In 1862, the Universal Israelite Alliance began to implement a network of bi/plurilingual and French-speaking primary schools around the Mediterranean Sea to contribute to the education and westernisation of young Jews from the East. It was hoped that this network would allow them to contribute effectively to their own civic emancipation, which was the core condition to their harmonious assimilation into the societies in which they had settled. Because of the Zionist protest, the Alliance had to withdraw from Bulgaria at the beginning of the 20th Century. This text is based on the study of the emblematic case of the boys' school of Philippopolis, directed at the time by Moïse Cohen. It explores the origins of this failure.
