opened in 1989 on the site of the old “Jewstown”. This was the quarter where James Joyce’s father was born. Offices were held at a local synagogue until recently. The worshipers now pray at the Dublin synagogue.
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Manchester
With 30000 Jews, Manchester has the highest Jewish population in Great Britain after London. The Jewish presence in Manchester seems to date from the late 18th century, with many of them coming from Liverpool. Its first synagogue was built at this time, under the leadership of the brothers Lemon and Jacob Nathan. It moved to Garden Street in 1794, then to Ainsworth Court in 1806, to Halliwell ...
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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 in 1974 on the site of an older one from 1880, of which only a wall remains.
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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 in Spain, these “new Christians” continued to practice their old religion in secret when they came to France. Bordeaux’s Jewish community began to emerge from the shadows only in ...
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Bayonne
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 ...
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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 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 ...
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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, 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 ...
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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 histories and experiences. You’ll find prehistoric remains in its caves, and monuments from the Roman era such as the Pont du Gard and the Nîmes Arena. While Jewish presence in the region has ...
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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 “Little Jerusalem”, both because of the importance of its community that of the sight that one had from the plain of Orb and that resembled that of Jerusalem. Its rabbinical school was renowned, and ...
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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 ...
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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 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 ...
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Antibes
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 …”
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Trets
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. ...
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Aix-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. In her book Provincia Judaica: Dictionary of historical geography of the Jews in medieval Provence, Danièle Iancu-Agou recalls a text quoted by JS Pitton from Archbishop Peter IV which authorizes the Jews to ...
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Marseille
The Jewish presence in Marseille dates back at least to the 6th century as is attested by Grégoire de Tours, but probably dates back to the Roman Empire. One of their main commercial activities was to act as an intermediary between Gaul and the Levant. In 576, the Jews of Clermont, victims of the intolerance of Bishop Avitus, took refuge in Marseille, enlarging the Phocaean community. In the ...
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Arles
The medieval rue des Juifs is the present-day . 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 burial place of Juda, ...
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Nîmes
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 ...
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Tarascon
The only remaining trace of Tarascon’s Jewish community, which was large in the Middle Ages, is 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 to the date ...
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Saint-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. The Jewish presence in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence dates from at least the 14th century. A document from 1339 signed by the judge of Tarascon concerning a Jewish butcher’s shop attests to this. Texts ...
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Cavaillon
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 ...
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L’isle sur la Sorgue
The Jewish presence in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is attested from 1278 onwards and most probably dates from much earlier. Several families lived in the Villefranche district, where the is located. The Jews were then grouped together in quarries. This was the case until the French Revolution. The Jewish quarter of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue covers an area of 6,000 m², and in the 18th century ...
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Pernes 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”.
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Carpentras
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 ...
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Avignon
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 ...
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Provence
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 ...
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Lyon
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 ...
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Auvergne-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.
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Hegenheim
The Jewish presence in Hegenheim seems to date back at least to the 17th century. 14 Jewish families were counted in 1689. Jewish life developed there, the community growing to more than 400 people on the eve of the French Revolution. One of the largest in Alsace at the time, the number of its faithful declined over time. Thus, in 1936, there were only 36 Jews left in Hegenheim. On the ...
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Colmar
The Jewish presence in Colmar probably dates from the 13th century. Administrative documents confirm this presence. A synagogue was destroyed in 1279. The community grew, in particular thanks to the arrival of Jews from Rouffach and Mutzig. Thus, in the 14th century, it managed a synagogue, a mikveh, a reception hall and a cemetery. Persecuted during the Black Death, the Jews were readmitted ...
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Obernai
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 ...
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