Joseph Reinach (30 September 1856 – 18 April 1921) was a French author and politician.

Biography

He was born in Paris. His two brothers

Salomon Reinach Salomon Reinach (29 August 1858 – 4 November 1932) was a French archaeologist, religious historian and was a major figure in the Franco-Jewish establishment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was vice president of the mos ...

and

Théodore Reinach Théodore Reinach (3 July 186028 October 1928) was a French archaeologist, mathematician, lawyer, papyrologist, philologist, epigrapher, historian, numismatist, musicologist, professor, and politician. Academic career Educated at the Lycée Con ...

would later be known in the field of

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

. After studying at

Lycée Condorcet The Lycée Condorcet () is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's 9th arrondissement. It is one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and also one of the most prestigious. Since its inception, var ...

, he was called to the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

in 1887. He attracted the attention of

Léon Gambetta Léon Gambetta (; 2 April 1838 – 31 December 1882) was a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the French Third Republic in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government. Early life and education Born in Cahors, Ga ...

by writing articles on

Balkan The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

politics for the ''Revue bleue'', and joined the staff of the ''Republique française''. In Gambetta's ''grand ministère'', Reinach was his secretary and tried to obtain a partial revision of the constitution and

list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be use ...

. In the ''République française'' he waged a steady war against

General Boulanger Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger (29 April 1837 – 30 September 1891), nicknamed Général Revanche ("General Revenge"), was a French general and politician. An enormously popular public figure during the second decade of the Third Repub ...

, which resulted in three

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...

s, one with Edmond Magnier and two with

Paul Déroulède Paul Déroulède (2 September 1846 – 30 January 1914) was a French author and politician, one of the founders of the nationalist League of Patriots. Early life Déroulède was born in Paris. He was published first as a poet in the magazine '' ...

. Between 1889 and 1898, he sat for the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

for

Digne Digne-les-Bains (; Occitan: ''Dinha dei Banhs''), or simply and historically Digne (''Dinha'' in the classical norm or ''Digno'' in the Mistralian norm), is the prefecture of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the Provence-Alpes-Cô ...

. As a member of the army commission, reporter of the budgets of the ministries of the interior and of agriculture he brought forward bills for the better treatment of the insane, for the establishment of a colonial ministry, for the taxation of

alcoholic beverage An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The c ...

s, and for the reparation of judicial errors. He advocated complete freedom of the theatre and the press, the abolition of public

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...

s, and denounced political corruption of all kinds. However, Reinach is best known as the champion of

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...

. At the time of the original trial, he attempted to secure a public hearing of the case, and, in 1897, he allied himself with Auguste Scheurer-Kestner to demand its revision. He denounced in the ''Siècle'' the Henry forgery and Esterhazy's complicity. His articles in the ''Siècle'' aroused the fury of the anti-Dreyfus party, especially as Reinach was a Jew and was accused by some of taking up Dreyfus's defence on racial grounds. He lost his seat in the Chamber of Deputies and, having refused to fight

Henri Rochefort Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the ' List of rulers named Henry' for Kings of France named Henri.'' * Henri I de Mon ...

, an anti-Dreyfus journalist, eventually brought an action for libel against the latter. Finally, Dreyfus was pardoned, Reinach wrote a history of the case that was completed in 1905. Henri Dutrait-Croyon's ''Joseph Reinach, historien'' (Paris: A. Savaète, 1905), a violent detailed rebuttal of Reinach's history that "became a bible for that anti-Semitic section of French public opinion convinced of the culpability of Dreyfus."Evi Gkotzaridis
Revisionism in the Twentieth Century: A Bankrupt Concept or Permanent Practice?
in ''The European Legacy,'' Vol. 13, No. 6, pp. 729–730, 2008
International Society for the Study of European Ideas
In 1906, Reinach was re-elected for Digne. In that year, he became a member of the commission of the national archives, and the following year a member of the council on prisons. Reinach was a prolific writer on political subjects. He published three volumes on

in 1884 and also edited Gambetta's speeches. Joseph and his wife Henriette-Clémentine had a son, Adolphe Reinach, born in 1887. Adolphe became an archaeologist and

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

known mainly for his discovery of the

Coptos Decrees The Coptos Decrees are 18 complete or fragmentary ancient Egyptian royal decrees ranging from the 6th Dynasty (2345–2180 BC) to the late 8th Dynasty (c. 2170 BC). The decrees are numbered with letters of the Latin alphabet, starting with "Copt ...

. He was killed in the first month of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, in August 1914.

References

External links

Dreyfus Rehabilitated
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reinach, Joseph 1856 births 1921 deaths Writers from Paris Politicians from Paris Jewish French politicians French people of German-Jewish descent Democratic Republican Alliance politicians Members of the 5th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 6th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 9th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 10th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic French male writers People associated with the Dreyfus affair Lycée Condorcet alumni Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur