Scenes of Jewish Life in Alsace

Auguste Widal (Daniel Stauben)

1849–1853

After an absence of many years, I returned to Alsace in November 1856, in response to the invitation of an old friend. During this first and short visit, I was greatly moved in recovering all the familiar village scenes which I had known since my most tender age. By chance, I was also lucky to meet some extraordinary Jewish characters and to…

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Creator Bio

Auguste Widal (Daniel Stauben)

1822–1875

Auguste Widal’s fictional accounts of trips to his native Alsace are early French examples of the immensely popular genre of “ghetto fiction.” His picturesque descriptions of the customs and traditions of small-town Alsatian Jews helped popularize ghetto nostalgia, as did his translations of the works of his Czech contemporary Leopold Kompert. A classicist, Widal wrote under the pseudonym Daniel Stauben, perhaps to preserve his somewhat precarious position as one of the few Jews teaching in French universities at this time. In 1873 he was appointed inspector general for French primary and secondary schools.

Related Guide

Folk Tales and Fiction, 1750–1880

The “return to history” of Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and engagement between Jews and their majority cultures offered new models for imaginative writing beyond those within their ancestral traditions.

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