Jews and Muslims in the shadow of Marianne: Conflicting identites and Republican culture in France (1914--1975)

Journalists depict the history of Jewish-Muslim relations in France as either a new development or a narrative of ever-greater conflict. Questioning these portrayals, this dissertation asks three fundamental questions: Have Jews and Muslims always interacted in France as members of opposing ethnic groups? What historical forces, within or outside of France, have shaped the development of their relations? Finally, what can the history of Jewish-Muslim interactions reveal about the historical reach and limitations of French republican nationalism?;Drawn from government and communal sources, memoirs and novels, and oral histories, my study shows that Jews and Muslims have a long, multi-layered history of interaction in France. I contend that three elements of identity and status defined their relations. These were the place of Jews and Muslims in France's colonial empire, particularly Algeria; their positions as religious minorities in a secular and Catholic France; and the attachments of many Jews and Muslims to transnational entities. In each instance, Jews and Muslims found themselves persistently situated between extra-national identities and full integration in the French nation-state. My dissertation measures these dynamics across several critical moments for both France and Jewish-Muslim relations in the Mediterranean.;My work shows how, over time, the republican ideology of the French state became deeply disconnected from most Jews' and Muslims' perceptions of their place within France. Jews and Muslims increasingly identified each other as members of separate ethnic and religious groups with potentially conflicting loyalties. By demonstrating the uneven socio-cultural role of the republic in the daily lives of two of France's leading minority groups, this study builds upon recent reassessments of the history of French republicanism. It places this story in a transnational context, illuminating more fully the ruptures and continuities in the passage of relations between hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims from one side of the Mediterranean to the other. In tracing the centrality of the Islamic world in the political and cultural life of many of France's Jews, my dissertation also adds a critical new dimension to an emerging body of scholarship on the changing face of French Jewry throughout the twentieth century.