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Re: Newbie questions

From: Jean-Pierre Boutin <boutin~at~versailles.inra.fr>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 14:34:06 +0200
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Dear David and Fiends,
>
>2- I've jumped on my seat when I've read about the behavior of Ben-Zuf and
>the description of Verne himself about Isaac Hakabut! I repeat I'm only in
>the middle of the book, so the situation may change to the end. But why! Why
>does Verne is so angry against hebrews?

The question has been largely debated in papers and books devoted to
the JV and his novels (in French but also probably in other
languages). My opinion is that JV -a Catholic belonging to a fanatic
Catholic family- was, as most non-Jews bourgeois of his time(*),
anti-Semitic and probably less than the mean. In fact this
anti-Semitism appeared in very few novels (Martin Paz, a youth short
story for the "Musée des familles", and Hector Servadac), possibly
because Hetzel, who was atheist, deleted from the manuscripts
submitted by JV any attack against Jews and religion in general (for
evident commercial reasons) and even added allusions to God, the
providence ... etc. But why the character of Isaac Hakabut? In short
probably because, when writing Servadac, JV was really angry against
Hebrews! The reason is that he was somewhat harassed by a Jew Polish
who pretended that JV was his cousin (or other relative) that
emigrate from Poland to France years ago, because "Verne" is the
translation in French of his Polish family name... The first version
of Servadac published in the "Magasin" is generally said to be by far
more anti-Semitic than the book version. See the book of Marc
Soriano : "Jules Verne, le cas Verne" for severe analysis of the JV
antisemitism, further biographs are less drastic.
Hope this will help
Jean-Pierre
(*) Things have changed (at least in most developed countries ...) fortunately

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Pierre Boutin <boutin~at~versailles.inra.fr>
Lab. de Biologie des Semences (Seed Biology Lab.), INRA
F-78026 Versailles cedex, France
Tel 33 (0)1 30 83 33 39         Fax 33 (0)1 30 83 30 96
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Received on Tue 09 Sep 2003 - 15:33:47 IDT

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