To grasp the magnitude of Degas’ anti-Semitism, we first have to understand the intensity of the relationship it destroyed. Degas and Halévy met at age 11 when they were both sent to the prestigious boarding school Lycée Louis-le-Grand by parents eager to present their children as Parisian aristocrats (Baumann, 86). Degas’ family went to great lengths to establish themselves among the French elite, hiding their Italian and American ancestry (Nochlin, 158). Similarly, the Halévy family distanced themselves from their Jewish roots (Armstrong, 11). In A Degas Sketchbook, Carol Armstrong 
described Ludovic Halévy’s family as “typical of the assimilated French Jews who were so much a part of the banking, professional, and cultural elite and who mixed so freely with France’s landed, titled class” (Armstrong, 12). As Armstrong notes, both Degas and Halévy were class-conscious, and the artistic boys became close friends in school. As an adult, Degas cultivated an antisocial image, eschewing society to work in solitude (Werner, 11). However, he maintained his relationship with Halévy, a successful author and librettist, who became his only confidante and chief source of socialization. By the 1880s, Degas ate dinner at the Halévy household every Thursday night and dropped by for lunch two or three times a week (Nochlin, 151). Ludovic’s son Daniel, who worshipped his “uncle” Edgar, wrote in his journal, “We have made him not just an intimate friend but a member of our family” (qtd. Nochlin, 151). With those words, Daniel captured with a child’s simplicity the depth of feeling between his father and Degas.
left: Nadar, Paul. Photograph of Edgar Degas. From Halévy, Daniel. My Friend Degas. Trans. Mina Curtiss. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1964.
right: Photograph of Ludovic Halévy. From Halévy, Daniel. My Friend Degas. Trans. Mina Curtiss. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1964.