![\"ask-dreyfus-affair-Alfred_Dreyfus-E.jpeg\"](\"https:\/\/umnchgs.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/01\/ask-dreyfus-affair-alfred_dreyfus-e.jpeg\")
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The events of the Dreyfus Affair were seen as a test for the French Third Republic \u2013 freeing Dreyfus was seen as essential for its survival and the continuation of its ideals. It also exposed ugly realities of French society; anti-Semitic rallies were held across the country due to Dreyfus\u2019 Jewish heritage. Anti-Semitism had been growing in France for decades, especially among the military. The Dreyfus Affair would lead Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, to abandon the hope for integration of Jews in European societies and call for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Israel.<\/p>\n
The Dreyfus Affair highlighted a disconnect between the ideals of a nation and the beliefs of its citizens. Is it really so different in the United States? The troubling events in Charlottesville over the summer, the rise in anti-Semitic propaganda across our colleges and even the rhetoric of our President harken back to French society of 120 years ago. Coupled with allegations of collusion with the Russian government, the political climate of today should already have us looking back at the forgotten Dreyfus Affairs.<\/p>\n The similarities between the Dreyfus Affair and today\u2019s political sagas should be apparent: the same divide between liberal and conservative elements<\/a> exist, the suspicions of foreign corruption<\/a> and the questions of the state\u2019s survivability<\/a> are as eerily present today as they were more than a century ago. However, it\u2019s the social impacts of today\u2019s events that should raise the most red flags. The Dreyfus Affair brought long held anti-Semitic public sentiment to the surface, forever altering both French and global history, strengthened by a conservative, nationalist movement. Today, the rise of the Alt Right in the U.S. has made it clear that anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia are alive and well, empowered by an administration that responds to these groups with the lightest of touches<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the Dreyfus Affair can be seen as a victory for the French state, the same cannot be said for the idea of assimilation for its Jews. When Herzl launched the Zionist movement, it officially rejected the notion that Jews could live peacefully in Europe next to their non-Jewish neighbors. A century later, can anti-Semitism be overcome? As Adam Gopnik writes, the Dreyfus Affair can be seen as the rejection of a cosmopolitan citizenship<\/a>, but in a country that prides itself on being a melting pot, can the U.S. learn anything from an obscure French event?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Joe Eggers is a Research Associate with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He is a 2016 graduate of the University of Minnesota, with a master’s thesis that explores cultural genocide in indigenous residential schools.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine a trial rocking a nation: accusations of collusion with a hated enemy, wealthy and influential elites taking sides, an entire country riveted by headlines. The trial would fundamentally alter the country; both changing how citizens viewed each other, the military and other national institutions. No, this is not related to the current investigation into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2058,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[96705,96748,247,669,4500],"class_list":["post-2286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-antisemitism","tag-dreyfus-affair","tag-france","tag-nationalism","tag-usa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2058"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2287,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286\/revisions\/2287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"AlfredDreyfus.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/umnchgs.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/01\/alfreddreyfus.jpg\")