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Flore Ratisbonne: Portrait of a Jewish Woman.

Flore Ratisbonne: Portrait of a Jewish Woman.

“A Jewess knows how to forgive.” That is how the young Flore, aged eighteen, ended her letter of March 6, 1842, in which she told her fiancé that she was ending their engagement. Her fiancé, who was ten years older than she, was also her uncle, a younger brother of her father, and he had offended her and her people in an unforeseen and brutal way. On his way to the Orient to end his life as a bachelor – the marriage was planned for the summer – Alphonse Ratisbonne had just been the subject of a miracle. On January 20, 1842 in Rome, the Virgin Mary had appeared to him in the church of Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte, near the Piazza d’Espagna. He converted immediately, was received by the pope, but had not given up his plan to marry his niece, on condition that she also received baptism. Flore did not give in:

“I have only one word to say to you, Alphonse; that word is painful, and I tremble as I write it! I am wrong to tremble, a strong soul must stifle every other voice in the heart except that of duty! You only want to marry me if I become a Catholic; then, Alphonse, you must give me up, for that is something that will never happen. When I promised a year ago to be your companion, I was happy because while foreseeing my own happiness, that union also brought happiness to the soul of my poor father, it fulfilled the desires of an uncle who has the right to my love, to my gratitude; above all, because I was sure of the blessing of my mother in Heaven. Now everything has changed; the Alphonse of previous times has disappeared; I can no longer follow the Alphonse of today. If these words have surprised you, remember that the memory of me did not stop you when you decided upon the most important act of your life, and thus you were the first to shatter our union and to break the holiest of promises.”

This letter testifies to a deep wound suffered by this very young girl, but also to an impressive authority and a sovereign language that would never leave her. The trauma was serious, even if great nobility and extreme modesty conceal it up to the dramatic final phrase:

“Alphonse, you have hurt me badly; I will forget it; you distressed my father’s heart, and I will also forget that! From now on, I will see you and love you as a brother. Be happy! A Jewess knows how to forgive.”

These words stung Alphonse, who was nonetheless filled with enthusiasm for his new faith. He commented on these words in a letter to a friend with whom he went to Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte on the day of the miracle:

“To forgive one’s enemies, to pray for those who hurt you; is that not something sublime! Well! It is contrary to the law of Moses… And! It was not known to the Jews before Jesus Christ.”

It did not take long for the neophyte to retain the lesson of the Sermon on the Mount. In his eyes, Flore was already no longer Jewish, even if she resisted following him into apostasy. A week after the miracle, Alphonse confided to one of his sisters: “I am sure that she will not only abjure her religion (which is to eat cake on Saturday), but also that she will become a fervent Catholic.”

Nevertheless, even if under the July Monarchy the observance of the dictates of Judaism had already been reduced to very little in the Ratisbonne family, and in spite of the conversions that her brothers and sisters and then her nephews and nieces underwent in great number during the Second Empire and the Third Republic, Flore was to remain faithful to the religion of her fathers until the end of her long life. At her death, during World War I, her daughter-in-law, who herself had converted and was devout, had a picture printed that was for putting in missals: “You who knew and loved her, remember in your prayers Flore Singer née Ratisbonne who has died piously.” Under these words was printed the Our Father. So her daughter-in-law had not been able to have printed: “Died having received the sacraments of the Church”. Flore’s story, whose remarkable life embraced the entire 19th century, is that of a part of the Jewish community in France that was torn between assimilation and identity and surrounded by a conquering Catholicism. But this young woman’s attitude in the face of rising Antisemitism and during the Dreyfus Affair was an example of solidarity and justice.

Source: Les Cahiers du Judaïsme.
Translation. Sr. Kathy, nds.
Support: Sr. Rita Kammermayer, nds.

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