Les Frères Tharaud: Antisémites ou Prosémites ? (With Signed Handwritten letter)
Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1996. Softcover. Quarto. 49, [2] leaves. Original printed wrappers with b/w photographic portrait of the Tharaud brothers pasted on front cover. Signed handwritten letter from the author to Professor Dresden laid in. Remarkable university thesis on the Tharaud brothers' complex relationship with Jews and Judaism. Indeed, throughout most of their literary career, Jérôme and Jean Tharaud embarked on a series of books that were designed to explain Judaism and traditional Jewish life to the average Frenchman. From their studies of Jewish life in Central Europe, the Tharauds were inspired to describe, within the framework of loosely constructed novels, the picturesqueness of the ghetto, and the role of the synagogue and the yeshivah. The novels include "L'Ombre de la croix" (1917); "Un Royaume de Dieu" (1920), an admiring account of East European Jewry's high ethical and cultural standards; "Quand Israël Est Roi" (1921); and "La Rose de Sâron" (1927). In "L'An Prochain à Jérusalem" (1924), an enthusiastic survey of Zionism's spiritual and messianic roots, the Tharaud brothers derided those Western Jews who were happy to dispatch their brethren to a Promised Land with which they themselves felt only nominal links. Another work of nonfiction was their "Petite histoire des Juifs" (1927). In 1933 the Tharaud brothers suddenly reversed their attitude in "Quand Israël n'est Plus Roi, which presented Jews in an extremely unfavorable light. The Tharauds had finally chosen to adopt the antisemitic view that ancient Israel and modern Jewry were two separate entities, and that the solution to the "Jewish problem" was the enforced physical separation of the Jews from gentile society. Upper front corner bumped, thus slightly affecting pages throughout. Text in French. Wrappers and interior in overall good+ to very good condition. g. Item #34046
Price: $175.00