On the day of tishah b’ab -the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem- the old synagogue resounds to these words in Spanish: “Hemos perdido Sion pero tambien hemos perdido. España tierra de consolacion” (We have lost Zion, but we have also lost Spain, land of consolation”). was built in 1837, but its Holy Ark, kept from the earlier place of ...
Plus d'infosContenus associés au mot-clé “history”
The Southwest
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 region, Louis XI offered special privileges to foreigners wishing to settle there. This largesse attracted Portuguese and Spanish Jews oppressed by the Inquisition and religious intolerance in their home ...
Plus d'infosNarbonne
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, aged thirty; Matrona, twenty; and Dulciorella, nine. Absolute proof of the Jewishness of the inscription is given by a seven-branch candelabrum and a short text in Hebrew: “Peace on ...
Plus d'infosOccitanie
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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 law imposed on the Jews crossing Pézenas or coming to sell there, a right of “leude” (a grant, or a toll). Jewish families disappeared from the city in 1394, during the expulsion of the ...
Plus d'infosMontpellier
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 activities cited in a Hebrew source, Latin documents relate the presence of Jews in trade between Agde, Narbonne and Montpellier. They have a monopoly on silks and fabrics. Representatives of the Mosaic ...
Plus d'infosAntibes
The Picasso Museum (Musée Picasso) has the mold and a cast of an original inscription, now lost, in Greek characters (in ancient times, Antibes was called Antipolis): “Justus son of Sials, he lived seventy-two …”
Plus d'infosTrets
An important village in the Middle Ages -it has a studium papale– Trets had a Jewish community that lived in the present-day rue Paul Bert, known in those days as the carriera judaica or judea. The Jewish quarter in Trets is not unlike that in Gerona, Catalonia. Sadly, there has been no restoration so far. The medieval facade on rue Paul Bert could be a vestige of the synagogue.
Plus d'infosAix-en-Provence
The census ordered in 1341 by Robert, count of Provence, gave the Jewish population of Aix at the times as 1205, representing the 203 families grouped together in the Jewish quarter. The present-day rue de la Verrerie corresponds to part of the old Jewish quarter. Rue Vivaut was the site of the community buildings, including the synagogue, the butcher shop, the hospital, and the alms house. ...
Plus d'infosMarseille
The presence of Jews in Marseille seems to date back to the 6th century, attested by Grégoire de Tours, but probably dating from the Roman Empire. Particularly with the arrival of Jews from Clermont-Ferrand who fled persecution. As in many French cities at the time, there is a street of the Jews in the Middle Ages, as well as other places indicating their presence. In the 12th century, two ...
Plus d'infosArles
The medieval rue des Juifs is the present-day rue du Docteur Fanton. As in Aix-en-Provence, the Jewish quarter was totally transformed and integrated into the town after the expulsion of the Jews from Arles in 1493. This prefigured the expulsion of all the Provençal Jews in 1500-1501. (Musée de l’Arles Antique) holds two funerary inscriptions. On the first we read: “This is the ...
Plus d'infosNîmes
The Archaeological Museum (Musée Archéologique) possesses a funerary inscription stating “This is the sepulcher of the venerated sage Isaac”. The Museum is sadly closed until further notice. (Bibliothèque Municipale) has copies of three funerary inscriptions (the originals have been lost):”this is the sepulcher of Dame Dolcena, daughter of …”; “This is the ...
Plus d'infosTarascon
The only remaining trace of Tarascon’s Jewish community, which was large in the Middle Ages, is rue des Juifs with its gray-fronted houses. Some of the houses have been restored. Not far from the town, near Fontvieille, there is a fine Romanesque chapel, Saint Gabriel, sheltered by a ruined tower with graffiti in Hebrew characters: T(av) T(av) Q(of) N(un) V(av) [4]956, which corresponds ...
Plus d'infosSaint Rémy de Provence
The Jewish cemetery is not far from the Saint Paul de Mausol monastery. Most of the tombstones date from the nineteenth century, although this was also the site of the medieval cemetery.
Plus d'infosCavaillon
The Jewish presence in Cavaillon goes back to at least the thirteenth century. The Jews lived on rue Hébraïque, which became their obligatory residence in 1453 and has changed very little since. Permission to build a synagogue was granted in 1494, and it was probably on the vestiges of this older building that the new place of worship was built in 1772. On the second floor is the men’s ...
Plus d'infosL’isle sur la Sorgue
Regrettably, this town, which had one of Comtat Venaissin’s four carrieres, preserves no vestiges of its Jewish past -apart, that is, from the name Place de la Juiverie and the cemetery outside the town.
Plus d'infosPernes Les Fontaines
Pernes-les-Fontaines remained the capital of Comtat Venaissin until Pope John XXII bought back the rights over Carpentras from its bishop. Two elements reveals the Jewish presence in this town: the name Place de la Juiverie and the traditional identification of the large house standing in that square as the old “Jewish baths”.
Plus d'infosCarpentras
Carpentras had a Jewish population when it was yielded to the papacy by the king of France in 1274. In the fourteenth century, the Jewish quarter on rue Fournaque, near the town walls, was home to ninety families. In 1459 it was sacked by rioters and sixty people were killed. The community was forced to move to rue des Muses in the town center, which became rue des Juifs, a carriere closed ...
Plus d'infosAvignon
The first attestation of a Jewish presence in Avignon dates from the fourth century. It is a seal representing a five-branch menorah and bearing the inscription avinionensis. Jewish commercial activity was intense under Avignon’s Popes. The tailor of Gregory XI was a Jew, as was his bookbinder. During the Black Death epidemic in 1348, the community in Avignon was spared popular wrath ...
Plus d'infosProvence
The term Provintçia in the Hebrew sources corresponds roughly to Provence and Languedoc. In the history of France’s Jews, this region is notable for the outstanding figures and works that it produced in the Middle Ages and by the unbroken presence of Jews in Comtat Venaissin for 2000 years. A lamp dating from the first century C.E. found near the oppidum at Orgon and kept in the ...
Plus d'infosLyon
The Jewish community in the historical capital of the Gauls and, for historians, capital of the French Resistance, has now regained an undeniable dynamism. There are many notable sites surrounding the , built in 1864, as well as some excellent kosher restaurants. All in all, they make Lyon a very pleasant stop. Event information is available from the Chief Rabbinate. As in many French ...
Plus d'infosAuvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Jews lived in Roman Lugdunum but disappeared from Lyon because of the expulsions. It was only under the reign of Louis XV that a community was re-created with immigrants from Comtat Venaissin and Alsace. The region is associated primarily with World War II and the French Resistance. The notorious war criminal Klaus Barbie, who was tried in 1986, was the head of the Lyon Gestapo.
Plus d'infosHegenheim
On the Franco-Swiss border, , which covers over five acres, has tombstones dating from its establishment in 1673. It is the only cemetery to have preserved a wooden funeral slab. The original is now on exhibit in the Jewish Museum in nearby Basel. This busy Swiss trading town was long a magnet for local inhabitants and, since they were refused the right to reside there, Jews settled in the ...
Plus d'infosColmar
The pays homage to the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty. One room features an interesting collection of Judaica. Particularly admirable is a bowl used by the brotherhood charged with final duties (Hevra Kadisha); it is in the form of a coffin with bearers (mid-nineteenth century). There are also precious examples of circumcision chairs and an ablution fountain from the cemetery at Herrlischeim.
Plus d'infosObernai
Traces of the old Jewish community can still be seen in this charming tourist town. On ruelle des Juifs, an arched doorway with an engraving in Hebrew signals the entrance to the old synagogue, dating to 1454. On rue du Général-Gouraud the voussoir of an arch bears the Hebrew date 5456, corresponding to 1696 C.E. In the porch, note the two blessings hands carved in stone with the inscription ...
Plus d'infosRosenwiller
In 1727 the Jews, who had been burying their dead here for nearly four centuries, were granted permission to build a wooden fence around the cemetery and, twenty-two years later, a stone wall. With 6470 tombs over twelve acres, bears witness to a long history: the oldest tomb dates from 1657. Place de l’Équarrisseur “When the Jews asked for a place to bury their dead (around ...
Plus d'infosBischheim
In this suburb of Strasbourg one can see a fine eighteenth-century . A room dedicated to Davis Sintzheim (the first Grand Rabbi of France and director of the Talmudic school in Bischheim between 1786 and 1792) retraces the history of the Jewish community and houses temporary exhibitions.
Plus d'infosStrasbourg
Jewish history is evident throughout Strasbourg. Indeed, it is said that rue de la Nuée-Bleue is named after the cloud (nuée) that went before the Jews expelled from the town in 1349, and that rue Brûlée recalls the 2000 Jews who were burned alive that same year when they refused to be baptized. The monumental on the Quai Kléber was destroyed by the Nazis in 1940 (a commemorative plaque has ...
Plus d'infosMarmoutier
This small town lying in the shadow of an old abbey once had a very active community. You can still see the birthplaces of its two famous Jewish sons: the painter , who was born here in 1843 and died in Algiers in 1918 and whose work bore witness to Alsace’s rural communities; and , born in 1860, who died in Boulogne-sur-Seine in 1940. , built in 1822 and now unused, can still be ...
Plus d'infosBouxwiller
Housed in a synagogue built in 1842, the unique (Musée Judéo-Alsacien) set out to present the life and history of Judaism in the countryside. There are no rich collections here, therefore, but a sequence of displays with re-creations and moving, ritual objects reflecting ordinary life and the major moments of Jewish life in Alsace. The building’s empty interior -the Nazis converted it ...
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