48

Jean de Menasce (1902-1973) was born into an upper-class secular yet Zionist Jewish family, and joined the World Zionist Organization in 1924. Baptized into the Catholic Church in May 1926, he became part of a pro-Zionist Catholic circle, which included Louis Massignon and Jacques Maritain. In 1925, the latter two tried to obtain the support of the Catholic Church for the Zionist movement, on the condition that the movement would argue for religious liberty and even an open attitude to Jews who had embraced Christianity. With the creation of the State of Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict, Menasce opposed his two mentors, who were at that time in total disagreement with one another: he rejected both Massignon's condemnation of an excessively nationalistic and materialistic Zionism, betraying Israel's vocation, just as he rejected Maritain's 1967 providentialist reading of the creation of the state. Menasce never stopped defending an intermediary position: that of the double legitimacy of national aspirations, in the name of natural rights, and the search for justice.