List Of French Jews
Jews have lived in France since Roman times, with a rich and complex history. In the Middle Ages, French kings expelled most of the original Askhenazi Jewish population to Germany. Since the French Revolution (and Emancipation), Jews have been able to contribute to all aspects of French culture and society. Moreover, the Cremieux decree gave in 1870 the full French citizenship to Jews, mostly Sephardi Jews, living in Maghreb under French colonization. During World War II, a significant number of Jews living in Metropolitan France perished in the Holocaust, deported to Nazi death camps by the French Vichy government. After 1945, France served as a haven for Askhenazi refugees, then after the independence of Morocco, Tunisia and the end of Algerian War, an influx of immigration of Sephardi Jews saw the Jewish population triple to around 600,000, making it the largest Jewish community in Western Europe. Behind the United States and Israel, France ranks 3rd by Jewish population. In 2008, the Jewish Agency evaluated the Jewish population in France to be 488,000, not mentioning French citizens with only one Jewish parent or grandparent.
The following is a list of some prominent Jews and people of Jewish origins, among others, (not all of them practice, or practiced, the Jewish religion) who were born in, or are very strongly associated with, France. The French nationality law itself, strongly secular, forbides any statistics or lists based on ethnic membership.
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“My list of things I never pictured myself saying when I pictured myself as a parent has grown over the years.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
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“Salad is roughage and a French idea.”
—U.S. grandmother. As quoted in “Once a Tramp, Always ...,” by M.F.K. Fisher (1969)
“Seventy-five million Jews deported or murdered, that’s cleansing. I admire such thoroughness, such methodical patience! When one has no character, one must have a method.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)