Rachel Bespaloff : la doppia appartenenza

Explicitly dedicated to the dissertation of the "Jewish issue" and published in 1943, the essay De la double appartenance is, with no doubt, one of the most strict and intense works written by Rachel Bespaloff. The option given by the author is summarized in the expression "twofold relationship" and consists in the refusal of both the dismissal and of the assimilation of the Jewish identity. Nevertheless, the twofold relationship is a bond which is difficult to dissolve, an existential muddle that inevitably leads to an ethical, religious and political setback. This relapses then into the life of every Jewish whenever he betrays his original identity, conforming himself to the social life he is living in.

Rachel Bespaloff 's peculiarity, her true and genuine Hebraism consists, however, not in the way she conceives the form of the twofold relationship, not in the way she describes the contradiction and the misfortune that characterize the events of "God's chosen people", but in the specular correspondence among the main happenings of her life, the history and the destiny of the Jewish people to whom she claims her belonging, and among the specific modalities of her inquiry. [Publisher's text]