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The topic of the Jewish question has made Jews an object of knowledge with a particular goal. It achieves a better understanding of emancipation through the tribulations of their modern destiny. But as well as being an object of knowledge, Jews are, as such, political subjects whose recent history may be recounted for its own sake, beyond the lessons that it provides for modern times. Consequently, it is no longer a case of better understanding emancipation through the case of Jews, but of better understanding Jews through the tribulations of their emancipation. This is what this article proposes, by considering the Jews in France. Using the Revolution as a starting point, it presents, with great strides, the successive precarious and dangerous configurations that Jews were placed in by the project of political emancipation. Along the way, it attempts to shed light on some of the profound sources of their contemporary situation.