Al Reguel Ajat

Menasheh ben Israel (1604-1657) was born into a family of Portuguese Jewish converts who left Lisbon fleeing the Inquisition, which had brought them to trial for secretly practicing Judaism. Menasheh’s exact birthplace is unknown; some say it was in La Rochelle, France, in 1604, but by 1610 his family was already settled in Amsterdam. There they joined the Neveh Shalom Sephardic community, and Menasheh began studying with the community’s rabbi, Isaac Uzziel. Upon Uzziel’s death in 1620, Menasheh took his place and married Rachel Soeiro two years later.

Although Menasheh soon distinguished himself as a great orator and educator, this activity did not provide him with enough income to live on, so he decided to open what was the first Jewish printing press in Holland. In 1627, he produced his first prayer book, followed by other works, including an edition of the Mishnah. But even with the printing press, Menasheh’s financial situation did not improve, so he considered settling in Brazil. Fortunately, the Pereira brothers provided sufficient funds to establish a yeshiva and appoint him its director.

While printing and dedicating himself to education, Menasheh devoted himself to writing, with «The Conciliator» being one of his principal works. In it, Menasheh listed and discussed those passages of the Bible that presented conflict with each other. He wrote it in perfect Spanish, giving non-Jewish readers access to the rabbinic method of reconciling biblical inconsistencies, which opened his eyes to the Gentile intellectual world of the time.

Menasheh also studied Kabbalah and was particularly interested in the subject of the coming of the Messiah. He was convinced that for the Messiah to arrive and redeem the land of Israel, the Jews would first have to live scattered throughout the land. He took advantage of his reputation as a scholar to establish contact with Queen Christina of Sweden, under the pretext of helping her improve her knowledge of Hebrew, but ultimately, his goal was to allow Jews to settle in that country. His writings on the subject attracted the attention of Protestant theologians who also believed the Messiah would soon arrive, so he corresponded with some of them on the subject, especially the English Puritans.

Menasheh took advantage of this relationship to seek permission from the English government to allow Jews to settle in England again. He traveled to London in October 1655, and the first thing he did was write his «Humble Petition to the Lord Protector,» as Cromwell was known. The document was widely disseminated at the Whitehall conference convened by the Lord Protector, where it was concluded that there was no law prohibiting Jews from settling in England. Cromwell granted him permission to reside in England and assigned him a pension of 100 pounds per year. However, he was unable to receive it because he died in Amsterdam in 1657.

Menasheh ben Israel was a friend of Rembrandt, who painted his portrait. He was the teacher of Baruch Spinoza. He spoke ten languages ​​and wrote in five: Hebrew, Latin, Portuguese, English, and Spanish. He was a great educator, orator, printer, Kabbalist, and diplomat. He was undoubtedly a very special rabbi.

By Marcos Gojman:

Bibliography: Jewish Encyclopedia and other sources.

Hasidic Judaism is a Jewish religious movement that originated in Ukraine in the 18th century. The students of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the movement, spread it throughout Eastern Europe and established «courts,» groups of Hasidim led by a Tzadik, a spiritual leader. Over time, these «Hasidic courts» adopted a dynastic format, with a member of the founding leader’s family, usually a son, taking his place upon his death. By 1860, virtually all Hasidic courts were dynastic. Today, they are found mostly in Israel, the United States, and Great Britain, although they have also been established in other countries. After World War II, these groups adopted the name of their place of origin to distinguish themselves from one another. Hasidic groups are generally considered part of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish movement, known as the «Haredim.»

The largest Hasidic group currently is Satmar, founded by Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum (1887-1979) in 1905, in the town of the same name, formerly part of Hungary and now part of Romania. Some estimate it has around 65,000 to 75,000 adherents, although others speak of 120,000. After World War II, it was reestablished in New York City, first in Williamsburg and Brooklyn, and then expanded to Kiryas Joel. Upon the death of its founder, it was led by his nephew Moshe Teitelbaum. Upon his death in 2006, the dynasty remained divided, to this day, between Moshe’s two rival sons, Aaron and Zalman Teitelbaum.

The Holocaust hit the Hasidim particularly hard, easily identifiable among the rest of the population due to their dress and cultural insularity. Hundreds of Hasidic leaders perished along with their followers, but the flight of some leaders, especially at the very moment when their followers were being exterminated, provoked bitter recriminations, such as that of Joel Teitelbaum, who escaped to Switzerland, but not before assuring his parishioners that, thanks to their religiosity, they would be saved. A promise that obviously proved false.

Once in New York, Teitelbaum formulated a fierce anti-Zionist theology, based on a very particular explanation of the Holocaust. He said: «Because of our sins we have suffered greatly… and in our generation we need not look far to find the sin responsible for our calamity… The heretics (of the Haskala – Enlightenment and Zionism) have made every effort to violate these oaths, to ascend (to the land of Israel) by force, and to seize sovereignty and freedom for themselves, before the times appointed (by the Lord) arrive… [They] have lured the majority of the Jewish people into a horrible heresy, the likes of which has not been seen since the world was created… And so it is no wonder that the Lord struck with great divine wrath… And there were also righteous people who perished (in the Holocaust) because of the iniquity of the sinners.» Teitelbaum argued that until the sin (of creating the State of Israel) is removed, the Messiah will not come to redeem the Jewish people.

 Joel Teitelbaum didn’t invent anything new; he merely continued the thinking of the Hungarian ultra-Orthodox school initiated by the Chatam Sofer, which rejected modernity, opposed any change, and sought total separation from the outside world. It’s just the same old extremism.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: «Unorthodox» by Deborah Feldman and other sources.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, in his essay “A Time for Renewal,” asks: Who is a Jew? And he answers: “A person in whose life Abraham Avinu would feel at home, a person for whom Rabbi Akiva would feel a great affinity, a person of whom the Jewish martyrs of all ages would not be ashamed.” And he asks again: “Who is a Jew? A person whose integrity falters when unaffected by the knowledge that something wrong has been done to another person. A person for whom God is a challenge, not an abstraction. A person who knows how to remember and keep alive what is sacred in the history of his people and who treasures the promise and vision of a better world in the days to come.”

And Heschel asks again: how have we survived as a people when we had no power, no allies, no friends, no territory, no visible organization to keep us intact, loyal, and whole? And he answers: “The wisest answer to our survival lies in the saying that God, Israel, and the Torah are one.”

The problem, according to Heschel, lies when our Judaism is supported by only one of the three pillars. For classical Reform Judaism, the essence of Judaism is represented by ethical monotheism, and they do not attach importance to the Torah and Israel. For them, Jewish ethics are the true expression of Judaism, and their Jewish practice is centered on that paradigm. Although they now support and recognize the importance of the State of Israel in Jewish life, that is not what gives their Judaism its identity, much less fulfilling the mitzvot, since from the beginning they declared that fulfilling halacha is optional and not obligatory.

For secular Zionist Jews, Israel is the most important thing, and they put God and the Torah in the background. Virtually nothing related to religion is taught in their schools. The State of Israel is the most important thing, and the contribution of our sages to Jewish thought throughout history is seen as naive and simplistic. For them, true Judaism emerges when having a land becomes the most important factor in Jewish identity.

For ultra-Orthodox Jews, the most important thing is the Torah, which they equate with the Shulchan Aruch, a manual that lists in detail all the commandments that every Jew should follow and that leads them to a life where religious conduct is the only thing that matters. They forget the part of agadah, which represents the Jewish soul, which is at the heart of these commandments and is the message that God placed in the mouths of the biblical prophets. For ultra-Orthodox Jews, the existence of the State of Israel not only means nothing to their identity, but, on the contrary, diminishes it, to the point of opposing its existence.

The identity of the Conservative or Masorti Jew, from its beginnings, is based on a practice of halacha that does not forget aggadah, recognizes the importance of history in the evolution of the Jewish people, supports the existence of the State of Israel, and places ethical monotheism as a fundamental part of its identity. It is a Judaism that is supported by the three pillars: God, Israel, and the Torah. Without a doubt, Abraham Avinu, in the Masorti world, would feel right at home.

By: Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity,” Essays by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

A.B. Yehoshua, in his article “Defining Who Is a Jew,” says: “To be Jewish, you don’t need to live in Israel, you don’t need to speak Hebrew, you don’t have to be formally part of a Jewish community, you don’t need to believe in the God of Israel and His Torah, and you don’t necessarily have to be the son of a Jewish mother. What, then, is being Jewish?” He continues: “It seems astonishing that a people that has existed for more than 3,200 years is still debating its self-definition.”

Halacha says that a Jew is a person born to a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism. This was established at the end of the Second Temple period. A person is Jewish because their mother is or was Jewish. And this person is Jewish because their grandmother is or was Jewish. The problem arises when neither the daughter nor the granddaughter practices Judaism in any of its forms. Are they then Jewish?

Yehoshua says: Halacha defines a Jew strictly as part of a people, so Jewish is not equivalent to Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim, and yes to English, Norwegian, or Swiss. The sages decided to define Jewishness as a nationality and not as a religion. Two hundred years ago, they could have defined it as a religion, since practically all Jews of that time observed the commandments of the Torah, but they didn’t.

In the documentary film «Doing Jewish,» director Gabrielle Zikha tells us how she found, in the remote village of Sefwi Wiawso, Ghana, a group of people who for centuries practiced rites such as circumcision and eating with dietary laws equal to those of the Torah, and how this group had recently discovered that it was part of a people: the Jewish people. In the film, their leader, Alex Armah, tells us how his dream is to see his congregation officially recognized, in addition to knowing and understanding its history.

And Gabrielle Zikha asks: What truly makes someone considered Jewish? Does one have to be part of an accepted Jewish community, with a full-fledged synagogue and a formally educated rabbi, Or does believing and practicing Judaism, isolated in a small, humble hut, not qualify? Is an elaborate Seder in Montreal more authentic than a simple meal prepared with piety and devotion?

Raphael Patai, in his book «The Jewish Mind,» says that being Jewish is primarily a matter of feeling, of emotional commitment. And feeling Jewish can be the result of one or several factors, such as, for example: knowing oneself to be a descendant of the patriarch Abraham, practicing the Jewish religion, feeling part of the Jewish people, identifying with the State of Israel, having been affected by the Holocaust and antisemitism, being aware of Jewish history, among others. And Patai explains that the common denominator of all these Jewish «feelings» is that you acquire them through knowledge. But for Patai, that is not enough. He says that to be Jewish also requires that others consider you Jewish.

In short, to be Jewish requires two ingredients: knowing Judaism and belonging to a Jewish community. For the Conservative and Orthodox movements, being a child of A Jewish mother is essential to being considered Jewish. In reality, knowledge of Judaism and belonging to a community lie at its core.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: works cited.

We can simply define the concept of «identity» as the set of characteristics of a person that distinguish them from others. Therefore, Jewish identity is the set of Jewish characteristics of an individual that distinguish them from those who are not. However, the problem lies in how to compile this list of characteristics that would define someone as Jewish. Because apparently, the list drawn up by an ultra-Orthodox Jew would be very different from the list of a secular Jew, or a Zionist, or a Reform Jew, or a humanist, to name just a few.

When searching for an answer to the problem of what to include on this list, we come across the character of Leopold Bloom in the novel «Ulysses,» whom its author, James Joyce, characterizes as someone who knows he is descended from Jews, but who does not consider himself Jewish or practice Judaism. Professor Morton P. Levitt, referring to Leopold Bloom, one of the main characters in that novel, clearly describes him as not a very good Jew. In fact, halachically speaking, he wasn’t Jewish at all, since his mother was not Jewish and he was never circumcised. In the work, says Levitt, there is some suggestion that his mother may have been half-Jewish and that his father was a Hungarian Jew. But even if this were true and Bloom were three-quarters Jewish, he still lacks the necessary connection to his direct maternal line—that is, if his mother’s mother wasn’t Jewish, then neither is he.

Nevertheless, and despite the fact that in the novel Leopold Bloom denies being Jewish, Levitt says that Judaism is at Bloom’s very heart and is part of his identity. He bases his assertion on a number of Jewish references Bloom makes, many of which date back to his childhood as the son of an immigrant Jewish father from Szombathely, Hungary. And Levitt quotes Joyce: “Bloom solemnly reads from a scroll the list of his Jewish knowledge: Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Dalet, Aggadah, Tefillin, Kosher, Yom Kippur, Chanukah, Rosh Hashanah, Bnei Brith, Mitzvah, Matzot, Ashkenazim, Meshugah, Tallit.”

It’s incredible, but that short list on Bloom’s scroll includes what we might call the common denominator of any Jew’s identity. Let’s see: the letters of the Hebrew alphabet symbolize the sacred scriptures; agadah: its ethical content; tefillin: daily religious practice; kosher: Jewish practice in the home; Yom Kippur: our relationship with our fellow human beings; Hanukkah: our national sense of belonging; Rosh Hashanah: belonging to the Jewish world; Bnei Brith: participation in community organizations; mitzvah: God’s commandments; matzot: the Exodus from Egypt as the founding event of the Jewish people; Ashkenazim: the differences between Jewish groups; meshugah: Jewish folklore; and tallit: its connection to its history. All the different groups within Judaism share, to a greater or lesser extent, elements of Bloom’s list.

The talent of James Joyce is indisputable. In a novel as complex as Ulysses, he captured, in Leopold Bloom, that common denominator that defines the essence of being Jewish.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Morton P. Levitt: “The Greatest Jew of All”: James Joyce, Leopold Bloom and the Modernist Archetype.

Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, in his essay “A Presentation of Process Theology”, explains how the philosophy of ancient Greece and medieval Europe influenced our thinking with concepts that do not correspond to Judaism. Thinking that God is omnipotent, which means that He has all power, that He is omniscient, that He has and must have all knowledge of what is, was, and will be, and that He is omnibenevolent, that God is absolute goodness, are not concepts of Judaism.

Rabbi Artson explains: Believing that God is omnipotent implies that there is no power outside of God and that everything that happens is by His will. Sometimes we like what happens, sometimes we don’t, but we accept that everything that happens comes from God. When something bad happens and we don’t understand why, such as a baby’s terminal illness, the explanation that this way of thinking gives us is that God must have had a legitimate reason, which we don’t understand, for causing, or at least not preventing, that bad thing from happening. This conclusion leads us to abandon our moral compass and our sense of what is good or bad, and blame ourselves or our loved ones when misfortunes occur. Not only did something terrible happen, but the victim feels guilty as well. Judaism doesn’t agree with this concept of «omnipotence.»

Brad Artson continues: The philosophical presumption that God is omnipotent has been reinforced by many Bible translations that refer to God as «The Almighty,» a mistranslation of «El Shaddai,» which actually means «the God of the Mountain.» The Torah has terms for «great power and unfindable strength,» but it has neither the concept nor the term for omnipotence. Neither the Prophets nor the Talmud have such a term. There is no term in classical Hebrew or Aramaic that implies a being capable of doing absolutely everything.

We have a similar problem with the second “omni,” says Artson. Omniscience assumes that God knows everything, including the future. Nothing is hidden from the all-knowing God. But if God knows the future, there is no longer room for freedom of choice, neither for God nor for his creatures. God knowing his own future decisions takes away from God the freedom to change his mind. But the Torah and the Midrash present us with a different God, a God who gets angry, who loves, who grieves, who gets frustrated, who is surprised, and who repents.

Rabbi Artson concludes: a God who possesses unlimited power and knows everything that will come could have designed a different world. He could have softened Pharaoh’s heart without needing to send 10 plagues. An omnipotent and omniscient God who knowingly creates such an imperfect world is not a good, omnibenevolent God. Therefore, for Judaism, God does not have these «omni» attributes: God does not know the future, for the future has not yet been decided; God does not decide everything, for He leaves nature to its own devices, in addition to giving man the power to choose; and God Himself suffers when He sees the evil in the world that He cannot change. God is not «omni.»

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Bradley Shavit Artson: «A Presentation of Process Theology.»

In principle, Judaism supports and encourages organ donation to save lives (pikuach nefesh). According to Jewish law, halacha, saving a life nullifies almost all of the commandments in Judaism, with the exception of those prohibiting murder, illicit sexual relations, and idol worship.

There are three biblical commandments that guide how to handle the remains of a deceased person: «Nivul Hamet,» a rule that prohibits unnecessary mutilation of a corpse and is the basis for why autopsies are generally prohibited; «Halanat Hamet,» the commandment that prohibits delaying the burial of a body; and «Hana’at Hamet,» which prohibits deriving any benefit from a corpse. In all three cases, pikuach nefesh, saving a life, nullifies them.

Ultimately, the critical issue with organ donation is defining the moment of death. There is a debate in the Talmud about the definition of death. One view is that death is indicated by the irreversible cessation of breathing. The other is that death occurs with the irreversible cessation of the heartbeat. [Tractate Yoma, 85:A]. Most of our sages’ commentaries lean toward the former. Furthermore, modern medicine has established that the brainstem controls breathing, and if the brainstem is not functioning and dies, a person can never breathe on their own again.

Do we define death as the cessation of brain or heart activity? As long as a person’s heart is still beating, organs can be routinely harvested, even if brain activity has ceased. However, once a heart stops beating, organs are deprived of oxygen, and it becomes more difficult to successfully remove and transplant them. If Judaism defines death as the cessation of brain activity, organ transplants are a viable option for Jews. If we define death as the cessation of heart activity, then removing an organ before this point would be murder. Pikuach nefesh does not nullify murder. One cannot kill someone to save another’s life.

Virtually all religious movements within Judaism accept the death of the brainstem as the moment of death, and therefore support organ donation for transplants. Even the Conservative movement considers this action almost a commandment. The only ones who do not accept it are groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews, «Haredim,» who consider cardiac arrest as the moment of death, a position that runs counter to that accepted by the rabbinate in Israel and Orthodox rabbis such as Zalman Nechemia Goldberg.

The belief that a person must be buried with their organs in order to be resurrected from the dead when the Messiah arrives has no basis in classical Jewish sources. The fact is that, at death, all organs, tissues, and muscles decompose. The Book of Ezekiel, for example, relates that the resurrection would be from dry bones. Organ donation is definitely a mitzvah.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: HODS website, Halachic Organ Donor Society, and other sources.

It is written in Deuteronomy 24: “If a man takes a wife and marries her, and if she becomes displeasing to him because he has found something indecent about her, he shall write her a certificate of divorce and give it to her and send her from his house. Once she has left his house, she may go and marry another man.” The delivery of this document, called a “get” in Aramaic, is what makes the divorce effective, unlike a civil divorce, where a judge declares the marriage dissolved.

According to halakha, Jewish law, granting the “get” falls exclusively to the husband. The wife, on the other hand, cannot ask for a divorce; at most, she can ask a rabbinical court to request that her husband grant her the get, but the husband cannot force her. Halakha states that the get must be granted freely; It is only valid when given and received voluntarily; if any kind of coercion is involved, it is void.

Originally, the wife’s consent was not required for the husband to divorce her. This changed approximately 1,000 years ago when Rabbi Gershom decreed that a man could not divorce without his wife’s approval. However, the halachic rule that gives the husband the power of divorce has led to problematic situations, such as the case of the «agunah» woman, literally «bound,» who is one who cannot marry because she has not obtained a get, either because her husband refuses to grant it or because she has disappeared, for example, in combat or in an accident, and her death cannot be reliably certified.

Different movements within Judaism have responded differently to the unequal treatment of women in the case of divorce by halacha. Modern Orthodox Judaism considers the get essential, but has found a mechanism to remedy this difference: the prenuptial agreement. In it, both parties agree to submit to a rabbinical arbitration court, and the husband agrees to pay his wife a predetermined amount daily until the divorce is finalized. This document was drafted jointly by Rabbi Mordechai Willig of Yeshiva University in New York and Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg of the Jerusalem rabbinical court.

For its part, the Conservative movement also requires the traditional get, but in cases where the husband flatly refuses to provide it, a special rabbinical court can declare «hafkaat kiddushin,» the dissolution of the marriage, thus freeing the wife. The Reform and Reconstructionist movements have eliminated the get requirement and accept a divorce decreed by a civil court as valid for religious purposes. In Israel, divorce is much more complicated, as there are two parallel courts authorized to hear divorce cases between Jewish couples: the Rabbinical Court and the Family Court. Although Israeli law originally gave the rabbinical court jurisdiction over divorce, new laws enacted by the Israeli parliament encouraged these courts to impose sanctions on spouses who refused to grant a get. Thus, the religious and civil spheres became intertwined.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.

Professor Will Herberg tells us: In modernity, man used reason and science to shape his life and culture, placing everything in human terms, forgetting the divine. The expansion of science and technology fostered the illusion that human well-being was simply a matter of increasing economic productivity and industrial power. «Progress» became the watchword. In morality and philosophy, in social life, even in religion, omnipotent man became the «master» of all things. Intoxicated by his success, he could not imagine any power greater than his own, so everything, literally everything, was permitted to him as an individual or as a collective: he needed to believe in nothing, there was nothing he needed to revere, nothing he needed to fear, he only had the power. The result was a humanity that experienced decades of horrors, one worse than the other, until the Second World War, which demonstrated that the sole use of reason and science, without other values, was not only insufficient, but terribly harmful.

The postmodern generation, shaken of its illusions by decades of uninterrupted horror, sought to find another path in what has now been called the «return to religion,» which so many have hailed as the sign of our times. But this return has not yielded the expected result: the horror continues, now sheltered in a cloak of religiosity. Intolerance toward others has led to new acts of barbarism that we would never have imagined would occur in the 21st century. They replaced the dictatorship of reason with the dictatorship of religion. The old thesis was that reason and science were the way. The new thesis is that religion is the solution to humankind’s problems. Both have failed to achieve a better world.

Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, better known by his acronym «Shagar,» tells us: During Modernity and the Enlightenment, Judaism had to defend itself against secularism, especially from those who thought religion was outmoded. Now, in the Postmodern era, where all values ​​are questioned and there is no longer belief in progress or reason, religion has returned with a vengeful spirit. Fanatical religious groups don’t take criticism seriously, claiming it is just personal opinions that believers can easily dismiss.

What could the new path be? Professor Jean Gebser proposes one: man must integrate his feelings, instincts, and intuitions with reason and logical thinking. Man must use his personal experiences to transform reason and knowledge into wisdom. Wisdom equals intelligence plus experience. And since every human being has gone through different personal experiences, each person will have their own reason, their own truth. There is no single explanation for things, but many, as many as there are men and women in the world. There is not just one Judaism, but many, as many as there are Jews in the world.

It is written in Tractate Sanhedrin 4:5 of the Mishnah: «Man stamps many coins with the same stamp, and they are all alike, but the King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, has sealed each man with the seal of the first man, yet none of them is like his fellow man.» The Creator and life have made us not so similar to our fellow men.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Works by Will Herberg, Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, and Jean Gebser.

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.