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‘I am a ghetto Jew’”: This is how Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof defined himself. He was born in the ghetto of a small cosmopolitan town in the Russian Empire (Białystok) in 1859 and died in that of Warsaw in the spring of 1917. Yet, this ophthalmologist would create within it a “neutral” language with an international reach, driven by a universalist ideal: Esperanto.

It was, in fact, Esperanto that led Robert Lloancy on the trail of Zamenhof. In his latest work (1), this man of Catalan origin, who has lived in Béarn for nearly half a century, explores the evolution of a “seeker” tormented by the “Jewish question”: initially enthusiastic about Zionism in the 1880s, Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof fairly quickly left this movement, which advocated for the establishment of a state for Jews in Palestine (although other regions had been considered: Uganda, the United States, Argentina…).

The former philosophy professor turned historian for his investigation into a man who shared the questions of his time without remaining confined to his certainties and his ghettos: “often a hesitant thought says much more than a thought that becomes entrenched,” Robert Lloancy rightly notes.

“The Misfortune of the Jewish People”

At the dawn of the 20th century, Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof – who observed that “the age-old misfortune of the Jewish people lies in ‘the indissoluble link between religion and nationality’” – had already distanced himself from the Zionism promoted by Theodor Herzl. He then defined “Hillelism”, in reference to Rabbi Hillel the Elder, a contemporary of Herod and a cornerstone of liberal Judaism. For Zamenhof, it was about “dismantling the walls.”

His vision aligns with that of his contemporary Bernard Lazare, a French Jewish anarchist who was a staunch defender of Alfred Dreyfus: in his book, Robert Lloancy even places texts from the two men side by side to better highlight their echoing ideas.

“Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof tried, for the rest of his life, to move away from Zionism and orient himself towards a much more open universe, towards the other, towards the world,” summarizes Robert Lloancy. Hence a new evolution in the first decade of the 20th century, perhaps inspired by the (bad) spirit of the times – it was during this period that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forged document but a true success in antisemitic circles, circulated: Zamenhof abandoned his “Hillelism” and created “Homaranism” (“Humanitarianism”). The former concerned only Jews, the second encompasses “the entirety of humankind” and rejects “every form of particularism.” Because for him, universalism had “an imprescriptible value.”

Zamenhof’s “Anticipatory Clarity”

Like Spinoza, Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof constantly reflected on “the Jewish question” to better transcend it: “the stone wall with which Jewry has surrounded itself has always provoked hatred and contempt against it,” he observed. In his writings, he also demonstrated “anticipatory clarity,” particularly when explaining his break with Zionism: “The Jews, in Palestine, will forever be as if on a volcano.”

His nuanced analyses would be found, in part, a century later, more acerbically and less sharply, in certain Israeli thinkers like Yeshayahu Leibowitz – the positions of the 1992 Israel Prize winner would not escape controversy then, and even to this day.

Robert Lloancy sent his manuscript to his publisher on October 5th. Forty-eight hours later, Hamas launched its terrorist attack against Israel, triggering the deadly war we are powerless witnesses to. The book came out a few days later. “I was far from imagining that it would have a repercussion in current events, or rather that current events would be reflected in what I had written,” confesses Robert Lloancy.

History to Understand Current Events

Like Jean Birnbaum, Robert Lloancy defends the “courage of nuance” in the face of highly complex situations: “We are used to strong opinions most of the time. However, it is much more useful, I think, to make room for nuance, because it allows us to shed more light on certain subjects.”

This implies a conscious stepping back: “I tried to treat the matter as a historian, to let the men of the time speak, to refrain from giving my opinion – except in the notes, where I gave myself roughly the freedom I wanted.”

Robert Lloancy’s work thus provides a different perspective on the drama unfolding before our eyes today in the Middle East. “If one ignores history as it happened, I believe one cannot properly understand current events as they are.” This is not the least of this book’s virtues.

1) Robert Lloancy, « From Zionism to Universalism », collection Logiques politiques, L’Harmattan, 228 pages, €24. An entire chapter dedicated to “Homaranismo” is written there in Esperanto.