Not yet in English
No public-domain English edition of this book exists. The original is free to read below, and our English edition is still to come.
Read the original ↗1844 · French original
De l'harmonie entre l'Église et la Synagogue
by David Drach
The full French text is public domain and free to read — linked below.
On this page: a summary of De l'harmonie entre l'Église et la Synagogue, and which translation this edition uses.
David Drach was the son-in-law of the chief rabbi of Paris and a Hebrew scholar of standing when he converted in 1823, at great personal cost. This is the substantial work of the French Jewish convert apologists — an argument aimed not at skeptics but at the community he had left, made from rabbinic sources by someone who could read them as an insider.
The convert behind the argument
Drach was a Hebraist trained in the Jewish schools of Alsace and Paris, married into the family of the chief rabbi, and directed a Jewish school in Paris. His conversion in 1823 cost him his family and his position; his wife and children were removed from him, and the affair became a public scandal. He spent the rest of his career as a Hebrew scholar in Rome and Paris.
Summary
The two volumes argue for a continuity between the synagogue and the church, drawing on Talmudic and rabbinic material to contend that the tradition itself points where Drach came to believe it points. The method is that of a man arguing inside a literature he knows intimately rather than about it from outside.
Much of the work is taken up with detailed handling of rabbinic texts — the arguments about which precepts of the Mosaic law were revoked and on what authority, for instance, are pursued through the Talmud tractate by tractate. It is a technical book, addressed to readers who could follow that kind of argument.
Drach’s own position — a Hebrew scholar who had lost everything by converting and continued to address his former community — gives the work its particular character, and its considerable bitterness in places.
Who was David Drach?
David Paul Drach (1791–1865) was born in Strasbourg, trained in the rabbinic schools, and became a noted Hebrew scholar in Paris, where he married a daughter of the chief rabbi Emmanuel Deutz and directed a Jewish school.
He was baptized in 1823. The consequences were severe: his family repudiated him and there was a long and public struggle over his children. He later worked as librarian of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome and produced Hebrew scholarship for the rest of his life.
Which translation of De l'harmonie entre l'Église et la Synagogue is this?
No public-domain English translation has been located; the 1844 French edition is free at Archive.org. We have no English edition of this title and do not claim one.
Common questions
- Who was David Drach?
- A French Hebrew scholar (1791–1865), son-in-law of the chief rabbi of Paris, who converted to Catholicism in 1823 — losing his family and position in a public scandal — and spent his career afterwards as a Hebraist in Paris and Rome.
- Is this book available in English?
- No English edition has been located. The French original of 1844 is free to read at Archive.org.
A note on the text. De l'harmonie entre l'Église et la Synagogue is in the public domain. Its public-domain text is the Frenchoriginal — the English translations still in print are under copyright, so we can’t reprint them. Our own English edition is still to be made. The original text is also available free here.
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