"What interested me in Blum as a Jew was precisely that: the hatred he aroused. We find it hard today even to imagine the degree of overt, unapologetic prejudice and dislike that someone like Blum could inspire in those years, primarily and simply on account of his Jewish origin. On the other hand Blum himself was often deaf to the scale and implications of public anti-Semitism and its invocation against him. There was, of course, a certain ambivalence in Blum’s own identity: unashamedly and totally French, he was no less overtly and proudly Jewish. In later years he combined great sympathy for the newborn Jewish state in the Middle East with near indifference to the Zionist message itself. These ostensibly incompatible identifications and enthusiasms were perhaps not so far from my own at various times, which may explain my long-standing interest in the man."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Heads of governmentPrime Ministers of FrancePeople from ParisPoliticians from FranceJews from France
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Tony Judt, in Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder, Thinking the twentieth century (2012), Ch. 5 : Paris, California: French Intellectual
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Blum
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Léon Blum
8 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Léon Blum →
Related Quotes
"Although I am not a legalist when it comes to the conquest of power, I am one when it comes to the exercise of power.…"
"What the Nationalists are once again trying to revive is the state of mind, or rather, the passions of 1912–13... Hit…"
"Only now do I understand the harm done our nation's best interests by the rebuff administered to Poincaré's policy in…"
"In all this rallying of the forces which stand for peaceful and tolerant solutions of world problems, M. Blum has ren…"
"By 1937 France's Prime Minister Léon Blum had embraced the notion that concessions to Germany in both Eastern Europe …"
"On a personal level, it turns out that Blum was, in an unusual sort of way, charismatic. He was so obviously honest, …"
"[H]e was converted by Jaurès to Socialism, became his most faithful disciple and succeeded him as leader. Along with …"
"Le désir de s'enrichir est leur passion dominante, et à vrai dire leur seule passion."
"I desire, if by any possibility I should become a priest, to be a missionary, and if I am a missionary to be a martyr."
"Persecution is upon us; it will be terrible; we will pass through torrents of blood."