The Dreyfus Affair’s Forgotten Hero: Bernard Lazare and the First Modern Fight against Antisemitism

Abstract

The historiography of the Dreyfus Affair has often neglected the crucial role played by Bernard Lazare as the first defender of the wrongly accused French army captain Alfred Dreyfus. Lazare authored three brochures, including the very first published work arguing Dreyfus’s defense, and pursued numerous lines of inquiry and advocacy to keep the Dreyfus case alive in the public sphere. In stark contrast to other Dreyfusards who preferred to consider the case as essentially an “error” of the judicial system, Lazare insisted that there was a potent antisemitism operating beneath the surface of the political stage. It was Lazare who made the “Affair” known to the world as an antisemitic plot. He confronted the leading antisemitic figures of his time, including Édouard Drumont, and solicited the support of charismatic celebrities such as Émile Zola. Lazare also crafted the language of “J’accuse” which moved a nation and became a celebrated page of history, though he was never credited for it. Instead, Lazare became a target for the resentments of both his Christian and Jewish contemporaries and died an untimely death as a pariah. This article aims to restore Lazare’s place at the center of the Dreyfus Affair narrative.