A Jewish Response to French Antisemitism in Revolutionary Times

摘要

In the same years in which Jews were elected to the Dutch national assembly (the Batavian Convention), Jews on Cura?ao were characterized in a letter received on the island in an unmistakably anti-Semitic way. The author was the prominent French official Victor Hugues, based in Guadeloupe. Two elders of the local Jewish community responded with a letter that shows a remarkable assertiveness, probably facilitated by the emancipation of Jews in the Dutch metropole. They reminded him of the principles of the French revolution, of which he was a servant. The letter, in the possession today of a private collector, is transcribed and translated here and provided with a context.