“The Chaplain Rabbis of the Aumônerie générale des israélites de France: Between Vichy and the Jews Detained”
Professional Background
Emmanuelle Moscovitz is a PhD candidate at the University of Tel Aviv in the School of Jewish Studies and Archeology. She received a BA in history at the University of Ottawa and an MA in Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has been employed at Yad Vashem since 2013, where she has worked as a tour guide in the museum, a researcher in the International Research Institute for Holocaust Studies (2013-2015), and, since 2015, in the Yad Vashem Archives as Head of Archival Acquisitions for Western and Southern Europe. Emmanuelle Moscovitz’s recent publications include “L’Aumônerie Générale des israélite de France et la préservation des rites funéraires dans le sud de la France 1940-1944,” published in the Revue d’histoire de la Shoah and “Caring for the Elderly: The Efforts of the Chaplain Rabbis on Behalf of the Elderly Jews in French Internment Camps 1940-1944,” published in Yad Vashem Studies.
Fellowship Research
Emmanuelle Moscovitz was awarded the Phyllis Greenberg Heideman and Richard D. Heideman Fellowship to conduct research on her dissertation, “The Chaplain Rabbis of the Aumônerie générale des israélites de France: From Spiritual Aid to Active Resistance.” During her residency, she will focus on the extensive French administrative documentation available at the USHMM, in particular the records of the various French departmental archives (archives of the French départements). A thorough examination of this material will enable her to write a comprehensive account of operations at those camps at which the Aumonerie’s chaplains’ efforts primarily were concentrated, and to focus specifically on the interactions between the chaplain rabbis and Vichy officials. Through the thorough examination of these records, Emmanuelle aims to gain an in-depth understanding of the rabbis’ position between the Vichy regime and the Jewish detainees. Her work will shed new light on the relations between French Jewry, the Vichy government, and the French state through her study of an institution established by the French state, as well as the rabbis, who joined various resistance movements and who were ultimately targeted with arrest and deportation.