Introduction
(Doc. 1) The Apologie by Zalkind Hourwitz (1751-1812; born in Poland, resident in France from 1774; author, interpreter at Bibliothèque Royale 1789-92, activist), was one of the three prize winners in the 1788 Metz Academy competition “Are there means to render the Jews more useful and happier in France?”
Discussions of the Jews’ status and condition were part of broader debates about citizenship and community on the eve and early years of the Revolution. Oft-ignored in studies of Jewish struggles to prove themselves fit for legal equality was the attention paid to Jewish food and foodways. For the French, la table—what did one eat and with whom?—was politically consequential. What could Jewish dietary laws and eating practices mean for sociability, fraternity, community, belonging to the French nation, becoming French citizens?
Hourwitz explicitly countered the claims of Michaelis, Voltaire and Rousseau that religious law made the Jews “unsociable” and their customs “incompatible” with others by addressing these issues: (1) what foods were permitted and prohibited to Jews?; (2) with whom could Jews eat?; (3) did their dietary laws and marriage patterns foster Jewish “misanthropy”?; (4) did their distinctive foods affect Jews physically? (5) were Jews unique in having distinctive eating practices?
I include three other complementary views: (Doc. 2) Comte de Mirabeau (1787) and (Doc. 3) Abbé Grégoire (1789; contra his earlier negative views)—both of whom denied that different groups’ diverse eating practices should have political consequences; and (Doc. 4) Jews of Paris, Alsace and Lorraine to the French National Assembly (1790), who denied that Jewish eating practices would impair French citizenship and promoted other ways of forging social and civic ties.
Among my questions: Why were Jewish food and foodways so sensitive? How might civil, secular ideas of sociability, community, fraternity, and citizenship rest on age-old notions of Holy Communion?
Bibliography:
Berkovitz, Jay R. The Shaping of Jewish Identity in Nineteenth-century France. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989.
Birnbaum, Pierre. La République et le cochon. Paris: Seuil, 2013.
Blumenkranz, Bernhard and Albert Soboul, eds. Les Juifs et la Révolution française: problèmes et aspirations. Toulouse: Édouard Privat, 1976.
Graetz, Michael, tr. and ed. The French Revolution and the Jews: The Debates in the National Assembly, 1789-1791 (Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1989.
Hourwitz, Zalkind. Apologie des Juifs (1789): liberté, é_galité_, pluralité. Edited with introduction by Michael Löwy and Eleni Varikas. Paris: Syllepse, 2002.
Hunt, Lynn. The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents. 2nd ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016.
Kriegel, Maurice, tr. and ed. “En défense de l’abbé Grégoire / Ben-Zion Dinur,” Les cahiers du judaïsme, numéro 31 (2011), 97-105.
Malino, Frances. A Jew in the French Revolution: The Life of Zalkind Hourwitz. Oxford, U.K.-Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996.
Mireille-Lebel, Hadas and Évelyne Oliel-Grausz, eds., Les Juifs et la Révolution française: histoire et mentalités. Louvain-Paris: E. Peeters, 1992.
La Révolution Française et l’émancipation des juifs. Réimpression de textes publiés de 1787 à 1806. 8 vols. Paris: EDHIS, Editions d’histoire sociale, 1968.
Available online: Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Source 1 Translation
Zalkind Hourwitz, Apologie des Juifs (Vindication of the Jews) (Paris, 1789)
I used Apologie des Juifs. En réponse à la Question: Est-il des moyens de rendre les Juifs plus heureux & plus utiles en France? Paris, 1789, in the facsimile reprint, vol. 4 of La Révolution Française et l’Émancipation des Juifs, 8 vols., Paris: EDHIS, Editions d’Histoire Sociale, 1968, and also online: Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France.
[Excerpts from this work have been translated in Lynn Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 2d ed., 2016, pp. 46-49, but not the particular passages presented here.]
Passage 1. Apologie des Juifs, 1789, pp. 48-53
“… the enemies of the Jews … affirm on the authority of these writers [Michaelis, Voltaire and Rousseau, mentioned above] that Moses made the Jews into misanthropes, and that he gave them customs (moeurs) incompatible with those of other nations….
… I will start by refuting the assertion of M. V. and R., which will overturn all the consequences drawn from it and will prove clearly that the Jews are human beings [literally, men] like all others (hommes comme ceux des autres peuples), and that they can be happy and useful like them ….
This is not the place to examine the qualifications of Moses … but it is absolutely impossible for me to believe him intolerant.
Let us consider on what this accusation is based: 1. that he prefers his own people to all others; 2. that he prohibits eating and joining in marriage with other nations….
Nothing is more unjust that the first reproach. Which ancient or modern nation does not attribute some religious or political superiority to itself above all others? …
The second reproach is not better founded. Moses prohibits only certain animals, as well as suet and blood; but he does not forbid eating with strangers foods that are not prohibited. That is why Jews on a daily basis partake of the same drinks (except for wine …), bread, vegetables, dairy products and fish as Christians (Note 1), and they invite them also to their tables. Meanwhile, abstinence from some foods does not make Jews more unsociable than Brahmins, Muslims, or Catholics during Lent. Nor is it true that Moses has prohibited marriage with all nations; he prohibits it only with the Moabites and the Amonites, as well as the Idumeans and the Egyptians, to a certain degree (Note 2). Also David and several other pious kings married foreign wives.”
Note 1.
“I attest that the café-owners and lemonade-sellers are more knowledgeable on this matter than Voltaire, who, in order to prove that the Jews took their laws from the Eyptians, affirms boldly that they abstain from all foods of strangers and don’t even use their knives. The only thing that’s true is that modern rabbis prohibit cutting hot or salty meat with a stranger’s knife unless it’s been passed through fire or dipped in boiling water, lest there remain attached some small bit of the prohibited foods that could blend with the meat.”
Note 2.
“However, modern Jews forbid marriage with all foreigners, from fear of the inconveniences that would arise in the household due to their abstinence from certain foods as well as their menstruating women.”
Passage 2. Apologie des Juifs, 1789, p. 56
“ It results from all this that Moses made the Jews into true lovers of humanity (très-philantropes) and he gave them customs very compatible (très-alliables) with those of other nations. In affirming the contrary, Rousseau and Voltaire were grossly mistaken or they cruelly slandered an unfortunate nation …”
Passage 3. Apologie des Juifs, 1789, p. 67
“It is known by all medical doctors that the physical constitution of the Jews is absolutely the same as that of other nations who inhabit the same climate, since circumcision and abstaining from certain foods does not weaken their constitution in any way.”
Source 2 Translation
Mirabeau, Le Comte de, Sur Moses Mendelssohn, sur la réforme politique des Juifs (Paris, 1787)
Facsimile reprint, vol. 1 of La Révolution Française et l’Émancipation des Juifs, 8 vols., Paris: EDHIS, Editions d’Histoire Sociale, 1968, and also online: Source gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Passage 1. pp. 65-6
“Every society is comprised of small private societies, each of which has specific principles, inspires its members with distinctive feelings and judgments, and draws boundaries around its own sphere. Meanwhile the world goes on, and nations that are well-, that is to say freely-governed, prosper. The nobleman and the bourgeois, the artisan and the peasant, the soldier and the civilian, the learned and the non-learned, place barriers between them, and still, they inhabit and serve the same country. If the Christian and the circumcised, whether Jew or Muslim, member[s] of the sect of Ali or Omar, of the Pope or Luther, of Socinus or Calvin, distance themselves from one another, then the grand and noble role of the government consists in making sure that each of these divisions works for the benefit of the society as a whole if only because of a stronger feeling of attachment based on a greater enjoyment of liberty.”
Passage 2. p. 70
“Can they [the Jews] accustom themselves to see those of another religion as the members of the same civil community?”
Passage 3. p. 114
“Why exclude them [the Jews]? Because they have specific rites? Which religion doesn’t have any? Which sect does not practice observances that pertain only to them, and does not profess towards other communions a scorn that manifests itself with more or less intensity depending on how much the political relationships of different religious societies determine their interaction (rapports) and the extent to which cultivation of the mind (la culture de l’esprit), the influence of education and of the Enlightenment, have more or less weakened the effects of hallowed opinions? … [ellipse in the original] For Jews there exist some ritually impure foods (des mets impurs)! … Is this really a reason to deny to persons [literally, men] (hommes) the rights of humanity! Even if this fact were not an exaggeration, and of course it is a ridiculous one, the opinion that a pig would be enough to desecrate the home of a Jew, is a myth. The children of Moses can, without violating their law, raise, feed, and buy and sell pigs. One knows of thousands of examples in Prussia …”
Source 3 Translation
Grégoire, Henri Baptiste, Motion in Favor of the Jews (Paris, 1789)
Motion published by Grégoire, Curé d’Embermenil, Député de Nancy, intended for the National Constituent Assembly, October 1789.
In facsimile reprint, vol. 7 [L’Assemblée Nationale Constituante. Motions, Discours et Rapports. La Législation nouvelle, 1789-1791] of La Révolution Française et l’Émancipation des Juifs, 8 vols., Paris EDHIS, Editions d’Histoire, 1968, and also online: Source gallia.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Passage 1. Motion, p. 1.
“You have consecrated the rights of man and of the citizen; [therefore] allow a Catholic parish priest to raise his voice in favor of 50,000 Jews spread throughout the realm, who, as persons [literally, men] (hommes) claim the rights of citizens.
For 15 years I have been studying the history and customs of this singular people …
Passage 2. Motion, p. 19.
“As for their allegedly incompatible customs (leurs moeurs prétendues inaliables) because they refuse to share their table with Christians, nothing is more false, and I appeal to daily experience. And besides, of what import for political tranquility is this dietary difference (cette différence diététique)? Some provinces in Poland and Russia offer a bizarre mixture: next to a Protestant who eats his chicken on Friday is a Catholic who limits himself to eggs; both drink wine and work on Fridays, next to a Turk who abstains from wine and doesn’t work on that day, and these variations do not affect civil harmony at all.”
Source 4 Translation
Petition of the Jews established in France (Paris, 1790)
Petition of the Jews established in France [Paris, Alsace, Lorraine], addressed to the National Assembly, January 28, 1790, following the adjournment of December 24, 1789. Signed Cerf-Berr, formerly General Syndic of the Jews and 6 deputies. In facsimile reprint, vol. 5 [Adresses, Mémoires et Pétitions des Juifs, 1789-1794] of La Révolution Française et l’Émancipation des Juifs, 8 vols., Paris EDHIS, Editions d’Histoire, 1968, and also online: Source gallia.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France.
[Excerpts from this document have been translated in Lynn Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 2d ed., 2016, pp. 88-91, but not the particular passages presented here.]
Passage 1. Petition, p. 33.
“… let us examine the objections made against the admission of Jews to citizenship (l’admission des Juifs à l’état-civil).”
Passage 2. Petition, pp. 50-51.
“One says … the difference in their foods makes them a separate People (un Peuple à part), who cannot have close exchanges or direct relations with other persons [literally, men] (hommes).”
Passage 3. Petition, pp. 71-72.
“They are unsuitable [for military service] for another reason, as some say by their manner of eating, [which is] different from that of other people; and with the difficulty, even the very impossibility, that one could provide this food. But most of their foods are common among Catholics; and as for those specific to them, it is possible for them to abstain from them during certain times, or to prepare them themselves.
This difference between their manner of eating and that of Catholics should not be an obstacle to their admission to the rights of Citizens. There are so many other meaningful ways by which persons [literally, men] (hommes) of different religions can become closer to one another, and these alone should be considered. These relations, namely of charity, kindness, patriotism, abilities, will be common to both Jews and Christians, when all together form but one people of brothers and Citizens.”