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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. ...
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Nîmes
The Archaeological Museum (Musée Archéologique) possesses a funerary inscription stating “This is the sepulcher of the venerated sage Isaac”. has copies of three funerary inscriptions ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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. ...
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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 ...
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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 reveal the Jewish presence in this town: ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Hegenheim
The Jewish presence in Hégenheim 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 ...
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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 ...
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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, ...
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Rosenwiller
The Jewish presence in Rosenwiller dates back at least to the 14th century, a writing by Charles IV, mentioning the Jewish cemetery. A letter dealing with a dispute with a certain Haym de ...
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Bischheim
In this suburb of Strasbourg, one can see a fine eighteenth-century mikvah. A room dedicated to Davis Sintzheim (the first Grand Rabbi of France and director of the Talmudic school ...
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Strasbourg
Strasbourg, the regional capital, is also home to the European Parliament, as witnessed by the European flags welcoming you at the train station. This magnificent city, at the heart of many ...
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Marmoutier
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 ...
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Bouxwiller
The Jewish presence in Bouxwiller seems to date from the 14th century. The princes of Hanau-Lichtenberg adopted Protestantism and were open-minded towards Judaism and its presence during the ...
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Pfaffenhoffen
The Jewish presence in Pfaffenhoffen probably dates from the beginning of the 14th century. In 1683, the first synagogue in Pfaffenhoffen was built. However, it was destroyed shortly afterwards. ...
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Alsace
Alsace is rich in Jewish history. In the village of Schirrhoffen, for example, in around 1850, the population of 650 included some 450 Jews. Today, there are over 200 specific sites (synagogues, ...
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Caen and the rest of the region
Traveling rabbis served the small local communities, made up of several or more families (some ten at Evreux and Lisieux, around two hundred at Le Havre). The only sizable community structure, a ...
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Rouen
In medieval times, there was an intense intellectual life around the synagogue’s Talmudic school in what was called “Le Clos aux Juifs” (the Jews’ Enclosure). Contrary to ...
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Normandy
Jewish life in Normandy was focused around Caen and Rouen. The Jewish community lives in the region since the Roman empire until their expulsion in 1182. During the Middle Ages, Normandy was the ...
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Latvia
The Jewish community of Latvia traces its origins to the middle of the fourteenth century. Numbering today some 15000 persons, it developed in the principalities of Kurland and Livonia, ...
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Lithuania
The Jewish community of Lithuania numbers only some 6000. People It is no more than a shadow of what it once was: until the Shoah, it was a center of the Yiddish-speaking lands. In a sense, ...
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Greece
Below the Acropolis is Athens, a marble plaque engraved with a menorah has been uncovered amid the clutter of the Agora, near a statue of Emperor Hadrien. Perhaps it used to rest on one of the ...
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Turkey
In the beautiful synagogue of Ahrida, one of the oldest in Istanbul, the tevah assumes the shape of a caravel symbolizing not only Noah's Ark but also the vessels that in 1492 transported the ...
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Bulgaria
In a medieval miniature, Bulgarian Czarina Sara figures beside her husband, Czar Alexander, a two children, Shishman and Tamara. A Jewish queen, Sara of Turvono was obliged to convert to ...