Strasbourg: Survey of a Town’s Multifaceted Identity

I don’t know everything about my host mother yet, but from the month that I’ve been here I’ve learned that her father was a Jew of Tunisian descent, and her mother a German Protestant. She was once married to a Greek, from whom she picked up the ability to converse in the language, on top of which can be added French, Spanish, Italian, German and some broken phrases in English. Though a melting pot of diverse heritages, ethnicities, religions, languages, and identities, my host mother invariably epitomizes what it means to come from Strasbourg.

Strasbourg, itself meaning “city of crossroads,” was founded from congregation of neighboring cultures, belonging to Celtic, Frank, Roman, German, and French territories throughout history. Since its inception, it has served as both a point of peaceful coexistence between peoples, and a violent battleground for political and geographic clout. In fact, the oldest written document in Old French was authored in 842, thanks to an oath of alliance between the kings of the East and West Franks. Centuries later, after the reformation, Strasbourg’s population was mainly composed of Protestants – yet the country managed to stay out of the religious conflict of the thirty years war. In fact, Strasbourg was exempted from the religiously intolerant “Edict of Fontainebleau,” which was meant to expel the Protestant population from France in 1685.

Though I could continue on about Strasbourg’s history for another several hundred pages, I’ll get to the point: since its earliest days, Strasbourg has been a hub of tolerance for religious and ethnic diversity. As for the intolerance of the 20th century, I feel inclined to give Strasbourg a pass, seeing as the entirety of Europe was plagued with unimaginable violence from the turn of the century through the conclusion of the Second World War. Either way, from what I’ve seen in the last month, Strasbourg has held on to its foundation of religious diversity – and examples of this come up every day.

Although cognizant of this rich history before my arrival abroad, I was struck by the prominence of the non-Christian communities in Strasbourg, especially given how close to Germany the city is. Immediately, I noticed that there were almost as many pedestrians clad in traditional Hasidic dress as not – and this observation wasn’t limited to the high holidays, or even Shabbat. Every day I am reminded how vast the Hasidic Ashkenazi community is in Strasbourg, both in terms of numbers and clout. Even in the most traditionally Hasidic neighborhoods in my home state of Massachusetts, I have never seen such an easily identifiable and numerous Ashkenazi population. In fact, Strasbourg boasts one of the largest Jewish communities in France, after Paris.

Despite Strasbourg’s social and religious tolerance of this religious pseudo-minority, the Ashkenazi population doesn’t seem particularly well integrated. In fact, the majority of the practicing community lives in a distinct part of Strasbourg, Jewish students attend their own religious public schools – they are both geographically and socially separate. Indeed, though the Jewish community in Strasbourg is French in citizenship, it is undoubtedly Ashkenazi in culture and tradition.

When I opened the dialogue about these observations with my host mother, she couldn’t help but take this conversation one step further, and inform me that Strasbourg is also home to an incredibly large Turkish and North African minority – the members of which are deeply religious and practicing Muslims. Though less physically identifiable than their Ashkenazi counterparts, the Muslim minority shares certain key characteristics that set them apart from the rest: they are low-income, poorly educated, and have very staggeringly few opportunities social mobility.

All of this is compounded by the fact that there is, from my objective standpoint, a very poor opinion of each group by the others. In fact, the theme of negative attitudes towards immigrant populations has come up several times in a more Global French context – the relationship is causing a polemic discussion throughout the whole of the country. Though each population tolerates they other, they don’t seem particularly happy to do so.

Throughout the rest of my time abroad, I’ll surely be keeping close attention to the way these three key populations interact and coexist.

Since beginning to compile this social database of every day observations, it has occurred to me to just what extent my host-mother is quintessentially a Strasbourger. She herself embodies the three distinct communities that make up the whole of the city, while also borrowing ethnic and social traits from those outlying Strasbourg citizens that don’t fit into the general frame. Indeed, both Strasbourg and my host mother exist thanks to the union of diverse cultures and traditions. Yet there is one major way that my host-mom and Strasbourg are linked: that diverse cultural pieces that compose each one together make a unique whole – one that continues to evolve and adapt to social climate. And one that will keep me pre-occupied long after my return to the states.