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Basel
The Jewish presence in Basel probably dates from 1213. During the Middle Ages, as in many other cities in the region, the situation of the Jews varied between acceptance, persecution and ...
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Endingen and Lengnau
Until the end of the eighteenth century, the two villages of Endingen and Lengnau were the only ones that authorized the permanent establishment of Jews. Beginning in 1622, they resided here ...
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German-Speaking Switzerland
German-speaking Switzerland covers two-thirds of the country and accounts for 70% of its population. With cities as varied as its economic centre Zurich, the capital Berne, the watchmaking city ...
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La Chaux-de-Fonds
Founded in 1833, the Jewish community of La Chaux-de-Fonds met in a flat on rue Jaquet-Droz. Then, in 1853, a private house was used as a synagogue. From 1872, a was used in the commune of Les ...
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Lausanne
The Jewish presence in Lausanne is attested continuously from 1848 onwards, when several families met in a rented room. In 1895, the community had 41 members. In 1909, there were 110 members. It ...
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Carouge
Before Jews were able to settle in Geneva, the neighboring city of Carouge (at the time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia) opened its doors to them around 1779. The sole remaining Jewish ...
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French-Speaking Switzerland
Switzerland’s French-speaking population is located in the west, in a region that covers almost a quarter of the country’s surface area. With its charming little towns along the lakes ...
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Geneva
The city of banking and watchmaking… but not only. Geneva is a much more complex city, home to a great university and eminent thinkers for centuries, and it even published one of the first two ...
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Speyer
The history of the Jews in Speyer dates back more than 1,000 years. In the Middle Ages, the city of Speyer (formerly Spira) was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Holy Roman ...
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Worms
As the cultural and municipal services proudly point out, Worms has long been a central city for many religious movements. Thus, within a small area in the heart of its old town, you will find ...
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Mainz
An ancient Roman city, Mainz is known for its university, museums and places of worship, its monuments including the Castle of the Electors, its popular festivals… But Mainz is above all ...
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Frankfurt am Main
Like the opera house in the business district, Frankfurt is above all a city of encounters and fruitful exchanges in all fields and between different populations since the Middle Ages, but also a ...
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Friedberg
The small city of Friedberg possesses the deepest mikveh in Germany: seventy-two steps carved into the basalt lead the visitor to a natural spring situated eighty-two feet below the surface. At ...
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The Rhineland
The oldest vestiges of a Jewish presence in Germany are found in the Rhineland. For a long time, the river constituted the western border of the Roman Empire. In the fortified cities of the ...
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Berlin
Once again the capital of a unified Germany, Berlin today has the largest Jewish community in the country (11 000 people). This is nonetheless far fewer than the some 170 000 Jews who lived here ...
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Ostend
Ostend is a seaside town that has been very popular with British holidaymakers for centuries, as James Joyce, for example, testified. But also for the Belgian working class. The Ostend painter ...
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The Hague
The monumental Ashkenazic Synagogue in The Hague was sold to the municipality, which put it at the disposal of a congregation of Turkish Muslims. It has since become the Al Aqsa Mosque. The ...
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Belfast
The Jewish presence in Belfast appears to date back to the mid-19th century, with the arrival of German Jewish merchants. The first synagogue in Belfast was built in 1871 on Great Victoria ...
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Limerick
Limerick’s small Jewish community (170 people) disappeared in 1904 after the only pogrom in Irish history- a pogrom with zero victims. The small of Kilmurray at Newcastle, County Limerick, ...
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Cork
The Jewish presence in Cork appears to date back to the 18th century. However, the community was formed mainly at the end of the 19th century, notably with the arrival of Lithuanian Jews. At the ...
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Leeds
In recent years, Leeds, one of the main economic centres in England after London and a place with a rich cultural life, has attracted many families, also thanks to a pleasant lifestyle that is ...
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Oxford
Oxford’s oldest synagogue was transformed into a tavern, then incorporated into one of the university’s oldest colleges, Christchurch. There is, however, a new synagogue. It was built ...
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Bordeaux
For three centuries, the cellars of tumbledown houses in the old town were home to a hidden Jewish community, that of the conversos who came here from Spain after 1474. Used to hiding their faith ...
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Bayonne
On the day of tishah b’ab commemoration of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, the old synagogue resounds to these words in Spanish: “Hemos perdido Sion pero tambien hemos ...
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Nouvelle-Aquitaine
After many years of English domination, the southwest was returned to France in the fifteenth century, at the end of the Hundred Years War. In an effort to stimulate growth in this ravaged ...
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Narbonne
The (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire) in Narbonne has the oldest known inscription relating to the Jewish presence in France. It is an epitaph for the three children of Paragorus: Justus, ...
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Occitanie
Occitanie is a very rich region geographically, thanks to its proximity to the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, but it is also culturally rich. It brings together territories with very different ...
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Béziers
The Jewish presence has been attested in Béziers since Roman times, but the golden age of the Jews of Béziers is undoubtedly the classical Middle Ages, when the city was nicknamed the ...
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Pézenas
It was around 1298 that the Jews settled in Pézenas, coming from Spain, Portugal and Italy. In the trade of clothes and cattle, they added the activity of the sale of wool and sheets. In 1332, a ...
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Montpellier
The traveler Benjamin of Tudela visited Montpellier in 1165. In his travel diaries, he noted the existence of Batey midrashot kevouot le-Talmud in the city. In addition to these intellectual ...