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In the eighteenth century, the area around the Place Saint Paul was known as “the old Jewry”. Until the first years of the twentieth century, the square itself bore the name Place des Juifs. The narrow streets here are best explored on a Sunday morning, when everyday Jewish life has resumed after the Shabbat. Rue Pavée is a few yards from the Saint Paul métro station. This is the ...
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The sculptures on the Saint Anne portal of offer one of the most moving testimonies we have to medieval Judaism. The frieze in question, just above the doorway, dates from the late twelfth century. It represents the Virgin’s mother, Saint Anne, meeting her future husband, Saint Joachim. The unknown artist used Parisian Jews as his models in order to represent these early ...
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In 1182, King Philippe Auguste decided to expel the Jews from the capital. Synagogues were converted into churches and building owned by Jews were sold, with the proceeds going to the Crown. The sovereign used the sums thus amassed to build the keep of the castle at Vincennes and to put a wall around the nearby woods. Within Paris itself he built a market in the now deserted Champeaux quarter ...
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The history of Jewish communities in France is characterised by a remarkable diversity, both historically and regionally. It would be futile to look for a coherent identity or shared experiences that would link the communities that were "taxed to the hilt" by the monarchy in the heartlands of the kingdom (Paris, Rouen) to the "rich hours" of the Sephardim in the Comtat Venaissin (Carpentras, ...
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The excavations at Ostia, once the great imperial port of ancient Rome, have revealed the remains of an antique synagogue whose columns support capitals adorned with menorot, the traditional seven-arm candelabra of the Jews. Constructed toward the middle of the first century, perhaps even before the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, the synagogue attests to the more than 2000 of Jewish ...
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