After the Second World War and the attempt of extermination of the Jews, numerous Jewish intellectuals developed in France a new intellectual experience. It was known under the name of "École de la Pensée Juive de Paris" (i.e The Parisian school of the Jewish Philosophy). With the École d'Orsay, the "Colloque des Intellectuels Juifs de langue française" illustrated this striking experience of the Jewish cultural life in France after the Shoah. These high-level intellectual meetings, proposed themes most of the time connected to the current events based on the texts of the Jewish Tradition and their questionings. "The Colloque des intellectuels Juifs de langue française" introduced a movement of identity reconciliation because, by getting closer to religious, moral, cultural values, politics of the Judaism, and by inserting them into a universal thought, the Christian world was, lapel of the history, called in to witness of this evolution. In this current of Judeo-Christian civilization, the presence of Christian philosophers in these colloquiums allowed the Judaism, which had always been in margin, to become integrated into the western humanitarian tradition. The immigration in Israel of Jewish thinkers sitting in the preparatory Committee after the Six-Day War as well as the crisis of the intellectual model such as it had been set up after the Second World War began the decline of the "Colloque des intellectuels Juifs de langue française" at the end of the seventies. He had nevertheless allowed the birth of a new type of intellectual of whom shows the plurality of Jewish cultural initiatives of contemporary France.
Sandrine Szwarc delivers a masterpiece rich in information and documents. The book is passionate, intelligent and brings a subject never treated before. This book is a reference for the Jewish intellectuals from the country of Rousseau, Descartes and more. Szwarc's historian and journalist backgrounds have both largely elevated and benefited her work. The style is efficient, knowledgeable and is rapidly becoming a worldwide reference.
About SANDRINE SZWARC:
PhD in history of the section of the religious sciences of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) in Sorbonne, Sandrine Szwarc is a researcher for CRH-EHESS and has been teaching at the university Institute of Jewish studies Elie Wiesel for several years. The revival of the Jewish culture and the philosophy after the Second World War, which joined in the experience known under the name of École de pensée Juive de Paris, in particular the thinkers of the Colloque des intellectuels Juifs de langue française, is at the heart of her researches. Sandrine Szwarc is also a journalist for the Arts and Cultural sections, she publishes regularly articles around the history and around the Jewish culture.
