Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Dance of the Veil: French Jewish Feminist Enters the Académie française

Back in 2008, the Forward celebrated when French Jewish feminist Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor, was elected to the prestigious Académie française.

On Thursday March 18, Veil was formally inducted into the Academy, welcomed with a speech by the veteran author Jean d’Ormesson, who is so stuffy and stately that in France, The Jean D’Ormesson Disco Suicide (a “Southern Rock/Blues/Garage band”) was named in his honor.

d’Ormesson reminded Veil that she now occupies the Academy seat once held by the 17th century playwright Racine, but in her reply, 82-year-old Veil explained that her thoughts are with her mother, “two thirds of a century after her death in the hell of Bergen-Belsen,” and her father, who was “deported and died in the Baltic countries.” Too bad that longtime Academy member Claude Lévi-Strauss, who died last year at age 100, was not there to applaud Veil’s arrival.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.