William F S Miles. International Migration Review. Volume 29, Issue 4, Winter 1995.
This article examines the minoritarian status of a nonethnic group identity Israeli Francophonie. Nonethnic minority status is particularly interesting for it represents a nonascriptive and voluntary category of group identity. In the case of Israel, Francophonie has evolved from its mainly North African (and hence socially disparaged) associations in the 1950s and 1960s to becoming an immigrant Ashkenazi and “frenchified Sephardic” phenomenon today. Francophone intellectuals promote Israeli Francophonie as an adjunct to Zionism, for it represents a cultural alternative to the Americanization of Israeli society. Common French language also diffuses the cleavages (religious versus secular versus nationalistic) which otherwise challenge the unity of the Jewish state. Associational, educational, cultural and religious institutions reflect the diffuse, dispersed and discrete nature of Israeli Francophonie; while there are categories of Francophonie, there is no francophone community per se. The future of Francophonie in Israel is a function of media technology, pluralistic self-redefinition, and political relations with France. Regarding the latter, the originally religiously-based Palestinian Francophonie based on the Latin Patriartchate is being supplemented by diplomatic efforts to extend French cultural influence among Arabs both in Israel and in the occupied territories.
This article examines the minoritarian status of a nonethnic identity in Israel: Francophonie. Nonethnic minority status is particularly interesting in itself, for it represents a nonascriptive category of group identity, one which should be even more plastic, or malleable, than ethnic identity. After exploring the nonethnic and nonascriptive nature of the case at hand, I argue that Francophonie in Israel is emerging, among a small but committed intelligentsia, as an ideological adjunct to Zionism. As an adjunct to Zionism, it serves as dual calibrator. On the one hand, Francophonie tends to subsume the religious-secular division within greater Israeli society. On the other hand, it replicates an even wider (albeit uneven) global competition between Anglo-Saxon and Gallic visions of cultural hegemony.
Francophonie can connote varying degrees of attachment to the organized, trans-state cultural movement which aims to promote French language and the civilization of French-speaking countries. In its strongest form, Francophonie aims towards creating an institutional solidarity among French speakers and French-speaking nations. In its loosest sense, Francophonie may simply refer to a linguistic fact: facility with or mastery of the French language. In this article, I employ the term in its broadest sense, thereby including all French speakers (francophones), whether or not they adhere to or identify with the formal mission of international Francophonie. This inclusive conceptualization allows us to see how the sheer acquisition of language, irrespective of affective or sentimental attachment to any specific culture, can form the basis of an autonomous, nonsolidaristic identity.
Among the world’s languages, French enjoys high prestige and wide geographical diffusion. On a global scale, however, it is a minoritarian phenomenon, being only the twelfth most commonly spoken language. As such, Francophonie has evoked passing comparisons with other minoritarian movements. Allusions to the Jewish experience are particularly striking:
- Francophone space [is] now scattered throughout the diaspora on account of the French experience (Tetu, 1988:47).
- French is spoken and read in all of the great cities of the world. This is a privilege without which francophonie would risk turning into a ghetto… [It is an] ecumenical vocation (Deniau, 1983:87).
- [Regarding political intervention to revivify language] Quebec and Israel … have illustrated this truth … that the will of men, not the natural tendency of things, is determinative … by the continuity of their linguistic volition (Deniau, 1983:91).
It must be stressed that Francophonie in Israel represents a complementary, and by no means competitive, identity for its Jewish and Muslim holders. At best, Francophonie represents a secondary or tertiary identity marker. Intensity of attachment to francophone identity varies according to the mode and recency of French linguistic acquisition, as well as the purposes which it serves for its users. In this discussion of Israeli Francophonie, the terms “minority” and “minoritarian” are used in their most normatively neutral sense to signify a statistical social reality within a multilingual Israeli society. It should not be taken to imply that francophones are discriminated against or in any way constitute a marginalized subculture within greater Israel.
Ethnicity and Identity in Israel
Studies of ethnicity in Israel have undergone an almost complete reversal. Reflecting the original national ethos of a Zionist melting pot—the mizug hagaluyot or fusion of exiled societies—early sociological studies of Israeli society tended to downplay the importance, if not the very existence, of separate ethnic groups within Jewish Israel (Weingrod, 1979). Illustrative of this tendency was the influential volume Integration and Development in Israel (Eisenstadt, 1970) which underemphasized ethnicity in favor of institutional and acculturative paradigms.
Today in Israel, ethnicity—or at least studies of it—is very much in vogue. Whether ethnic specificity is regarded as a symbol of individuality (Goldberg, 1987), as a class marker for upwardly mobile ethnics (Ben-Rafael, 1985), as a consideration in marriage (Shachar, 1993), as a component of a multicleavage society (Ben-Rafael, Shteyer and Lewin, 1989), or as a vehicle for masking socioeconomic equality (Lewis, 1985), inquiries into group identity within Jewish Israel invariably are grounded in the ethnic paradigm. Sociological studies which examine Arab-Jewish relations, as well as intra-Arab (i.e, Druze, Bedouin) groups, naturally assume the ethnic status of their subject groups.
The value of Francophonie as a subject of inquiry is that it constitutes a nonethnic, crosscutting identity marker for a nonnegligible part of Israeli society. Francophonie crosscuts common ethnic and national cleavages: Sephardi vs. Ashkenazi, Jewish vs. Arab, Palestinian vs. Israeli. It also crosscuts the “intra-Jewish religious division” (Ben-Rafael, Shteyer and Lewin, 1989).
This francophone identity is both voluntary and vulnerable. It is voluntary because relatively few Israelis are francophonically monolingual, and there is little societal ethos for its retention. Francophonie is vulnerable, moreover, for it has progressively given way to Hebrew (which is natural), English (which, according to francophones, is regrettable) and, increasingly, Arabic (which is politically inevitable). Francophonie nevertheless persists in Israel, and for the different francophone communities it serves differential functions.
Francophone Origins in Palestine
French influence in the Holy Land long predates that of the British, whose mandate over Palestine was established in 1917. Though their long-term linguistic impact was ephemeral, it was an (Old) French-speaking group of Crusaders, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, who conquered the Holy Land and established the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. During the next seven Crusades, up to that led by Louis IX (1226-1270), French Christians were at the forefront of efforts to reconquer the “City of Peace.” According to the 1536 treaty (known as Capitulations) between Francois I and Sultan Suleiman, France was bestowed by the Ottoman Empire responsibility for holy sites within Jerusalem and became the “protector of the Christians.” This diplomatic convention was renewed by the Franco-Turkish Accords of Mitylene (1901) and reaffirmed by the State of Israel (Chauvelle-Fisher Accord of 1948).
To this day, and belying the French Republic’s usual policy of laicite, consular messes are still held in Jerusalem and presided over by the French consul-general. French flags still fly at several Christian sites throughout (East) Jerusalem. An array of convents and other religiously related institutions, such as the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise (founded in 1890) and Institut Biblique Pontifical (1927), preserve this early French stamp, particularly in Jerusalem. Christian Arab religious institutions and schools have maintained the pre-Yishuv (pre-independence Jewish community) thread of Francophonie.
On the Jewish side, the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU), founded in France in 1860 as the earliest multinational Jewish private voluntary organization, established an early network of schools in pre-Mandate Palestine. This included Mikveh Israel, the oldest agricultural school in the Middle East (1870), which was the brainchild of Charles Netter of Strasbourg. Baron Edmond de Rothschild was not the only AIU philanthropist who significantly aided in the development of the Yishuv: in the late nineteenth century Baron Maurice de Hirsch, also an Alliance patron (though himself Bavarian), endowed the Jewish Colonization Association.
If by Francophonie we can include the universalistic ideals and values that emerged out of the French experience, then Zionism itself, as perceived as a movement of national liberation, is a derivative of the francophone experience. To the extent that the French Revolution legitimized the rights of national groups to freely constitute themselves into state units, Zionism is another post-Revolution nationalistic phenomenon. The French revolutionary trinity of liberty, equality and fraternity has been an inspiration for many an oppressed people, even when France itself, ironically, has been regarded as the oppressor.
Though pockets of institutional Francophonie survived the British Mandate and early independence era (notably in the diplomatic and postal services), the nineteenth century strand of Francophonie has been progressively supplanted by British, and then American, Anglo-Saxon influences. The Alliance Israelite Universelle survives and is a significant contributor to education in Israel; its role as a bastion of Jewish Francophonie, however, has waned considerably.
Extent and Categories of Israeli Francophonie
How many francophones currently live in Israel, a country of 5.3 million people? The answer is not clear. Various estimates range from 250,000 (Ben-Rafael, 1994:190), or 6 percent of Israeli Jews, to 500,000 (Rozenbaum, 1992:7). This popularly quoted figure of half a million, which has great symbolic import for it would surpass the psychologically significant threshold of 10 percent of Israel’s Jewish population (4.3 million), is probably an inflated assessment. Yet a 1994 Gallup poll commissioned by the French Embassy in Tel Aviv revealed that, of the 4,000 Israelis sampled, 22 percent claimed some knowledge of French (even if it was “weak” for 9.1%). My current estimate of French-speaking Israelis is 300,000-350,000. The 19983 census of Israel, in its survey of languages spoken, lists 107,335 as the number of French-speakers in Israel fifteen years of age or older—all but 1,325 of whom were Jews. Seventy-nine percent of these spoke French as a second language, 19 percent mentioned it as their first language. Beyond this, it is difficult to assess the frequency or level of French used. All but 9 percent of these Jewish francophones were born outside of Israel, the largest segment (39%) having immigrated between 1955 and 1964,
Of the 23 languages (other than Hebrew) recorded in the 1983 census as spoken by Jews, French came in fifth place, behind, respectively, Arabic (326,000), Yiddish (189,000), English (187,000), and Rumanian (115,000). A decade later, it most certainly has fallen behind Russian as well (100,000 in 1983).
Working knowledge of French for many Israelis is confined to oral expression. Indeed, the French cultural services in Israel are unique in that they teach reading and writing in French to students already conversant in the language.
In the case of Israel, it is problematic to speak of a francophone community as such. Gradations of attachment to the linguistic and cultural enterprise connoted by Francophonie vary so widely that imputation of a collective francophone group consciousness is risky. Whereas a minority of francophones (mainly native speakers who immigrated from Europe) do demonstrate affective, and in some cases ideological, ties to French language and francophone culture, sabras (native-born Israelis) and Palestinians have acquired French merely as part of their general education and regard Francophonie in more culturally symbolic and instrumental terms. It is thus more accurate to speak of “categories of Francophonie” than of a francophone community per se. This does not preclude, nevertheless, the potential for a future crystallization of francophone identity.
Francophones in Israel may be loosely grouped into six such categories. One of the oldest (though probably the smallest) is the indigenous group of Arabs trained in religious schools set up by French and other Catholic missionaries mainly in the nineteenth century. Some of these school-trained francophones live in Jerusalem and Jaffa, but the single largest concentration of Palestinian francophones is found in Bethlehem. A second longstanding category are the descendants of Jewish families who immigrated from East Europe and the Balkans (Romania, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria) long before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and who settled in the Tiberias region. The third and numerically largest category are francophones of North African and Near Eastern origin (especially Moroccan, but also Algerian, Tunisian, Egyptian, and Syrian). Their massive inflow in the 1950s and early 1960s came to change the social and political landscape of the nation; Netanya, Ashdod, and Beersheva contain large concentrations of these Middle Eastern francophones. West European (French, Belgian, Swiss) Jews, the fourth category, are concentrated in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. More recently, the post-Cold War wave of immigrants from the former Soviet bloc (including Romania), newly dispersed throughout the country, includes a cadre of intellectuals steeped in francophone tradition (category five). As a sixth category may be included those Israelis who, without any particular ethnic or familial ties to the francophone world, have elected to study the French language and thereby add Francophonie (according to our more parochial use of the term) to their personal repertoire of multiculturalism.
The fact that the largest concentration of Israeli francophones emanates from an underprivileged socioeconomic class (North African Sephardim) has given rise to a paradox. On the one hand, by its identification with a low socioeconomic status (SES), within wider Israeli society French carried with it unwelcome associations and connotations. Retained, if at all, as a familial tongue for private purposes, public usage of French became virtually stigmatized: an oft-repeated anecdote is that North African youngsters would tell their classmates that their accents stemmed from their origin in “southern France.” The shedding of identity symbols associated with a subculture disparaged by the dominant society resulted in the devaluation of the French language, particularly among its Moroccan purveyors. On the other hand, Francophonie has managed to retain its image as a high status and high prestige cultural marker.
Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Israeli sociologist at Tel Aviv University who has studied Israeli Francophonie for the longest period and at greatest depth, resolves this apparent contradiction in terms of the “linguistic capital value” afforded to the French language by its students: it is “a symbol of status and a valued resource,” providing “symbolic capital” for those managing to move up the SES ladder (Ben-Rafael, 1994: 192-193, 199). Regardless of ethnic origin, students of French were found to constitute an elitist cohort, both in terms of parents’ socioeconomic background and overall educational achievements. The study of French was correlated with a “migration” from underprivileged to middle and upper-middle class status. Professor Ben-Rafael summarizes: “That the French language has been an identitional attribute of a low-class community has not diminished the prestige of French in privileged milieux and its status there as a desirable object of acquisition” (Ben-Rafael, 1994: 199).
Looking at Israeli Francophonie from an institutional perspective, other processes of subgroup demarcation emerge and give rise to other interpretations of le phenomene francophone israelien. Despite the numerical predominance of North African Jews, as a sociopolitical cause Francophonie is publicly promoted mainly by Israelis of Ashkenazi background (14% of Israeli francophones) and by “frenchified Sephardim”: North African Jews who migrated to Europe before ultimately settling in Israel. Mostly from France itself, but also including Jews of Belgian origin, it is they who most forcefully advocate a role for the survival of Francophonie within Israeli society. (It is also their children who constitute the bulk of students of French, both at the secondary as well as university levels@ indeed, barely 10 percent of Israelis of North African origin study French (Ben-Rafael, 1994: 191; Ben-Rafael and Levy, 1991;106)). Yet it is certainly not qua “Westernized” or Ashkenazi or French(ified) Jews that this group supports Francophonie: this is not merely another ethnic minority manifestation. Rather, for this core of ideologically conscious francophones, the promotion of Francophonie in Israel represents a rear guard cultural action against the creeping Anglicization, or better, Americanization, of Israeli society. It is in this sense that Israeli Francophonie is promoted as an adjunct to Zionism.
Recent immigration trends also favor Francophonie,s partial rehabilitation as a Western phenomenon in Israel. In 1993, for instance, only 6 percent of francophone immigrants (1,555) arrived from North Africa; the overwhelming majority came from Europe, with France alone providing 89 percent of the total. Indeed, among Western nations France now accounts for the largest proportion of its Jewish citizens making aliya (i.e., immigrating to Israel).
The importance of immigration among French Jews has a number of political ramifications. For one, unlike the post-1967 wave of French Jews whose Zionist commitment was of a nationalistic/ethnic nature, the current trend is that of a more religiously-motivated aliya. Within the current Israeli political configuration, most religiously-based aliya is correlated with support for right-wing parties and positions; many of the religiously Zionist French immigrants are Gush Emmunim settlers in the territories. Moreover, they are reputed to be not only politically active, but politically efficacious. “French Jews have more experience in democracy than do Israeli [Jews]. They have greater faith in the power of the streets than others who regard this as `naive'” (Meleh, 1994: 13). They are also said to be more critical of information as broadcast through the government-controlled media. “The critical spirit and natural distrust of the powers-that-be are typical characteristics of a certain French spirit” (Meleh, 1994).
Institutional Francophonie
Officially and institutionally there is an impressive array of organizations, schools, and cultural services which aim to propagate, or at least to preserve, Francophonie. Yet despite recent efforts to remedy the situation, overall the francophone community in Israel is dispersed, discrete, and defensive. There is not, for instance, any francophone lobby in Israeli politics even though as many as 24 members of the Knesset possess some working knowledge of French. This is perhaps inevitable in a nation of immigrants whose linguistic singularity has been to (re)create a Hebrew-speaking polity.
Alliance Israelite Universelle
French is no longer the primary language of instruction in the schools of the AIU, which number six full and nine affiliated institutions. Alliance schools are no longer independently administered, either; while AIU subsidies ensure the continuation of French language instruction (as a foreign language), the schools themselves are part of the national educational system. During the 1992-93 school year, nearly 6,000 students received French language instruction in AIU and AIU-affiliated schools. This represented almost one-third of the total number of students who studied French in Israeli public schools (32,000). The Lycee Rene, Cassin in Jerusalem and the Lycee Edmond-Maurice-Edmond de Rothschild of Tel Aviv are the largest AIU schools in Israel; another important lycee is in Haifa.
The relatively modest place occupied by the AIU schools in contemporary Israeli education belies its past aspirations and influence. Though it was never the aim to create “little Frenchmen: or to trivialize other languages (indeed, English was also taught by the AIU in Jerusalem as early as the 1890s),
it is true that French occupied, and still occupies, a privileged place in the curricula of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. As missionaries … it seemed normal that an undertaking born in France and supported by the government of the Republic should propagate the French language, vehicle of a universal culture, precise, clear, logical, full of finesse … a language of human rights and political freedom. (Chouraqui, 1665: 192)
One cannot sufficiently emphasize the universal aspect of the AIU and the significance of its ultimate accommodation with Zionism. The AIU was founded as an emancipation movement, not as a nationalistic one. Its goal was to upgrade the social and moral condition of Jews within their countries and to promote their political status as equals, not to encourage either immigration to Palestine or a predominantly Jewish education. Indeed, prior to World War II, and particularly during the tenure of AIU president Sylvain Levi, Zionism was disparaged as “but another petty, particularist, amorphous agglomeration” (Chouraqui, 1965:205). Even in Mandate Palestine, where AIU was instrumental in the revival of Hebrew as a modern language, its schools were criticized for “dejudaizing” the masses in a French form (Chouraqui, 1965:187).
There is little contradiction today between the activities of the AIU and the ideology of Zionism. The AIU comes under little scrutiny, much less criticism. At the same time, love for Francophonie has become a minor motivation in the decision to send children to AIU schools in Israel: reasons are more pragmatic, based on general reputation of the school, proximity, etc. Nor do most Israeli AIU graduates continue higher education in a francophone system. AIU schools represent an institutional legacy from an earlier time when French did enjoy a widespread reputation as the language of culture and cosmopolitanism in Mandate and post-Mandate Palestine.
Cultural Services
The government of France maintains five antennas of cultural action throughout Israel proper: in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Beersheva, Nazareth, and Jerusalem. It is also in the process of expanding its network of offices in the Palestinian territories (Bethlehem, Gaza, Jenin, Jericho, Nablus, Ramallah, and Tulkarem). Since France does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, it is no accident that it has located its cultural services office there in the eastern (Arab) sector of the city. This office caters almost exclusively to the Arab residents of Jerusalem and, within the diplomatic hierarchy, answers to the French consulate general of Jerusalem, which has responsibility for the Palestinian territories. The consulate-general, in turn, answers directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. In this way, the French cultural services of Jerusalem are institutionally detached from the French embassy in Tel Aviv, which oversees French cultural action in Israel proper.
French cultural action in West (Jewish) Jerusalem is left to the Alliance Francaise. Although it does receive some budgetary support from the French government, the Alliance Francaise is officially a private organization and does not represent France in the same way that French cultural services do. The clientele of the Alliance Francaise in Jerusalem is predominantly non-Arab Israeli.
This bifurcation on the part of the French cultural action replicates at the level of Francophonie the more generalized split between Israeli and Palestinian societies. The maintenance of these two cultural apparatuses both acknowledges and reinforces the dichotomous reality of Middle East politics.
French cultural services in Nazareth represents an interesting middle case of francophone politico-cultural action. Nazareth, in Israel proper, is composed almost exclusively of Arabs with Israeli citizenship. The decision to reopen an office there in 1989s (one had functioned from the 1950s until 1977), especially since it was within the same timeframe as the closing of the (now reopened) office in Haifa, has raised concerns within the francophone Jewish community. At the same time, it is noteworthy that the Nazareth cultural services are heavily subsidized by the Paul and Betty Winkler Foundation, the same foundation that has supported the Alliance Francaise in (West) Jerusalem, but whose charitable actions in Israel have a distinctly interethnic and interreligious emphasis. Unfortunately, despite efforts by the French cultural services in Nazareth to serve as a bridge between the Israeli and Arab francophone communities (e.g., plays performed by schoolchildren), few are the Jews who descend from “upper” Nazareth (Nazareth Illit) to attend events in Nazareth proper (Nesher, 1994).
Solidarity Groups
On the Israeli Jewish side, there is a plethora of self-help and private voluntary organizations which group together both old and new immigrants having French as a common tongue. The largest and most significant is the Union of Israelis Originating from France, North Africa, and Francophone Countries (UNIFAN). Although the major purpose of UNIFAN is to facilitate the integration of its members within Israeli society, by doing so within a specifically francophone context UNIFAN indirectly promotes Israeli Francophonie. Paralleling the objectives and organization of UNIFAN is the Association des Israeliens d’Origine et d’Expression Francaise de la Galilee.
Other solidarity organizations englobe or envelope specific target groups of Israeli francophones. Thus, francophone women are members of the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO-France), francophone youth belong to the Mouvement de Jeunesse Tora Betzion-Tsedek and (particularly in lower SES neighborhoods) Fanny Kaplan Centers, francophone students find refuge in Foyer des Etudiants Francophones d’Israel, francophone former Boy Scouts relive their youth within the Association des Anciens Eclaireurs Israelites (AEI), francophone masons join the Francs-Macons-Loge-France, and francophone Holocaust families share their grief as Fils et Filles des Deportes Juifs de France. On university campuses, French House and Belgium House are geared to francophone academics.
Francophone Judaism
An interesting dimension to Francophonie in Israel is the religious one. A number of eminent rabbis are francophone, and their yeshivot (learning centers) conduct courses in French for those students whose Hebrew skills are rudimentary (e.g., Centre Meir, Centre Yair). There are religious schools and colleges for female (e.g., Lycee Bnot-Zion, College Emouna) as well as male students. Of course, for religious study French, as any foreign language, serves chiefly as a springboard for an ultimate mastery of Judaism in Hebrew and Aramaic. But even when it comes to the study of Torah and Talmud, French is not merely a linguistic bridge for facilitating comprehension—it is a complementary intellectual vehicle. Francophone rabbis maintain that the Cartesian method of thought is particularly apt for delving into the intricacies and complexities of the Kabbala, whose mystical truths nevertheless require rigorous intellectual training and preparation. The francophone rabbinate point to Rashi, the eleventh century French Jewish philosopher, as an eminent example of the complementarity between Jewish and French modes of reasoning.
Francophonie, as a standard of comportment, is also helpful for imparting derech eretz, the traditional Jewish norms of civility, daily morality, and proper interpersonal behavior. In the fast-paced, angst-ridden and aggressive ambiance which characterizes contemporary Israeli society, living models of la politesse and l’etiquette are more readily found in Jews who have immigrated from France than those sabras who formally studied Pirkei Avot, the talmudic tractate which sets forth the ideals of good Jewish behavior.
Not all religious francophones share this perspective. For the ultraorthodox (Mea Shearim-based) Kountrass, French is merely a tool for the transmission of the Torah; there is little intrinsic value in Francophonie. Still, few biblically oriented francophones remain aloof to the enigmatically imperial passage in the brief but prophetic book of Obadiah: “And the captivity of this host, of the children of Israel, that are among the Canaanites, even unto France [Zarephath/Tsarfat] … shall possess the cities of the South” (Verse 20).
Media
There are a handful of publications in French in Israel, most of them of local regional and commercial interest. Israel’s daily English newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, began publishing a weekly French language version in 1990. One-third of its 12,000 weekly sales are made in Israel; subscriptions in France and Belgium account for the rest (readership is estimated at 30,000-36,000). French language bookshops are found in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.
Kol Yisrael, Israel’s government-run radio station, accords limited broadcast time in French: fifteen minutes in the morning, half an hour in the afternoon, and a two-minute bulletin in the evening. This is no less than is accorded the English language. It is in the realm of audiovisual media that there are more striking discrepancies. For one, there is no French language equivalent to the fifteen-minute televised news in English on Channel One in the evening. Secondly, neighboring Jordan, whose broadcasts are easily received in Israel, does have nightly news in French. Jordanian television also regularly rebroadcasts documentaries and features from France.
Federation Israelienne Francophone
Looked at institutionally, Francophonie in Israel—as a mirror of Judaism in France—remains a relatively diffuse and unmobilized, if not splintered, phenomenon. While the plethora of organizations examined above demonstrates a desire for some corporate activity, indigenous francophone activity remains generally localized and without nationally unified import. Just as Jews in France—in contrast to their American counterparts—have not succeeded organizationally in creating effective and influential interest groups, neither have Israeli francophones managed to create a common or unified front.
It is precisely to respond to this gap that the Federation Israelienne Francophone (FIF) was founded in October 1993. The objectives of FIF were fourfold: promote the teaching of the French language, create a university level institute for francophones around the world, strengthen cultural relations between Israel and other francophone nations, and, above all, work to get Israel admitted to the Summit of Francophonie.
The Summit of Francophonie (the first was held in Paris in 1986) assembles the heads of state and leaders of government of all nations in which the French language enjoys significant status. Nations with an indisputably lower percentage of francophones than is found in Israel have been represented at the Summit, whereas Israel remains excluded. Opposition by Arab and Muslim member states have not made the Summit a hospitable environment for Israel Francophonie. Changing political sensitivities, particularly in light of the accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), may presage Israeli entry into the Summit.
Israeli membership in the Summit of Francophonie seems to interest Israeli diplomats—whether francophone or not—more than it does the rank-and-file of Israeli francophones. The general lack of interest of Francophonie as a cause is reflected in the outcome of the 1994 elections to the Conseil Superieur Francais de l’Etranger (CSFE, the official organization of expatriate Frenchmen) in Israel. As a campaign platform, the newly winning candidate to the CSFE advocated the indivisibility of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—hardly an issue of obvious francophone significance. A candidacy based on the entry of Israel into the Summit of Francophonie, the candidate who founded the FIF, was handily defeated. Even among those expatriate francophones retaining French citizenship, and in an election deciding their representation among Frenchmen worldwide, the politics of Israel take precedence over the cause of Francophonie.
Francophonie as Adjunct to Zionism
Francophonie and Zionism are both totalistic cultural-political movements which aim to construct specific patterns of cultural unity and political affinity. In the case of Francophonie, the cultural founts include a universally recognizable source of literature, Cartesian reasoning, and a sensibility for esthetics. Shared cultural heritage is supposed to translate into allegiance to, or at least affinity with, the francophone metropole. Competition between France and (Canada (Quebec) does not negate this overall proposition; it only changes the contours.
Modern Zionism is a nationalistic ideology grounded in the history and tradition of Jewish people, with differing degrees of boundedness to the Jewish religion. While within Israel itself Zionism may be undergoing a crisis between its secular and religious strands (and consequently democratic versus territorial visions of state legitimacy), the political objective of Zionism is clear—construction and preservation of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. This is so whether or not Zionism actually takes the form of immigration.
Both Francophonie and Zionism are tolerant of national diversity within them. Even for those who see international Francophonie as merely a postcolonial front for France, its pluricultural composition today (presaged in the Afro-Caribbean negritude movement of the 1930s) is undeniable. West Indian, African, Maghrebian, Canadian and Oceanic expressions of Francophonie are all heralded. Today’s francophone movement is not a cultural steamroller but rather a linguistic internationale which flaunts the transcultural nature of the global francophone “family.”
By the same token, Israel is a heterogeneous society which draws strength from various diasporas that have poured—though not necessarily melted—into it. While the linguistic policy of Hebraicizing the entire population has remained constant since the Yishuv so decreed (though only after serious opposition from its German speakers), the will to culturally homogenize the Jewish community has long since dissipated. Part of this evolution is due to the cultural revolt of the edot mizrach—the so-called Eastern communities—as dramatized by the Black Panther movement in the 1970s. Establishment recognition of the strength derived from the Eastern communities is symbolized in the Mimouna, a post-passover Moroccan festival, which now benefits from quasi-official patronage.
What is less tolerated within both Francophonie and Zionism is deviancy from the macrocultural norm. Francophonie presupposes “French”; Zionism is equated with “Jewish.” Within France, resident communities which have resisted linguistic assimilation encounter significant hostility. In Israel, non-Jewish communities experience varying degrees of social disenfranchisement. When pitted against one another, however, there is an imbalance in the respective limits to tolerance of the others ideology.
Whereas Zionism can internalize a modicum of Francophonie, Francophonie ill integrates Zionism. Whether the referrent is France itself or the world community of Francophonie (as evinced by the Summit of Francophonie), Zionism is seen as alien. Within France, a movement which openly encourages French citizens to immigrate to Israel, or at the very least to act on its behalf, is viewed askance. Within international Francophonie, the strength of Arab and Muslim members long precluded welcoming the state of Israel within its collectively francophone midst.
Given the competing allegiances of Francophonie and Zionism, their reconciliation can be difficult. Within the francophone Jewish community in Israel, such reconciliation is accomplished by the submersion of Francophonie within Zionism. This submerged Francophonie, however, is redefined by a small but articulate core of francophone intellectual immigrants so as to eliminate any contradiction with its Zionist foil. It is in this sense that Francophonie in Israel, expressing various cultural, religious and political tendencies, but in a French medium, is being promoted as an adjunct to Zionism. This perspective unites francophones across the ideological and religious spectrum: even the most secular of francophones would agree with Rav Ashkenazi (Manitou), perhaps the most notable francophone rabbi in Israel, that “la culture americaine denature l’identite juive.”
It is in this sense that Francophonie also serves as a foil to the Americanization of Israel. While the intra-Zionist debates continue, there has been a noticeable conflation of Judaica with Americana within many sectors of Israeli society, not excluding the religious one. Consumerism, mass media, culture, academia are all permeated with “the American Way.” While the nature of the Zionist enterprise continues to be debated, the gradual Americanization of Israeli society has raised questions about Jewish identity in the modern Jewish state. Precisely because it need not take a position on the Zionist question, Francophonie—embattled as it is—is cast by its defenders as a legitimate counterweight to the culturally monopolistic Americanization of Israeli society.
There is no question of replacing Americanization with Francophonie. Nor is the frenchification of Israel a serious possibility. Rather, what is promoted is a balancing, one that would provide greater space and resonance for non-American influences within Israeli society. This in turn would facilitate fuller development of an autonomous (i.e., non-Anglo) Jewish culture, a goal which, by its very ambiguity, unifies the disparate strands of Zionism. Such would represent the victory of pluralism over assimilationism, a transition within Israeli society which we noted above.
Palestinian Francophonie
While it is sociologically problematic to discuss the Arab citizens of Israel alongside the Arabs of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, and politically controversial whether the former should be labeled “Palestinian,” for the purposes of this discussion on Francophonie the two categories may be collapsed into one. Both the origins of Francophonie among Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, as well as the source of its current promotion, are similar.
Francophonie in the Holy Land was essentially promoted by the Catholic Church with the support of a French government eager to assert political influence throughout the Levant; French remains the official language of the Latin Patriarchate there. Creation of the state of Israel, and especially Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, was such a source of contention that diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican were not established until the 1990s.
Orders such as the Brothers of Christian Schools and the Sisters of Saint Joseph continue to run schools and hospitals from Nazareth (Israel) to Amman (Jordan), with operations throughout the West Bank (e.g., Bethlehem, Ramallah). Two of the most important Roman Catholic institutions of French language learning for Israeli Arabs and Palestinians (though most students are not Christian) are the Colleges des Francais in Jaffa and in the Old City of Jerusalem. Near Bethlehem, in Bet Jala, the Catholic seminary trains its Arab seminarians in the French language. The Lycee Francais de Jerusalem, colloquially known as the “diplomat school” on account of its important expatriate constituency, was originally established as a St. Joseph school; over 50 percent of its pupils are Palestinian and hail principally from upper class families. Since the Jordanian educational system, still in place in the Occupied Territories, does not offer French in primary or high school, virtually all of the 6,000 Arab students who take French do so in private schools.
If Francophonie is a minoritarian phenomenon for the Jewish population of Israel, Palestinian and Israeli Arab Francophones represent a minority within a minority. Nevertheless, French diplomatic interest in the region has imparted a dynamic profile to Palestinian and Arab Francophonie by expanding its cultural services network throughout the territories (its office in Jericho was inaugurated one month before the September 1993 Israel-PLO accord) and within the heartland of Israeli (Christian) Arabism, Nazareth. Language classes, cultural activities, and scholarships to France are both more vigorously extended to, and eagerly sought by, the Arab and Palestinian residents of Israel and the territories than Jewish ones.
Franco-Israeli Relations
Vacillating relations between the French Republic and the Jewish State have rendered Israel problematical ground for the flourishing of Francophonie. Although relations between the two countries were very warm up until the 1967 war, the ensuing arms embargo imposed by France, compounded by some rather frosty pronouncements by Presidents de Gaulle and Pompidou, have taken their toll on French-Israeli relations. President Mitterrand’s pro-Palestinian stance, even while emerging within a wider worldview which was philosophically favorable to the Jewish people and its claims to statehood, did not make reconciliation easy; neither did his longstanding refusal (reversed by his successor, Jacques Chirac) to acknowledge the complicity of the French Republic in deportation of Jews to death camps during the German occupation. The image of France, particularly as a political entity, is still fraught with ambivalence among francophonically-conscious Israelis. Even though Franco-Israeli relations have dramatically improved in the wake of negotiations and accords with the PLO, there will be no return to the “honeymoon” years prior to 1967. At no time did France seriously exploit the linguistic potential at its disposal among the multitude of immigrants from its former colonies and other zones of cultural influence; and it is now too late to recoup the passage of nearly two generations of francophone deculturation and Hebraic assimilation among these same North African, Near Eastern and Middle Eastern families.
Of course, decisions to preserve French language on the family level are not usually linked to the degree of warmth prevailing on the political level. Still, to the extent that France views and uses Francophonie as an instrument of political influence, the success of this francophone enterprise cannot be disassociated from the host culture’s overall receptivity to such efforts. However esteemed the image of France on the cultural level, a negative for, at best, ambivalent) association with France as a political actor counters the latent hospitality accorded Francophonie within greater Israeli society.
Future of Israeli Francophonie
As a minoritarian, nonethnic and voluntaristic linguistic identity, the future of Israeli Francophonie is problematic. By frenchifying the Jews of North Africa, France put into motion their eventual exodus to Israel. Yet once in Israel, the attachments of this community both to France as a sovereign and to Francophonie as a culture were exceedingly frayed. The disdain accorded “Eastern” Jewish immigrant culture by Israel’s erstwhile Ashkenazi elite, coupled with French governmental indifference towards preserving Francophonie among this community, has left the onus of preserving minoritarian Francophonie chiefly to immigrants from Europe (Sephardi as well as Ashkenazi) of more recent arrival. Their challenge is two-fold: to convince both passive and latent Israeli francophones of the value in preserving their minoritarian subcultural heritage and to raise consciousness within wider Israeli society of the need for alternative external referents to the creeping americanization of Israeli society.
Three emerging developments provide encouragement that a reinvigorated Israeli Francophonie—revitalized from the pre-Mandate heyday of Francophonie dominated by the Alliance Israelite Universelle—can succeed. The first is political, the second is technological, and the third is ethnopsychological.
There is a nascent movement afoot, enjoying rare agreement between official France and francophone Israel, to redefine the Middle East as part of a larger Mediterranean region. Within this Mediterraneanized conception of the Middle East, of which Israel is slowly gaining acceptance as a result of diplomatic changes, the French language enjoys a comparative advantage. Although Arabic may seem the more likely language of choice for an Israel at last integrated within its larger regional environment, the relative proximity of France, prepositioned to act as an important outside player in the new Middle East, may work to offset American preponderance in the region.
The second development is technological. satellite communications. Cable television may be new in Israel, but audiovisual Francophonie has not been slow to place two channels on the band. Given the seeming indifference of the Israeli broadcast authorities to French language programming, access by the cable-viewing Israeli public to television in the French language may be critical. Such technological innovations work hand-in-hand with the campaign to edify the Israeli public about external cultural alternatives to American entertainment.
Finally, but no less important, there is the emergence in Israeli society, particularly among third generation Israelis, of a “back to roots” movement—not unlike that enjoying a jubilee in the United States. Although the children of Moroccan Jews may have consciously shed their francophone roots, some of their grandchildren are groping to recapture the ethnically specific background which has been institutionally suppressed by classically Zionist Israeli assimilationism. As the nation as a whole comes to grips, however painfully, with the bicommunal and pluralistic realities of Israeli and Middle Eastern society, it is reasonable to expect greater openness to the cultural plurality and multilayered genesis of Israeli society itself. As a voluntary, nonascriptive identity, Francophonie in Israel may enjoy the requisite flexibility and adaptability for a cultural renaissance within an Israeli society that is itself undergoing rebirth. If successful, such a renewed identity, undergirded by its nonethnic foundations, could provide a medium, hitherto untapped, to serve as a bridge between the various minoritarian Francophonies in the region, Jewish and non-Jewish, Israeli and Arab, alike.