Once again, the French Jewish Army captain Alfred Dreyfus is making headlines. More than 130 years after his trial for espionage, and 90 years after his death, France’s National Assembly has voted unanimously to raise his rank to brigadier general. As the French Senate weighs in on confirming the legislation, books, films and exhibits are offering American Jews a chance to revisit this critical figure in Jewish and French history.

In August, Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy,” winner of the 2019 Venice Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, will finally get its American premiere at New York’s Film Forum. Because Polanski fled the United States in 1978 to avoid sentencing after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, and more recent accusations of sexual misconduct have been leveled against him, this film, released in Europe, has never been shown in the United States.

Dreyfus’s promotion and the Polanski film’s distribution follow the launch in 2021 of the first museum dedicated to the Dreyfus Affair, in the Paris suburb of Médan. Now, another sign of renewed interest comes in the exhibit “Alfred Dreyfus: Vérité et Justice,” on view at Paris’s Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du........

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