Oui, je suis juif !”

Honor, Jewish Identity, and Antisemitism in Dreyfus-Affair France

Bibliographic Data

ID8940477
AuthorsJonathan Sitbon (corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume48
Issue4
Pages667-699
Publication date2025-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFrench Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-1071 • E-ISSN: 1527-5493
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00161071-11934328
OpenAlexW7108462158
LanguageEN
References cited31

This article examines a largely unexplored aspect of French Jews’ reactions during the Dreyfus Affair: the public assertion of Jewish identity (“je suis juif” [“I am a Jew”]) as a counter-discourse to antisemitic attacks. Significantly, these declarations consistently converged on a single imperative: the defense of honor. In late nineteenth-century France, where honor constituted a cardinal social value, and its defense an obligation, failing to respond to an insult amounted to both cowardice and shame. Using an interdisciplinary methodology that combines historical analysis and discourse studies, this article demonstrates that the honor French Jews defended was neither an expression of Jewish pride nor rooted in communal solidarity or Jewish values. Instead, both its essence and its manifestations (particularly the duel) were quintessentially French. Paradoxically, it was their determination to embody the ethos of “good Frenchmen” that compelled French Jews to articulate a Jewish identity they might otherwise have downplayed

Antisemitism · Ethos · Honor · Identity (music · Jewish identity · Judaism · Pride · Solidarity · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis

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