While not all of the 110,000 Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe professed progressive ideas, many of them, both men and women, were driven by a universalist, secular revolutionary ideal.
Often politicized in their home countries, they chose to settle in France out of admiration for the France of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and Jewish emancipation. An attachment they share with French Israelites. All celebrate the land of human rights and the rehabilitation of Dreyfus.
Immigrant Jewish artists made their mark in the “École de Paris”, while manual workers worked from home or in their own workshops. For the most part, they were garment and textile workers, or small craftsmen. They lived mainly in Paris’s working-class eastern, northern and central districts. Politically aware, they were quick to take part in social conflicts. Young Jews, for example, provided strong contingents for the Jeunesses Communistes.
