How Jewish was Sarah Bernhardt?

The name Sarah Bernhardt conjures up not only one of the greatest actresses of her time but also one of the greatest courtesans. Her list of lovers is amazing. She even had a liaison with a man nearly forty years her junior!

Sarah was born Henriette Bernard to the Dutch Jewish courtesan Julie Bernard in 1844. It is not clear who her father was. It is now assumed that he was Maurice Bernard. In exchange for financial help from her father, Sarah was baptized and educated in Catholic schools.

At the peak of her career, she became an international star after several tours all over the world. In 1899, she signed a lease with a theatre on the Place de Chatelet thus becoming the first female theatre director. The theatre’s name was changed to the Theatre Sarah Berhardt. During World War II, the Nazis changed the name of the theatre which was then reverted to the original name after the war.

After being accused of sounding “like a Jew”, she wrote, “I am a daughter of the great Jewish race and my uncultivated language is the outcome of our enforced wanderings”.

After the Franco-Prussian war (1871), she was forced to defend herself against media accusations that she was German and Jewish to which she retorted, “Jewish most certainly, but German no”.

Sarah Bernardt, the “Divine Sarah” died in 1923. Thousands lined the streets for her funeral procession from her house to her last resting place in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery.

By Ann Englander