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The Relationship of Belgian Judaism to the French Model in the Nineteenth CenturyThe Consistory, the central organization of Belgian Judaism, was established in 1832. Established in continuity with the imperial Consistory, it was most importantly designed to incarnate a particular form of adaptation of Jews to modernity. The Belgian Consistory was inspired throughout the century by the French model, developing a religious, social and education policy, like its French counterpart, which had the goal of actively promoting Jewish citizenship. At the same time, the Belgian Consistory was different from the French model, due to its cultural proximity to German Judaism. As a result, Belgians fostered a very liberal form of Judaism, favored religious reforms and adopted, in an almost exclusively Ashkenazi community, a Sephardic-inspired ritual.