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Article: Jews, Tunisians, and Frenchmen.(North Africa: Literary Crossroads)
- Article from:
- The Literary Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Fairleigh Dickinson University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I have already told how, upon arriving in Paris a long time ago, I went to see an old writer, French-Jewish as people said back then. I told him about my perplexity in the face of my triple identity: Jew, Tunisian, and Frenchman. After listening to me he replied: "Well, keep it all; be everything at once."
My listener, I must mention, was above all a man of duty, more than of protest (he had lost a son, voluntarily enlisted in the French Forces; this was something he bore with dignity).
I do not think that I have ever failed this triple agenda. This was not always easy to live with, nor to explain.
My fellow Jews haven't always understood my ...