You are now entering the Jewish Currents archive.
December 5: The Grand Rabbi of France
lawrencebush
December 5, 2013
Jacob Kaplan, Grand Rabbi of France from 1955 until 1981, died in Paris at 99 on this date in 1994. Born in Paris in 1895 and ordained in 1921, Kaplan was a wounded veteran of World War I and a participant in the anti-Nazi Resistance in Lyon between 1941 and 1944 (a park in that city was named for him in 2009). Kaplan was outspoken about French Jewish support for Israel after the Six-Day War, while the French government was, at best, reserved about Israeli policies. At the same time, he identified strongly as a Frenchman and wrote and published his sermons in French. A lecturer at l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques and a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in Paris, Kaplan wrote several books, including Judaism and Social Justice (1937), Racism and Judaism (1940), and French Jewry under the Occupation (1945–46), among others.
“French Jews! We are familiar with the history of France, the France to which we have devoted ourselves wholeheartedly and whose joys and sadness . . . we feel deeply, the France of human and civil rights . . . emancipator of the Jews. But we are being brutally confronted with a different reality; we are becoming acquainted with a different history. . . .” —Jacob Kaplan regarding Vichy France
I’m Arielle Angel, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents. Before you go, there’s something I need to ask.
We’ve seen over and over how the mainstream media falters in telling stories on our beats—whether it’s antisemitism, Israel/Palestine in American politics, Jewish identity, or the American left. At Jewish Currents we’re committed to uncompromising analysis and longform reporting on these issues and more—stories you won’t find anywhere else. In a media landscape that obscures injustice and flattens discussion, we’re changing the conversation. But we need you.
If you believe in this work, please consider making a donation—or even better, a recurring one—to ensure that we are able to keep publishing stories like this one. We can’t do it without you.
