Post-War out of the Epilogue: Étranger Jewish Disunity in France after the Second World War

In 1943, after years of political and organizational disunity, the deportations of Jews in France invoked fear that helped bring the entire French Jewish community together in efforts to save as many Jews as possible. Jews who defined themselves as Communists, Socialists, Zionists, religious, secular, Israelite, or étranger (foreign) set aside their vast cultural and political differences to achieve this goal. After the war, the leaders of the official organ of the Jews in France (CRIF) tried to unify the French Jewry around "Jewish politics": fighting anti-Semitism and supporting peace in Israel. The unity that scholars and the central institution of the French Jewry portray about the French Jewry after the Second World War, fails to account for the differences in community structures within the French Jewry created by political Parties. In order to demonstrate the political and communitarian differences within the French Jewry in the Post-War era, this thesis examines how the tens of thousands French Jewish veterans created different veteran organizations. This thesis analyses two of these groups, the Union des engagés volontaires, Anciens combattants Juifs (UEVACJ) and the Union des Juifs pour la Résistance et l'Entraide (UJRE) to present the differing goals and political stances within the French Jewry. While fluctuating diverse political allegiances of Jews in France in the Post-War era promoted the unification of the French Jewry around "Jewish politics", this thesis hopes to highlight what prevented community unity in the Post- War era.