Jewish mosaics in Paris

During the 19th century, Jews from Germany in particular settled in France, especially Paris. Many were intellectuals - such as Heinrich Heine (Spain 1996) - artists - such as the actress Rachel or the musicians Giacomo Meyerbeer and Jacques Offenbach - businessmen and bankers - James de Rothschild, for example.


Movements since the end of the 19th century

It was above all from the early 1880s, following the pogroms that bloodied the Jewish communities of the Russian Empire after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and the severe tightening of anti-Semitic legislation, that a major Jewish migratory movement developed. The newcomers came from various regions of the Empire, mainly from the Residency Zone[1].

The United States was the preferred destination for these migrants, who saw it as a veritable El Dorado (Diner 2006. Ousset-Krief 2009). Germany and Great Britain are the main poles of attraction in Western Europe, while Palestine attracts numerically modest groups of "Lovers of Zion" (Delmaire 2019).

For many, France appears more like a stopover, but some ultimately decide to stay in the country they consider the "homeland of human rights", the first country to have granted Jews civic equality in 1791. Yet French society did not always look kindly on these immigrants, who surprised or even worried it with their linguistic, sartorial and cultural otherness - as evidenced by the front page of the illustrated supplement to the Petit Journal in 1892. Significantly fewer in number and more quickly acculturated, students who came to pursue their university studies in France to escape the numerus clausus in force in the Russian Empire attracted less attention (Gouzevitch 2002).

Jewish migration continued into the early 20th century, for both economic and ideological reasons. The Kishinev pogrom of 1903 and the abortive revolution of 1905 accelerated the movement. The end of the First World War, accompanied by an upheaval in the map of Europe and in Jewish demographics, gave it a further boost. Most of the newcomers now came from the former Polish provinces of the Empire, grouped together in the Second Republic of Poland. Most of them settled in Paris, while others preferred to live in eastern France (Gousseff 2001). The same applied to Jewish migrants fleeing Romania's discriminatory policies.

This was a far cry, however, from the "Jewish invasion" denounced by certain xenophobic and anti-Semitic currents: between 1881 and 1925, 100,000 Jews from Eastern Europe settled in France, while over two million opted for the United States before the Immigration Act of 1924 introduced quotas and forced them to choose other destinations - including France, where, on the eve of the Second World War, Jewish immigrants outnumbered Israelites of old French ancestry.


The situation in Paris. The Saint-Gervais district

Strictly speaking, there are no "Jewish districts" in Paris. Nevertheless, certain arrondissements of the capital are characterized by a large Jewish population, as well as by the presence of specific businesses - kosher food shops and stores selling religious objects in particular - cafés, religious and cultural establishments, all of which are places of sociability for new arrivals. Yiddish is the common language.

The Saint-Gervais district in the Marais (Benain 2005) is bounded by rue des Franc-Bourgeois to the north, quai de l'Hôtel-de-Ville to the south, rue des Archives to the west, rue Saint-Paul and rue de Turenne to the east. At the center of this perimeter is the Pletzl (Yiddish for "little square"), of which rue des Rosiers is the emblematic artery[2].
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In addition to cramped and often insalubrious lodgings, there were furnished hotels where fathers who had come to scout for their wives and children lived for at least a few months, as well as small oratories founded by immigrant Jews to escape the supervision of the Consistoire israélite de France[3], which they considered too acculturated and "not Jewish enough". Children attended the public school on rue des Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais, and also received religious instruction.

The standard of living of these Jewish immigrants was modest, even miserable, and their activities were often confined to traditional "Jewish trades": clothing, fur, shoemaking, leatherwork... Workshops were often set up in dwellings, and many had the precarious status of "façonniers", suffering harshly in the off-season (Green 1985; Weinberg 1974).

Non-Jewish residents remained numerous in the neighborhood, and there was also a presence of Jews from Algeria, notably on rue François-Miron, where some opened cafés-restaurants. Since the promulgation of the Crémieux decree in 1870, Algerian Jews have had French citizenship.


The Belleville district

A second immigration district is Belleville, where Jews from Eastern Europe rub shoulders with other minorities - Italians, Greeks, Armenians (Cavanna 1980; Lépidis 1980). Many Jewish workers lived there, often more politicized and less pious than those in the Marais. They organized themselves into union sections, called strikes, expressed solidarity with German Jews already ostracized from society by the "Reich[4]", and took up collections in support of the Spanish Republic. They do not adhere to the strictly religious definition of Jewishness as laid down by Emancipation, often preferring a national definition developed around the "Jewish people".

Many gather in associations of natives (Landsmannschaften), based on their home town or village, or their trades. They buy collective vaults to ensure their members have a funeral and burial in keeping with Jewish tradition (particularly at the Bagneux cemetery[5]), organize parties and balls, and set up libraries and popular universities. Newspapers of all stripes - Communist, Bundist[6], Zionist... - flourished. Performances at the Paris Yiddish Theatre drew enthusiastic (and sometimes critical) audiences.

Paris: République, Bastille and the 11th arrondissement

Other neighborhoods with large Jewish populations: around Place de la République (Grynberg 2007) - everything is bought and sold at Carreau du Temple. And the rue du faubourg Saint-Antoine, home to furniture workers.

Another component of the Jewish immigrant population established in Paris between the wars was that of Jews from the former Ottoman Empire, dismantled after the end of the First World War, driven to leave by the expansion of Turkish nationalism accompanied by the extreme rigors of military service, and following the serious fire that ravaged the Jewish quarter of Salonika in 1917. These newcomers settled mainly in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, on rue de la Roquette, rue Popincourt, rue Sedaine...

Many also worked in the garment and household linen wholesale trades. Their vernacular is Judeo-Spanish. The names of certain cafés evoke their homeland, such as "Le Bosphore" on rue de la Roquette (Benveniste 2000; de Tolédo 2019).


It's also worth mentioning the presence of young Russian-Polish Jewish artists who immigrated to France and played a major role in the creation and influence of the École de Paris. Among the most famous: Marc Chagall, Moïse Kisling, Jules Pascin, Chaïm Soutine (Nieszawer 2000)... We can add the name of Amedeo Modigliani, whose family originated from Livorno. La Ruche, in the Montparnasse district, and the Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre were the nerve centers.

Mostly Jewish, the refugees who came from Germany from 1933 onwards, from Saarland in 1935 or from Austria after the annexation of 1938, do not seem to have settled in specific districts of the capital. Students and intellectuals did, however, stay in several small furnished hotels in the Quartier-latin (Palmier 1987; Linsler 2010). There were also hostels for the more precarious, such as the one in Chelles[7] for refugees from Austria.


The Occupation and Post-War Years

As in the First World War, many foreign Jews enlisted voluntarily in 1939 to defend their adopted homeland. Losses in their ranks were high, while others were taken prisoner of war - which, paradoxically, usually saved their lives.

The trap closed on those who remained in the capital, often lacking the financial means to cross the demarcation line clandestinely by paying a smuggler and the social network to help them or even hide them. For those with a poor command of French, there was even less room for escape. Immigrant Jews were the hardest hit by the roundups organized from spring 1941 onwards by the German occupying forces, ably assisted by the Vichy government. Women and children were also arrested, starting with the Vél' d'Hiv' roundup on July 16, 1942. In neighborhoods with large Jewish populations, entire buildings were emptied. Deportation convoys headed "east" for the extermination centers in Poland.


At the Liberation, it's hard for the survivors to take part in the general jubilation. Not only did they have to rebuild their lives after insurmountable grief, but they also had to "get back on their feet" and reclaim the apartments, workshops and stores looted during the Occupation[8]. The policy of "reparation" often took several years, and was eventually deemed incomplete enough for the French authorities to usher in a new era in 1999, with the creation of the CIVS - Commission pour l'indemnisation des victimes de spoliations du fait des législations antitisémites - (Grynberg 2020).


New flows of decolonization

A period of decolonization, the second half of the 1950s and the early 1960s saw the arrival of a new Jewish population from North Africa, Tunisia and Algeria in particular. French citizens and often already well acculturated, Algerian Jews settled in Marseille and various parts of Paris. Jews from Tunisia were more likely to congregate in certain districts of the capital - notably Belleville (Simon & Tapia 1998), a traditional reception area for new arrivals - in the 19th arrondissement or in suburbs such as Sarcelles or Créteil. Often traditionalists with a very different history from that of their European co-religionists, they assume a relaxed visibility, through shops, denominational schools and self-help associations.
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Today's mosaic

As the "Tunes" moved up the social ladder, they left Belleville to settle in other Parisian neighborhoods. African and Asian immigrants took over.
In recent years, the neighborhood has undergone extensive renovation, and this gentrification is attracting more affluent residents (da Rocha Pitta 2007).

Although Saint-Gervais remains a "Jewish neighborhood" in the collective imagination - even a "ghetto" for lovers of reductive formulas - the reality is quite different. The buildings on Rue des Rosiers, Rue des Franc-Bourgeois and Rue des Archives have been restored, and the population has become "boboized". A new clientele flocked to the new, rather expensive, fashionable clothes stores, while gay friendly boutiques flourished on rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, rue Vieille-du-Temple...

Some shops that had become almost iconic symbols over the decades, such as the Finkelsztajn and Korcarz bakeries and patisseries, were nevertheless lost. On Fridays, buyers of Shabbat delicacies flock there, and on the eve of the holidays, nostalgic gourmet traditionists come here to shop with their families. The "little madeleine" tastes like a strudel[9] (Brody 2002)... North African Jewish businesses mark the demographic evolution of Jews in France, while Israeli falafel[10] is the object, all along Rue des Rosiers, of self-glorifying one-upmanship on the part of the various tenants and cooks...
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Beyond the food anecdote, it's important to note that Jews living on French soil, whether long-established or newcomers, and whatever their land of origin, are a fragmented, heterogeneous group - socio-culturally, religiously, in their very definition of being Jewish - riven by dissension and cleavage. Yet is it united in a sense of common belonging, however diffuse? This question undoubtedly arises not only for the Jewish Diaspora...


Anne Grynberg
University professor emeritus of contemporary history


Bibliographical references

Benain, Aline. 2005. "Le Pletzl, tentative de définition d'un espace yiddishophone parisien" in Azéma, Jean-Pierre (dir.). Vivre et survivre dans le Marais, du Moyen Âge à nos jours. Paris, Le Manuscrit.
Benveniste, Annie. 2000. Le Bosphore à La Roquette. La communauté judéo-espagnole à Paris, 1914-1940. Paris: L'Harmattan.
Brody, Jeanne. 2002. Rue des Rosiers, une manière d'être juif. Paris: Autrement.
Cavanna, François. 1980. Les Ritals, Paris: le Livre de poche.
Delmaire, Jean-Marie. 2019. "From Jaffa to Galilee. Les premiers pionniers juifs (1882/1904)", Les Savoirs mieux, 5. Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Diner, Hasia. 2006.The Jews in the United States, 1644 to 2000. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Espagne, Michel. 1996. Les Juifs allemands de Paris à l'époque de Heine. La translation ashkénaze. Paris: PUF.
Gousseff, Catherine. 2001. "Russian Jews in France. Profil et évolution d'une collectivité", Archives juives, 34, Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Gouzevitch, Irina & Gouzevitch, Dimitri. 2002. "Jewish students, scholars and engineers from the Russian Empire in France, 1860-1940," Archives juives, 35, Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Green, Nancy. 1985. Les Travailleurs immigrés juifs à la Belle Époque. Le Pletzl de Paris. Paris: Fayard.
Grynberg, Anne. 2007. "Être juif près de la République" in Badie, Bertrand & Deloye, Yves (dir.). Le Temps de l'État. Mélanges en l'honneur de Pierre Birnbaum. Paris: Fayard.
Id. 2020 [forthcoming]. "After more than sixty years... Activities and provisional assessment of the CIVS, 1999-2019", Perspectives. Jerusalem, Hebrew University Press.
Lépidis, Clément. 1980. Belleville au cœur. Paris: Le Cercle de la Librairie / Fenixx.
Linsler, Johanna. 2010. "Jewish Refugees from the German Reich in France in the 1930s", in Zytnicki, Colette (ed.). Terre d'exil, terre d'asile. Paris: L'Éclat.
Nieszawer, Nadine. 2000. Les Peintres juifs de l'École de Paris. Paris: Denoël.
Ousset-Krief, Annie. 2009. Eastern European Jews in the United States, 1880-1905. Yidn ale brider - Immigration et solidarité. Paris: L'Harmattan.
Palmier, Jean-Michel. 1987. Weimar en exil, vol. 1: Exile in Europe. Paris: Payot.
Rocha-Pitta, Tania da. 2007. "Belleville, un quartier divers", Sociétés, 97.
Simon, Patrick & Tapia, Claude. 1998. Le Belleville des Juifs tunisiens. Paris: Autrement.
Tolédo, Alain de (dir.). 2019. Mémorial des Judéo-Espagnols déportés de France. Paris: Muestros Dezapearisedos.
Weinberg, David. 1974. Les Juifs à Paris de 1933 à 1939. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.


Notes

[1] Instituted by Catherine II in 1791 to limit the free movement of Jews throughout the Empire, the Residence Zone underwent some changes over the decades, but roughly extended from Bialystok, Brest-Litovsk and Vilna to Kiev.
[2] Cyrille Fleischmann's short stories, in particular his trilogy Rendez-vous au métro Saint-Paul (Le Dilettante), are well worth a read.
[3] An institution created in 1808 by Napoleon to coordinate - and control - the organization of worship.
[4] Reich = Empire. The Nazis adopted the term "Third Reich" to designate Germany from their accession to power in 1933, in reference to the Deutsches Reich founded in 1871.
[5] South of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine.
[6] The Bund is a Jewish and universalist workers' party founded in 1897 in Vilna.
[7] East of Paris, in Seine-et-Marne.
[8] On the specific case of ilôt 16 in Le Marais, please refer to the work of Isabelle Backouche and Sarah Gensburger.
[9] A traditional Eastern European cake, most often filled with apples.
[10] Widespread throughout the Middle East, falafel is made from chickpea or bean dumplings fried in oil and mixed with sesame paste and raw vegetables. It is eaten inside a pita, a round-shaped flatbread that can be opened and filled with various foods.