Ninth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

French Jews volunteered and fought in the Great War in large numbers to prove their allegiance to France, as a result the war constituted an integrative experience for Jews into French life. Reflecting this new reality, French Jewish writers articulated a new, cultural definition of what it meant to be a Jew. The veteran poet, essayist, playwright, Edmond Fleg (1874-1963) was central to this “Jewish awakening.” This paper examines Fleg’s complex understanding of the impact of war violence on religious ecumenism as it was expressed through his interwar writing. He explored Jewish and Christian texts and consistently proposed an expansive notion of religious continuity. Fleg’s epic poem La Mur des Pleurs / Wall of Weeping (1919) expressed allegorically the violence of total war concluding with the possibility of reconciliation at the Communion Table. His play La Maison du Bon Dieu (1920) re-enacted the ecumenical spirit forged during the war through the care and comradery among Christians, Jews, and Muslims offering an alternative vision of France. Fleg’s retelling of the Jesus story, Jésus Raconté par le Juif Errant (1933), traced the continuities between Jews and Christians, with the memory of the war as the back drop he chastised contemporary leaders for their inaction in the face of remilitarization. Against the dominant ideological narratives that surrounded him—Catholic, Jewish, nationalist, communist— Fleg proposed a deep continuity among religious communities and the held out hope for demilitarization.