The Rothschilds & The Mind

Charles de Gaulle is really Jewish. So are Konrad Adenauer, Queen Elizabeth, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Francisco Franco and Fidel Castro, and so was John F. Kennedy. That, at least, is what it says in Les Juifs (The Jews), a new novel about world Jewry, "known and unknown," by French Satirist Roger Peyrefitte, 57, whose Keys of Saint Peter was attacked as "lewdly libelous" by the Vatican in 1956 and promptly sold half a million copies in Italy and France. The Jews may do equally well, largely because France's mighty De Rothschilds brought suit to get the book banned in France last week--and lost.

Written in incidental French camp style, The Jews reads a lot like the phone book: great cast of characters but not much plot. Such as it is, the story concerns the engagement of a beautiful Gentile and a wealthy young baron named Sauel de Goldschild. This provides endless opportunities to discuss mixed marriages (like those of the Rothschilds), circumcision, Jews in the church, Jews and sex, Jews in finance (such as guess who), and Jews in politics (Peyrefitte maintains that the De Rothschilds have had "jockeys" in French Cabinets since World War I, the present incumbent being Premier Georges Pompidou, a former director-general of the Rothschild bank in Paris).

Peyrefitte also goes through some tortuous onomastics to "prove" that dozens of famous people have Jewish ancestors. De Gaulle, for example, remarked during a visit to Germany in 1962 that he had a great-great-grandfather named Kolb. Indeed, there are three Kolbs listed in Who's Who in World Jewry. Voil`a!

To hear the author tell it, his motives for writing the book were purely humanitarian. "From the moment that the Jews are no longer a minority but a majority," he explains, "the Jewish problem, which is one of a minority, ceases to be one." Barons Guy (TIME cover, Dec. 20, 1963) and Edmond de Rothschild went to court on the grounds that the book contained "a string of intolerable defamations and offenses to the dignity and consideration of a great family." In defense, Peyrefitte's lawyer argued that the Rothschilds, "like all the greats of this world, are open to public criticism."

Justice Rouanet de Vigne-Lavit agreed with the defense, ordered Peyrefitte's publisher merely to delete eleven lines of the 514-page book that raise a question about Edmond's lineage. Crowed Peyrefitte: "This time the Rothschilds have been beaten by the mind, by literature. They thought they were strong enough to win this one because they had Pompidou. At least this proves that the government is still honest." And that authors have a lot of leeway.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.