The secret Jewish history of Napoleon Bonaparte

 

Was Napoleon good for the Jews? One historian says yes  

By Benjamin Ivry.   August 15, 2022

 

Editor’s note: This piece, originally published on August 13, 2015 to mark the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo, was re-published for Napoleon’s 253rd birthday on August 15, 2022.

The French historian Patrice Gueniffey, born in 1955, is director of the Raymond Aron Center for Political Research at Paris’s l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (school of advanced studies in the social sciences). His “Bonaparte: 1769-1802,” originally published by Gallimard in 2013, has recently been published in translation by Harvard University Press.The Forward’s Benjamin Ivry spoke with Gueniffey about the thorny subject of Napoleon and the Jews.

Benjamin Ivry: Napoleon was complex, to put it mildly, and his political and historical context even more so. Can it be said categorically whether he was good or bad for the Jews?

Patrice Gueniffey: He was, I think, ultimately rather good [for the Jews], because his policies for the Jewish community in France and the Empire promoted their assimilation into the French nation. The French revolution liberated the Jews but did not assimilate them. Napoleon took up the case again and decided to do for the Jews what he had done for other religions. The French Jewish community became Europe’s most assimilated during the 19th century.

 

In his “History of the 19th Century,” Jules Michelet writes of a “witty Englishman, Mr. Disraeli, who wished to make people believe that Napoleon was of Jewish origin.” What do you say?

There have been many myths and interpretations on the family origins of Napoleon. At Bonifacio at the extreme south of [his native] island of Corsica, there was a strongly established Jewish community, with many Italians but also Greeks. [François- René de Chateaubriand, who detested Napoleon, said he had African blood. Michelet, who detested him, said he had Jewish blood. We cannot know. [Napoleon’s] family came from Tuscany. Did he have Jewish blood? Who can tell? It’s possible, but his relationships with religions and peoples were always political in nature. When he dealt with Christians, Muslims and others, only political considerations mattered, not religious ones.

Many Jews of the time believed that Napoleon was their benefactor. Primo Levi has pointed out that in Italy, some Jews named their sons Napoleone in his honor, and in Germany, when Jews adopted family names, some chose Schöntheil, or Bonaparte in German. In France, Jews wrote Hebrew prayers to praise Napoleon during services and called him “Helek Tov” in Hebrew or “good portion” (bona-parte), as Ronald Schechter discussed in “Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715-1815.” As he abolished ghettos and granted civil rights to Jews, convening a council, which he termed with biblical grandeur the Sanhedrin, Napoleon was admired by Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav and Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Rymanov. Were they all wrong?

Not at all. Readers of Martin Buber’s “For the Sake of Heaven” (1943) will recall how Buber describes Napoleonic legends in which some Hasidic rabbis saw in Napoleon an instrument of salvation, while others disagreed. At the time, there was still violent hostility against Jews in Italy and in Alsace. Bonaparte’s policy organizing all religions under the control and surveillance of the government was implemented against strong reticence among his own allies as well as the Catholic Church. In this context, Napoleon was at the forefront. He wasn’t far from [the French Roman Catholic priest] Abbé Grégoire, who also argued for the emancipation of the Jews.

In 1799, Napoleon’s supposed call for a Jewish homeland in the Middle East is discounted by most historians today. Why would such a fictional report have appeared in journals of his time?

In Paris, when it was discovered that Bonaparte had marched on Palestine, this rumor arose and articles appeared in newspapers. This was something like the ideas of the revolution, to emancipate sister nations. Bonaparte entered Palestine with a small army of 12,000 men with policies identical to those he had with Islamic nations, to watch over and protect them. In Paris there was a current of opinion seeking to emancipate Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, and this kind of rumor was meant to encourage Napoleon in his policies.

In a 1940 essay “The Great Beast: Some Reflections on the Origins of Hitlerism” Simone Weil compares Napoleon to Hitler as an authoritarian leader who terrorized the world. Was Napoleon Hitlerian?

Absolutely not. There was in Napoleon a side of monstrousness and madness. He never knew when to stop, which led to his downfall. There are analogies to be made, to be sure, between Napoleon and Hitler; they were both conquerors of Europe. Yet Napoleon still remains an heir to the age of light. And he believed in freedom as the basis for modern society. He is the son of a country based on centralization and governmental power, France, but in which the government, the monarchy, emancipated society from feudalism and church authority. So the [French] government was always a factor in freedom, against the nobility. Napoleon inherited all this tradition. Even though his story was unreasonable and a bit insane, it had reason behind it.

Since Napoleon was always seeking new recruits to fight for him, would he have heard about the Polish Jewish soldiers Berek Joselewicz and Joseph Aronowicz who fought for the military leader Tadeusz Kościuszko?

I think yes, and for him it was natural that as a result of their emancipation, the French Jewish community would then serve in his army. In his speeches he insisted a great deal on that. Service to the fatherland meant service in the army. Bonaparte had no prejudices; Egyptians, Sudanese, Jews from Alexandria were all integrated into the Imperial Guard. He also had no affection for anyone. He was neither anti-Semite nor pro-Semite; he felt neither hostility nor sympathy.

Yet the historian Richard Ayoun has stated that Napoleon “despised the Jews,” and merely used them for his own projects. Ayoun cites remarks made by Napoleon in 1817 during his exile in Saint Helena to General Gourgaud: “The Jews are a nasty people, cowardly and cruel.” Or when Napoleon wrote to his brother in 1808, calling Jews the “most contemptible of people.”

That must be put into context, especially any statement from Saint Helena. There Napoleon is also quoted as making the same type of comments about the Spanish. Like any person who speaks a lot and dictates a lot, many different kinds of things can be found in what he says. There is a difference between Napoleon’s private comments and public acts. To do good for a community, it is not necessary to love them. The vital thing for a national leader is to realize what is needed at the moment and pursue a policy. Whatever Napoleon’s feelings at the moment might have been, he did so. Take the example of the blacks. He used former slaves in his Imperial Guard. Yet when he heard that his sister had a love affair with the brother of [the author of African origin] Alexandre Dumas, he was furious that his sister had slept with a black man. But politics and national interest are another matter and Napoleon must be judged on this more than on his private comments. He was one of the European heads of state who based his policies on the idea of national interest, putting aside personal considerations.

The French historian Pierre Birnbaum also sees Napoleon’s anti-Semitism, when he likened Jews to “crows” and “locusts ravaging France,” as a “deeply regressive turning point.”

The political language of the time was much more brutal. Today political speech is reduced to euphemisms that do not name things as they are. I have difficulty understanding these judgments of Napoleon which are so far from the political reality of things. The Grand Sanhedrin of 1807 convoked by Napoleon was about the will of the Ashkenazi Jews to integrate, to ask them to which point they were ready to assimilate into the national community in exchange for full rights of citizenship. To not be victims of discrimination, they were asked to renounce part of their customs. In 1789, Sephardic Jews, as French Jewish historian Robert Badinter has explained, had opposed emancipating France’s Ashkenazi Jews because they were too different and would not accept mixed marriages.

In 1808, Napoleon’s so-called Infamous Decree limiting the residency of Jews in France, taking away freedoms, and harming them economically, was done to appease Tsar Alexander I of Russia as a temporary measure.

This was a provisional decree for which there were diplomatic motives, because Russia was hostile to French policies toward Jews. Political success depends on momentary concessions to opponents of any policy and Napoleon did similar things elsewhere.

In 1827, Jean-Baptiste Pérès published a spoof claiming that Napoleon never existed. If indeed Napoleon had never existed, would the assimilation of Jews into Europe have occurred without him?

I think for France, yes, because it was in the spirit of the times. Integration and assimilation were demanded for a long time; the idea of civilization demanded them. In 1787, Protestants were reintegrated in France, and Louis XVI asked the political scientist the Marquis de Condorcet to work on emancipating the Jews. Napoleon continued what the monarchy had begun. Without Napoleon, it would have happened in a less authoritarian way, with everything happening fast, without any discussion, but the idea was part of 18th-century civilization. The Revolution overthrew the Church and removed the Church’s political means to oppose it. Napoleon had no powerful opposition to this movement.

Should readers of the Forward share the view of the author François-René de Chateaubriand, who admired Napoleon’s “genius” but loathed his “despotism”?

Yes, today, of course. Of course. With Napoleon, there is something worse than despotism, there is a feeling that one can do anything with reality, one can change everything, and with him that was doubtless the most dangerous. He really thought anything was possible; he had an absence of limits in his mind. At the same time, there was a principle of endless adventure, which could only end in catastrophe. A totally positive judgment about Napoleon is absurd and a totally negative view, as some historians have today, is equally absurd.

 

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NOTE: ZELENSKY IS NO NAPOLEON. HE'S JUST AN UNINTELLIGENT ZANY NAZI WITH THE PEA-BRAIN OF A SIMPLETON. 

 

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WHAT FOLLOWS IS A TORRID STUPID ANALYSIS — BY A CERTAIN Stuart Rees OAM, Professor Emeritus, Univ. of Sydney, recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize and author of the recent Policy Press book ‘Cruelty or Humanity’ — OF THE SITUATION IN UKRAINE. ONE COULD WONDERS WHERE THESE OAM PROFESSORS EMERITUSES GET THEIR QUALIFICATIONS, BUT I CAN SAY THAT THEIR IGNORANCE AND BIAS ARE LIKE A MILLION Mr TOAD DRIVING OFF THE ROAD.... I APOLOGISE IN ADVANCE FOR THE RUDE WORDS I POSSIBLY WILL USE TO EXPOSE STUART REES' MALIGNED IDIOCY... I GUESS THIS WAS PUBLISHED BY PEARLS AND IRRITATIONS WEBSITE AS A MASSIVE IRRITATION....

 

HERE IS REES....

The world can be nourished only by the hopes for humanity expressed by the Peace Prize recipients, Alex Bialiatski now imprisoned in Belarus, Yan Rachinsky, head of the Russian Human Rights Centre Memorial and Oleksandra Matvichuk, leader of Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties.

Pondering their names, reflecting on their achievements, reveals humanity at its best, shows every day courage and nutrition for the future.

For over 40 years, Alex Bialiatski had opposed oppression in the former Soviet Union, had campaigned for democracy and supported families jailed for opposing the Lukashenko dictatorship. Not deterred by prison sentences, Alex inspired other Belarusian protesters including the courageous classical flautist Maria Kalesnikova sentenced to eleven years in prison for conspiring to seize power. She says she has no regrets, ‘My love for Belarus and the Belarusian people did not allow me to stay aloof.’

Established in 1987, the Russian civil society organisation Memorial teaches about the terrors of the Stalin era and had maintained a massive archive of Soviet era crimes. Current leader Rachinsky is a successor to the immortal nuclear scientist Andrey Sakharov who was exiled for campaigning against repression. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

NOW, LET’S BE FAIR… UKRAINE’S "CENTRE FOR CIVIL LIBERTY" SHOULD HAVE RECOGNISED THAT A ZELENSKY’S DRIVEN DICTATORSHIP IS FAR MORE DANGEROUS TO SOME PEOPLE OF A CERTAIN ETHNICITY IN UKRAINE. THE LIST OF ZELENSKY'S MISDEEDS ARE A THOUSAND TIMES MORE IMMORAL/DESPOTIC THAN A PUTIN TRYING TO DEFEND THE RUSSIANS IN UKRAINE. FIRST, PUTIN TRUSTED THE WEST, INCLUDING TRUSTING HIS DOUBLE-DEALING "FRIEND", ANGELA MERKEL, WHO ADMITTED THAT THE MINSK AGREEMENTS WERE A CON TO REARM UKRAINE TO TAKE OVER THE DONBASS AUTONOMOUS REGIONS. 

LET’S NOT FORGET THAT NOT ALL “UKRAINIANS” ARE EQUAL: SOME ARE BANDERA NAZIS, SOME ARE RUSSIANS. IN 2014, THIS CAME TO A HEAD WHICH RESULTED IN THE MINSK AGREEMENTS THAT THE WEST AND ZELENSKY NEVER PLANNED TO ADHERE TO. RESULT: 14,000 DEATHS IN THE SAID AUTONOMOUS REGIONS OF “UKRAINE” DELIBERATELY MURDERED BY THE KIEV GOVERNMENT. ANY COMMENTS FROM THE "CENTRE FOR CIVIL LIBERTY"?

 

Subsequent members of Memorial have opposed Russian human rights violations in Chechnya and Syria. Their revelations threatened a dictator and his minions. In December 2021, the Russian Duma declared Memorial a foreign agent. Weeks later the Russian Supreme Court ordered Memorial closed.

WHAT? RUSSIAN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION IN SYRIA? FUCK! STUART HAS NO SHAME TO MANUFACTURE CRAP. WHAT ABOUT THE US AND THEIR MANUFACTURED FREEDOM FIGHTERS CALLED DAESH, AL QAEDA ET AL NUSRA, NOT TO MENTION THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD INVENTED BY THE ENGLISH EMPIRE!

 

In her concern for what she calls ‘the price of freedom’, Ukrainian lawyer Oleksandra Matvichuk explains the genocidal character of the Ukraine war and documents war crimes committed by Russian troops. A skilled advocate of international humanitarian law, Oleksandra wants Ukraine to become a member of the International Criminal Court. She requests, repeatedly, that the international community must bring Russia’s Putin and Belarus’ Lukashenko to justice.

THE UKRAINIAN TROOPS HAVE COMMITTED FAR MORE WAR CRIMES THAT THE RUSSIAN TROOPS. THIS IS A STATEMENT OF FACTS. YES, BRING THE BUSH FATHER AND SONS, THE BARAK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN TO CRIMINAL JUSTICE FIRST, BEFORE ANYONE ELSE — AND PLEASE BRING THIS LITTLE FRENCH TWERP, SARKOZY TO THE COURTS AS WELL. AND NOW SADLY BRING ANGELA MERKEL FOR HAVING LIED TO PUTIN — HER LIES HAVING BEEN BASICALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR A GREAT PART OF THE DEATHS IN THE AUTONOMOUS REGIONS PROTECTED BY THE MINKS AGREEMENTS WHICH SHE DID NOTHING TO HELP UKRAINE ENFORCE... 

 

The end of a vicious 2022 invites reaction to the activities of these Peace Prize recipients and to the devastation wreaked by a Russian President. Let’s not mince words. The Nobel Laureates display humanity, courage and principle. Russian and Belarusian Presidents succor sadism.

PRESIDENT PUTIN WOULD BE THE LEAST SADIST LEADER ON THE PLANET.

JOE BIDEN, IF HE WAS NOT SENILE, WOULD QUALIFY TO BEING ONE OF THE BIGGEST SADISTS PRESENTLY, FOR TWISTING REALITY LIKE A RAG, AND STILL HELPING WAR AGAINST YEMEN AND A FEW OTHER PLACES.

 

Voicing sweeping criticism does not imply that western governments, including Ukraine’s, are squeaky clean. However, the alternative to trenchant criticism is to sit back, watch the nightly news, be told that scenes of destruction and barbarism may offend some viewers, yet accept that bestiality is inevitable because it has happened before. A philosophy of fatalism feeds powerlessness and precludes the task of speaking truth to power.

NOT SQUEAKY CLEAN? NO THEY AREN’T. NOT A CLEAN BONE IN THEIR DIRT BAGS. 

 

How else to judge a Russian leader who wants to repeat in Ukraine the savagery deployed in Chechnya and Syria where destruction made civilians despair so that they would capitulate. 

SYRIA? AGAIN? WHAT ABOUT LIBYA? SYRIA IS PRESENTLY BEING BLED BY THE USA, NOT BY RUSSIA, YOU FUCKING MORON, STUART! AND THE RUSSIAN INTERVENTION IN SYRIA WAS MINIMALIST IN TERMS OF CASULTIES COMPARED TO SAY FALLUJAH, WHICH THE AMERICAN EMPIRE WANTS TO NAME ONE OF THEIR WAR DESTROYER (OR SUCH) AFTER....

 

The updated Putin savagery is to leave Ukrainians without water, light or heat. Let’s not mince words. This looks like nihilism gone mad. It is not a war.

HAVE YOU NOT HEARD THAT ZELENSKY IS BEING FED BILLIONS WORTH OF WEAPONS AND CASH, NOT FOR HIM TO SUCCEED IN “RETAKING” LOST RUSSIAN TERRITORY WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN HANDED BACK TO RUSSIA IN 1991, BUT TO WEAKEN RUSSIA? HAVE YOU NOT HEARD THAT EVEN THE MOST “SUPPORTIVE” MEDIA USED TO CALL UKRAINE AS THE MOST CORRUPT COUNTRY ON EARTH…. AND DON’T YOU REMEMBER HOW JOE BIDEN PLAYED HIS PART IN THIS AS WELL?

 

Unless a political leader considers human life of no consequence, the terrible human and environmental costs of war must be calculated. Observers of Ukrainian and Russian casualties have been doing their sums.

THE SUMS WERE DONE IN DECEMBER LAST YEAR. PUTIN PLACED A DECENT PLAN ON THE TABLE: NO NATO IN UKRAINE, ETC, MINKS AGREEMENTS TO BE RESPECTED…. ETC. WHAT DID THE WEST DO? TOLD PUTIN TO FUCK OFF WHILE LAUGHING. PUTIN HATES WAR FAR MORE THAN THE BOFFINS OF THE PENTAGON WHO SHOULD ALL BE FRONTING UP AT THE WAR CRIME COURTS FOR THE MISERY THE US HAS INFLICTED ON MANY COUNTRIES (MORE THAN 40) SINCE WW2.

 

As of December 2022, the Ukrainian government estimates between 8,000 and 33,000 citizens have been killed. The Office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) says there have been over 7,000 civilian deaths of whom 424 were children.

YES AND BEFORE THIS, 14,000 RUSSIAN IN UKRAINE WERE MURDERD BY THE KIEV (NAZI) GOVERNMENT (FIGURE FROM THE UN).

 

Over sixteen million border crossings from Ukraine show the displacement of a civilian population.

To replace a failing war on the ground, Putin puts in charge a man with a reputation for brutality, General Sergei Surovkin. To add to his taste for terror, he deploys Iranian killer drones.

AS FAR AS WE KNOW, THE “IRANIAN KILLER DRONES” IS A FURPHY, WHILE THE KIEV GOVERNMENT USES TURKISH KILLER DRONES… AND NO, PUTIN ISN'T FAILING...

 

Destruction of Ukrainian houses, apartment buildings, schools, bridges, roads, railways and power plants are the consequences of a macabre technology. Concern for humanity can be ignored by those who pull distant triggers to dispatch cruise or aircraft guided missiles from the Caspian Sea or from southern Russia. Who knows, who cares?

The architects of the missile bombardment seem to be repeating the cynicism attributed by satirist Tom Lehrer to German rocket scientist Werner von Braun, ‘Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down, that’s not my department’, says Werner von Braun.

ACTUALLY, THE PRECISE RUSSIAN BOMBING OF THE UKRAINIAN INFRASTRUCTURE IS DONE TO MINIMISE CASUALTIES, WHILE THE UKRAINIANS USE US-MADE ROCKETS TO HIT SCHOOLS, MARKETS AND HOSPITALS (NOT REPORTED BY THE WEST).

 

On nightly news bulletins, the beauty in Peace Prize recipients’ stamina, courage and resistance merits attention.

THOSE FUCKING PEACE PRIZE RECIPIENTS DESERVE NOTHING. THEY SHOULD DEMAND THAT ZELENSKY AGREE TO THE RUSSIANS DEMANDS WHICH WERE FAIR.

BECAUSE THE AMERICAN EMPIRE WANTS TO DESTROY RUSSIA (AS NOTED MANY TIMES ON THIS SITE) SINCE 1919, ZELENSKY WAS PREVENTED TO MAKE A DEAL, BY BORIS JOHNSON. HERE’S ANOTHER ONE WHO SHOULD BE SENT IN FRONT OF THE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL, WITH TONY BLAIR TO BOOT…

 

Instead of staying appalled or remaining anaesthetised by pictures of endless destruction, viewers’ reactions can be of two kinds. Humanity can be recognised and celebrated, bestiality despised and outlawed.

YES WE HATE THE PICTURES AS MUCH AS YOU DO. PUTIN HATES WAR FAR MORE THAN JOE BIDEN/THE HYPOCRITE.

SO PLEASE, Mr STUART REES, WHILE YOU STILL HAVE A SENSE OF HISTORY (I HOPE YOU HAVE) TELL VOLODYMYR TO MAKE A DEAL NOW. MAKE A DEAL NOW. IT MAY NOT BE OF YOUR OR HIS LIKING BUT THE INTERVENTION WOULD STOP. PUTIN HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO PROTECT THE DONBASS — EXCEPT CAVE IN TO AN AMERICAN EMPIRE’S DECEIT, WHICH RUSSIA COULD NOT DO...

 

PLEASE CONSIDER:

THE WEST IS AFRAID/IRKED OF HAVING TO GIVE ANYTHING TO RUSSIA.

THE DEAL IS :

YET ANY NEGOTIATIONS HAVE TO PLY TO RUSSIA’S FAIR DEMANDS (THESE WON’T CHANGE, EXCEPT IN RUSSIA’S FAVOUR AS THE CONFLICT GOES ON. THE WEST KNOWS THIS):

*NO NATO IN UKRAINE.

*CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN

*THE DONBASS REGIONS ARE NOW RUSSIAN — BECAUSE KIEV REFUSED TO ACCEPT THE MINSK AGREEMENTS

*FORMALISED WESTERN NON-AGGRESSION AGAINST RUSSIA (AND CHINA).

 

BIDEN* DOES NOT WANT TO GIVE ANYTHING TO RUSSIA, THUS THERE IS NOTHING TO DISCUSS. 

*BIDEN IS A DUPLICITOUS SENILE IDIOT WHO HAS LONG LOST THE PLOT AND NEEDS A TELEPROMPTER TO THINK.

 

PUTIN HAS MADE EVERYTHING CLEAR LAST YEAR (BEFORE RUSSIA'S INTERVENTION):

*RESPECT THE MINSK AGREEMENTS

*NO NATO IN UKRAINE

*CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN

*FORMALISED WESTERN NON-AGGRESSION AGAINST RUSSIA

 

SIMPLE. PEACE...... 

 

THIS IS ANNOYING TO THE AMERICANS BECAUSE SINCE ABOUT 1917-19 THE AMERICAN IDIOTS HAVE DREAMED OF (AND STILL DREAM OF) CONQUERING THE HEARTLAND (CHINA AND RUSSIA). SO THE WEST TOLD PUTIN TO GET FUCKED....

 

 

YOU’RE A BLEEDING HYPOCRITICAL IDIOT, STUART, IF YOU DO NOT TELL VOLODYMYR TO MAKE A DEAL. 

 

REPEAT: THE US EMPIRE WANTS WAR WITH RUSSIA.

THIS IS A GIVEN. 

RUSSIA DOES NOT WANT WAR WITH THE EMPIRE. 

SO RUSSIA HAS BEEN DOING EVERYTHING TO AVOID CONFRONTATION. 

 

THIS IS WHY RUSSIA “BELIEVED” IN THE MINSK AGREEMENTS.

 

 

 

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