Judaism against judaicity. Proselitisms, diaspora and transnationalization in the jewish world

Abstract

In the context of deep transformations in the Jewish Field of France based on the development of a kind of orthodoxy detached of the traditional central institutions, and taking into account the distinction between Judaism, Jewishness and Judaicity, the paper aims at analyzing the practices and meanings of Jewish proselytism inside the French contemporary Jewish field. The hypothesis the paper sustains is that the development of those proselytizing practices entails the doctrinal deepening inside the different religious Jewish communities and institutions, at the expense of the solidarity between the members of the "people of Israel". The article then raises the question of the tensions between two ways of Judaism: a way linked to the concept of "dynasty of pontiffs" and a way linked to the concept of "holy nation". Finally, it states that the apogee of the Jewish proselytism has weakened the diasporic model that uses to be characteristic of the French Judaism.