Isaac Adolphe Crémieux was born five years after France granted equal rights to its Jewish citizens, after its Constituent Assembly approved it in 1791. He was born in 1796 in Nîmes to a Jewish family who had embraced the revolutionary cause. He was educated at the Lycée Impérial, where he and a cousin were the only Jewish students. It was he who, at the head of a delegation of Lycée students, addressed the Emperor at the Tuileries court.

Crémieux was a brilliant student. He studied at the University of Aix-en-Provence and was admitted to the Nîmes bar in 1817. As a Jewish lawyer, he was required to take the humiliating «more judaico» oath to enter, but he refused, fought his case in court, and won. In 1827, he won two cases against Jewish lawyers who had also refused to take the same oath, and this eventually led to its abolition. Crémieux thus acquired a reputation as a champion of Jewish rights.

At that time, Napoleon Bonaparte established the first central consistory of the Jews of France. The consistory was the institution that governed the Jewish communities of a province or country. In 1828, Cremieux served on the consistory in Marseille, and in 1930, he moved to Paris, where he became a member of the central consistory. In 1840, he accompanied Moses Montefiore to Damascus to advocate for the release of the leaders of that Jewish community who had been falsely accused of murdering a Christian monk for ritual purposes. The trip was successful, giving the Jewish world a positive sense of support and unity in the face of antisemitism.

In 1840, he was elected to parliament and became one of the leaders of the opposition. After the 1848 revolt, he served in the provisional government as Minister of Justice and promulgated the law abolishing slavery in the French colonies. In 1851, he opposed Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état and was sent to prison. He returned to the government as Minister of Justice and in 1870 signed the famous decree granting French citizenship to the Jews of Algeria.

Cremieux participated in the formation of the Alliance Israelite Universelle and was elected president in 1864. The alliance sought to protect the rights of Jews worldwide, so Cremieux acted in various cases on behalf of the communities in Morocco, Romania, and Russia. The alliance helped several countries grant equal rights to their Jewish communities, as was the case in Switzerland. The alliance also focused on education, establishing Jewish schools in countries of the Ottoman Empire. By 1900, it operated more than 100 schools in seven countries.

Through his actions, Crémieux demonstrated that it was possible to combine a sense of Jewish pride with a deep involvement in the affairs of his country. But in his personal life, there was an incongruity with his public life: in 1845, he allowed his wife and children to be baptized. He cared for the Jew outside and neglected the one inside. Cremieux was «a light in the street and darkness in his house.»

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Simone Mrejen-O’Hana: “Isaac-Jacob Adolphe Crémieux, Avocat, homme politique, président du Consistoire central et de l’Alliance israélite universelle,” and other sources.