“The Traitor,” illustration of the degradation of Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), on the cover of the daily Le petit journal
The source is in the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem
Must Know
France, 13 January 1895.
In January 5, 1985, Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus stood in the centre of a parade ground (Ecolle Millitaire) in Paris, victim to public degradation. Having been accused and convicted of treason he was was stripped of his army uniform, his cap and his sword in front of the public, as can be seen in this illustration on the cover of Le petit journal, a conservative daily newspaper in Paris who was anti-Dreyfus.
Following the public degradation of Dreyfus, the case took a turn when it turned out that Dreyfus was wrongfully convicted in an injustice fulled by anti-Semitism.
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Le Petit Journal was one of four leading newspapers in Paris at the time of the Dreyfus affair. The paper’s editor Ernest Judet was a radical anti-Dreyfus advocate, against reopening the Dreyfus case and challenging the French army.
The Dreyfus affair created a strong divide in French society – for and against, Dreyfus, the church, the state, the aristocracy and the Jews. This instance of anti-Semitism sparked the beginning of Jewish assimilation and the establishment of the state of Israel. Particularly journalist Theodor hertzl, who was a witness to the French judicial anti-Semitism and persecution of a Jewish Frenchman, was inspired and became one of the founders of the Zionist political movement.
