Edmond Fleg

Edmond Flegenheimer better known as Edmond Fleg, was a Jewish French writer, thinker, novelist, essayist and playwright of the 20th century. Fleg’s oeuvre was crucial in constructing a modern French Jewish identity, rendering him an instrumental figure in the Jewish awakening during the interwar years. After World War I, Jewish writers began articulating a new, cultural definition of what it meant to be a Jew within the context of French Third Republic universalism. Through his writings — based on Jewish and Christian texts—Fleg formed the foundation of a modern French Jewish spirituality and self-understanding, which allowed secular French Jews to preserve their Jewish identity. In doing so, Fleg was calling for an exploration of the living texts of traditional Judaism as the basis for a modern Jewish identity, establishing a new literary direction devoted to re-interpreting biblical texts and legends, and liturgies.