Description: These accounts incite a necessary conversation about Jewish history, the history of anti-Jewish discourses, French history, and theories of Orientalism in order to broaden understandings about Jews of the day.
Review Quotes:
"Kalman's book represents a valuable contribution to the growing historical scholarship of Jews in the French colonies. By focusing on aspects of pre-colonial contact between French travelers and the Jews they encountered, her research deepens our understanding of the multiple levels on which Orientalism operated."--H-France
"Jews of France, nominally full citizens since the French Revolution . . . experienced uncertainty regarding whether their status would be reversed with each change of government. . . . Kalman's work contributes significantly to an understanding of that insecurity, as she fleshes out the stereotypes that others, officials, artists, authors and intellectuals, projected onto the Jews living among them inside France."--French History
"A well-argued, beautifully written, and intellectually stimulating investigation of representations of Middle Eastern and North African Jews by French Catholic pilgrims, writers, artists, and bureaucrats over the 19th century. Julie Kalman's account blurs the lines between 'here' and 'there' and challenges the binaries that have become wound into the Orientalizing construct."--Maud Mandel, author of Muslims and Jews in France