• 1 Academic studies that examine armed participation of foreign nationals in the first Arab-Israeli co (...)

1The enlistment of French speaking individuals in Zionist armed groups—and later in the Israeli army—is a phenomenon that punctuates the history of Mandatory Palestine, and subsequently the state of Israel. Departing from existing analyses1 (Arielli, 2016: 1), I approach this military engagement as a migratory experience in its own right, in order to capture the issues at stake in these trajectories. In line with recent studies, migrants are understood here as individuals who shape their itineraries in response to the constraints and opportunities they encounter, with these individual trajectories potentially coinciding with collective strategies (Scioldo-Zürcher et al., 2019: 53). This transnational analysis, supported by multi-sited anthropological and historical research, pays particular attention to migrants’ “know-how” (savoir-faire) and “capacity to act” (pouvoir-faire).

• 2 The faces of some of the individuals who appear in the photographs have been deliberately blurred, (...)

2The photographic corpus at the centre of this reflection was selected and interpreted by Maurice Szwarc during a biographical interview conducted in 2021. It consists of three group photographs and one portrait.2 The careful framing of the images and the ease displayed by the individuals photographed reveal their capacity for self-representation while erasing the tensions and hardships associated with the context in which the photographs were taken.

• 3 Maurice Szwarc’s father was a member of the Poale Zion (“Workers of Zion”) party prior to 1945.
• 4 The socialist-Zionist youth movement Dror (meaning “freedom” in Hebrew), founded in Poland in 1926, (...)

5Maurice Szwarc was born in Wloclawek, Poland, in 1930, into a Yiddish-speaking Jewish family that settled in Paris in 1935. His father worked as a tailor in the family clothing business and was active in Zionist circles.3 Between 1939 and 1945, Maurice Szwarc lived in various children’s homes, where he developed his awareness of Judaism and political Zionism. It was there that he learned Hebrew, Jewish history and “Palestinography”, the study of the geography of Palestine and related issues (Frenk, 2021: 176). Within this context, a desire to depart took shape, which grew stronger after the end of the war through his participation in the Zionist youth pioneer movement Dror.4 There, he encountered other candidates for departure with whom he developed a settlement project. Despite the separation from his parents, who were among the few members of his family to have escaped the Holocaust, Maurice Szwarc chose to migrate to Mandatory Palestine.

• 6 Interview with Georges Gasman, 2022.
• 7 The HeHalutz organisation acquired the Château de Monbardon in 1946 and entrusted its management to (...)

6In May 1948, Maurice Szwarc was in Marseille with members of Dror, waiting to embark for Haifa. Photograph 1 shows a group of friends from one of the groups of migrants, trained and prepared by the organisation, as they wait to board. In line with the pioneering socialist Zionist (halutzit) perspective, this organisation sought to create a “new Jew”, devoted to the creation of an ideal society and ready to commit fully to his or her kibbutz and group (Nicault, 2001: 116). In Paris, Maurice Szwarc had met Joseph Bloch (first from the left) and Georges Gasman (second from the right).6 Together, they took part in agricultural training during the summer of 1947 within the network of training farms (hachsharot),7 which played a central role in the collective physical and ideological preparation of prospective emigrants and where migrant “kernels” (garinim) were formed (Buser and Renzo, 2022: 7).

• 8 British restrictions on emigration quotas to Palestine were defined in the 1939 White Paper.
• 9 The Haganah was a Zionist Jewish paramilitary organisation founded in 1920 in Mandatory Palestine. (...)

7The small-group voyage offers insight into the practices used to reach Mandatory Palestine, which contrast with the apparent ease conveyed in the photographic representation of the migrants. The regulation of migratory flows by the British authorities had led to the emergence of strategies to circumvent (Zertal, 2000: 254) the quota law and to forms of irregular migration.8 The city of Marseille and the surrounding area played a key role in organising this migration, which, although administered by the Jewish Agency (by facilitating the transport and transit of migrants from Europe and North Africa), was illegal. Migrant networks relied on HeHalutz (an organisation dedicated to candidates for settlement in kibbutzim) which collaborated with the section of the illegal Aliyah office, Mossad LeAlyah Bet (Deguigné and Temime, 2008: 35). This organisation arranged for transit of migrants through several camps located throughout the region, including the Grand Arenas camp in the Marseille metropolitan area, opened by the Jewish Agency in 1945. It was from there that Maurice Szwarc’s group awaited embarkation. During this transit period, the male members of the group took part in military training at a site known as Daphna, one of the training camps set up by representatives of the Zionist paramilitary organisation in Mandatory Palestine, the Haganah.9 From 1946 onwards, links forged between the Haganah and former members of the Jewish resistance in France during the Second World War enabled the creation of a military training network for single migrants of fighting age and members of Zionist youth organisations from Europe and the Maghreb. As part of this distinctive emigration pathway, HeHalutz also provided Maurice Szwarc’s group with forged Palestinian residency papers, enabling them to bypass British immigration quotas. This gave the migrants the necessary authorisation to travel to Mandatory Palestine without being exposed to the risk of internment in British camps for illegal migrants in Cyprus.

• 10 Palmach, the acronym for Plugot Mahatz (strike companies), created in 1941 at the initiative of the (...)
• 11 The Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim, founded in 1919 by European migrants, is located near the kibbutzim Maal (...)

9Photograph 2, taken in early June 1948 in a Palmach10 camp at Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim,11 shows eight fighters undergoing military training. The image conveys a sense of belonging to a close-knit group. Maurice Szwarc (second from the right in the back row), Georges Gasman (first from the right in the front row) and Joseph Bloch (fourth from the right in the back row) appear alongside other French-speaking recruits, all members of the Harel Brigade of the Palmach.

• 12 The tembel (worn by the first person from the left in the back row) is a head covering used by part (...)

10The absence of uniforms, rolled-up sleeves—or even no shirt or top at all—together with the wearing of bush hats and tembel caps12 are characteristic of this paramilitary group’s attire. Through the display of their youthful, athletic bodies, the migrants adopt an aesthetic aligned with that of a Zionist Jewish generation born in Palestine, the tzabarim. Paramilitary training and socialisation, and the use of Hebrew, led the group of migrants to integrate themselves among the Palmach fighters. The three migrants were also immersed in a militaristic ethos based on the cultivation of bonds of virile camaraderie (haverut) and the myth of heroic, self-sacrificing friendship (re’ut) (Farges, 2017: 23).

• 13 The Etzel (acronym for Irgun Zvai Leumi, National Military Organisation) was a Zionist paramilitary (...)

11However, the confidence apparent on the faces of these migrants in the photograph contrasts with the accounts of their combat experiences gathered during interviews with Maurice Szwarc and Georges Gasman. Physical hardships, the anxiety of battle, fear of death and injuries sustained during fighting undermine the romantic and heroic character of this ethos. Moreover, participation in the attack on the Altalena ship on 21 and 22 June 1948 left both Szwarc and Gasman with a sense of unease. During this clash between Palestinian Zionist paramilitary groups, the two migrants took part in the elimination of Etzel13 fighters, some of whom were also French-speaking.

• 14 Georges Gasman returned to Israel in 1973.

13Among the individuals shown in Photograph 2, only Maurice Szwarc and Joseph Bloch settled in Israel. Economic and social conditions in the new state under construction, combined with a lack of interest in the collectivist way of life, and difficulties integrating, led Georges Gasman14 and the other fighters pictured to return to France. When he returned to Israel in early 1950, Maurice Szwarc settled in Kibbutz Beit Keshet, which was affiliated with the United Kibbutz Federation (HaKibbutz HaMeuhad), to which the Dror movement belonged. There, he rejoined part of the group formed in France.

• 15 Created in France in 1998 to mark the 50^th anniversary of the State of Israel, this association is (...)
• 16 During the first Arab-Israeli war, the village of Abu Ghosh was occupied by the Palmach. Located at (...)

15The final image, Photograph 4, was taken by Maurice Szwarc’s daughter at the Benedictine Monastery of Abu Ghosh in Israel, the day after the national holiday in May 2011. Maurice Szwarc and Georges Gasman (fourth and third from the right) stand alongside a French Benedictine monk participating in a commemorative trip organised by the MAHAL France association.15 The visit to St. Mary of the Resurrection Abbey, part of the French national domain in the Holy Land, commemorated the battles that took place there during the first Arab-Israeli war.16 The solemnity of the event is reinforced by the use of symbolic elements created for the occasion: white caps and tops bearing the MAHAL insignia (white is one of the colours of Israeli national symbols and, in Judaism, symbolises purity), French and Israeli flags, the dates of the first Arab-Israeli war, and the words engagé volontaire 1948 (volunteer of 1948) and Mitnadvei Hutz LaAretz (volunteer from abroad for Israel). The production of this collective memory tends to homogenise the trajectories of the individuals in the photograph, without distinguishing between migrants and volunteers who returned to their countries of origin at the end of the 1948 war. A closer look at Maurice Szwarc’s biographical trajectory shows that recourse to volunteer status functioned as a means of circumventing the prohibition on leaving the territory that was in force until 1953. At the time the photograph was taken in 2011, this designation erases the dimension of mobility. In Israel the return of Jewish migrants to their countries of origin, referred to as descent (yerida), is considered a failure. Volunteer status, free from this value judgement, allowed individuals to forge a renewed attachment to Israeli society and to legitimise a dual Franco-Israeli belonging, underscored here by the organisation of the commemoration at a religious site belonging to the French state.