Maurice Samuels with Adam Gopnik — Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair

In France, 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s treason charge—for passing secret documents to the enemy—split the country, dividing families (including that of Proust), friends, and artists; such as Claude Monet, who was pro Dreyfus, and Paul Cézanne, who was anti. Emile Zola’s famous manifesto J’accuse was written to rally the country in favor of Dreyfus. Although Dreyfus was eventually exonerated when the true culprit confessed, the Dreyfus Affair’s repercussions continued to echo around the world. Maurice Samuels, Director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, discusses the significance of the Dreyfus Affair with Adam Gopnik, New Yorker essayist and author.

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