tour of France during this crisis. He shows that in the midst of violence, Jewish citizens bravely and effectively defended themselves and were aided by a police force determined to maintain order. Birnbaum paints a vivid portrait of French Jewish culture at the time and explains why the French state remained strong in this time of widespread unrest.


400 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2011

History: European History

Table of Contents

Map of France

Introduction

1. Is Paris Burning?

2. Journey to the Center of France

3. In Barresian Lorraine

4. Storm on the Coast: Algerian Marseilles

5. Radical Toulouse, Nationalist Bordeaux

6. Take Arms, Citizens of Vendée!

7. The Battle of Brest

8. In the Region of Normandy

9. Good Superintendent Leproust: Peacekeeping and Prejudice Among the Police

10. The "Arrogance" of Rabbi Taubmann: Passivity and Resistance Among the Jews

Conclusion

Chronology of Events in the Dreyfus Affair

Notes

Index

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