THE JEWISH SCHOOL in France was never conceived or planned; it just created itself behind the backs of community institutions. The first modern Jewish institution in the country with a pedagogical vocation, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, was founded in 1860 and decided against opening schools in France. The Alliance did not see the need or demand for special Jewish schools; its pioneers could not conceive of a school for Jews that would not be a school of the republic. Its leaders, rabbis and the members of its central committee (which always included the most prestigious members of the community), gently shied away from such a proposition.

Nevertheless, over the course of the following century the Alliance was not reticent about opening schools elsewhere in Mediterranean communities. In Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Malta, Greece, and of course in Palestine, it created a number of establishments. Among those in Palestine was the famous agricultural school Mikveh Yisra'el, founded in 1870 and built on land leased by the sultan to Baron Rothschild, sponsor of the institution.

In France itself the Alliance was satisfied with directing the famous École Normale Israélite Orientale (ENIO), which was charged with training teachers for the Mediterranean schools. In order to further its interest in developing the moral and intellectual level of oriental Jews, weakened by the neglect that prevailed in their countries of residence, the Alliance willingly relocated its principals and teachers with little concern for their personal preferences. In 1914 the Alliance ran 188 schools with 48,000 students from Tangier to Tehran.

In 1960, a century after its creation and having survived the Dreyfus affair and the First and Second World Wars, this venerable institution was still not ready to recognize the Jewish school at Pavillons-sous-Bois, in Seine-Saint-Denis, 10 kilometres north-east of Paris. The history of this school provides a good illustration of the way Jewish schooling expanded in France. It was founded at the beginning of the 1960s by a former principal of the Alliance in Morocco, without the support of the headquarters in Paris. It opened a first classroom and then a second one in a suburban house. Considering himself the holder of the pedagogical patrimony of the prestigious educational network, the principal dared to challenge the authority of its supervising organization and described his school as part of the Alliance.