In Paris I lived in the same building for several years. I could only be well satisfied with my neighbors who were quiet and courteous people. From time to time I exchanged a few words with them and, little by little, I found out who they were. I, on the other hand, instinctively refrained from revealing too much of myself. In this fashion they must have thought I was one of them, and I finally believed it vaguely myself. The fact is that only their reality filled the space of our relations; my own, I conjured away, repelled, rounded at the corners. But it was convenient and we lived in harmony together. I could at last tell myself that I was assimilated with my neighbors.
One day a new tenant moved into the building. "Did you know," he said to me, troubled and scornful, "that the people across the hall from me are Jews? Polish Jews!" (Three months later we were North African Jews.) "The peace and quiet in this building are lost! You can't imagine how noisy these people are, how dirty and familiar. In the building where my sister lives, there is a Jewish family from Central Europe, and can you believe it. .. etc."
Suddenly, I was brought back to my senses, outside of this easy, apparently peaceful relationship which I had had with my neighbors. This man, with whom I was partially able to identify, brutally reminded me of the abject image he had of my people, an image which was an integral part of his universe, of this universe which I wanted to adopt. And now what was I to do? Was I to be silent or did I speak? Speak! A dignified protest. "Watch your step! I am a Jew myself, etc. . .." But then, once again, there I was out in the open, a Jewl A Tunisian Jew! The disguise was over and the assimilation stopped. Would it have been better for me to keep silent? To say nothing? No, because even if the disguise remained, the assimilation had still been arrested, identification suddenly became impossible. How could I continue to identify with people who despised and insulted me? Inside, at least, I again become distant, different, and separated as usual.
Of course I might have insisted, pursued identification at any price, but one can see the cost. In order to reach my destination I would have had to ratify this condemnation of my people and myself which the non-Jewish universe proposed. In order to assimilate, I would have had to assimilate not only the model, but also the accusations and the injustices. I would have had to swallow the poisoned fruit.
(The Liberation of the Jew, Albert Memmi 1966 [emphasis mine])
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