Flâneries in Paris: Explore the Jewish Quarter


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This is the 34th in a series of walking tours highlighting the sites and stories of diverse districts of Paris.
Two things struck me as I arrived at the Rue des Rosiers in the 4th arrondissement, the heart of the Jewish Marais. Charmingly, strings of roses were hung above the entrance and annoyingly, there was a massive queue outside l’As du Fallafel, the kosher restaurant at number 34. Such is its reputation that falafel connoisseurs throng the pavement outside at almost any time of day. Unless it’s Friday evening or Saturday, of course, when it’s shut for the Sabbath.
Another little crowd was gathering around a bearded man in a black brimmed hat who stood out because he was carrying a lemon in one hand and a sheaf of leaves in the other. “It’s Sukkot,” said someone in explanation and I googled it. It’s a week-long Jewish holiday, a kind of harvest festival, when both these items form part of a prayer ritual, a thanksgiving for the fruitfulness of the land. What I thought was a lemon might in fact be an etrog, a related citrus fruit. The little scene was a reminder that in parts of Paris, Jewish culture is an everyday, living thing.

Celebrating Sukkot in the Marais. Photo: Marian Jones
Just opposite the falafel restaurant stood a pastry shop, Florence Kahn, where the engravings on the window promised Gastronomie Yiddish from central Europe and Russia. It’s been there, said decorative text underneath, since 1932. I wondered whether the original owners, starting their business in hope and expectation, survived the Holocaust. “Consult us,” said the sign in the window, “for your cocktail parties, receptions and bar mitzvahs.” This cultural mix was also reflected in the goods for sale: Jewish matzele’h, East European strudel and vatroucka, cheese pasties, sold under their French name – chaussons au fromage – and a pairing which could come straight out of a New York deli, namely “bagels and cheesecakes.”
A road sign explained that the nearby Rue Ferdinand Duval was called Rue des Juifs (Jew Street) for 400 years, between 1500 and 1900 and just across the road from Florence Kahn’s bakery an histoire de Paris plaque added to the story. Because this was an area settled by Jews over the centuries, it was here that the wave of Ashkenazi Jews fleeing eastern Europe – Romania, Russia, Austria-Hungary – in the late 19th century also chose to settle. The area became known as the plezl, a Yiddish word meaning neighborhood.
The sign stood at the top of Rue des Écoffes and I didn’t have to go far down it to find more evidence of Jewish culture and history. The Librairie du Temple, just a few doors down, had matching panels, listing its wares in French and in Yiddish, or was it Hebrew? Either way, Hebrew bibles, the Talmud, prayer books, commentaries and books for children could all be bought here.
A plaque on one house remembered a Jewish family who were deported in 1942. Baruch and Dora Matykanski, and their 9 year-old daughter Esther were all murdered in Auschwitz.
The sign on Sacha Finkelsztajn’s delicatessen read “from father to son since 1946,” and I wondered about their story. What had this Jewish family been through in the dark years of the war and what courage had it taken to open a shop just one year after it ended? Today, the entire shop front is painted bright yellow and the foods advertised point to an East European, perhaps Russian, background. Here you can buy böreks and blinis, herring and caviar, but it’s very Parisian too because you can also queue up at the takeaway window labeled Crêpes à emporter.
At number 10, Rue des Rosiers, I found the entrance to the little park, the Jardin des Rosiers – Joseph Migneret. The names on two plaques at the entrance hinted at many stories. Joseph Migneret was the headmaster of a local school who took enormous risks to help his Jewish pupils and their families during the round-ups of 1942, organizing false papers and finding secret shelters, including in his own home.
For this he is honored at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. But here too is a board listing the names and ages of 100 children from the area who did not escape. “Read their names as you pass,” says the heading. “Your memory is their only grave.” I wrote four of the names down: Hélène Malamout, 6 months; Léon Mann, 4; Éveline Markovic, 7; Esther Merkier, 2.

Jardin des Rosiers – Joseph Migneret. Photo credit: Guilhem Vellut/ Flickr
Inside, I passed an ancient tower, a little section of the wall built by Philippe Auguste in the 12th century. One day, I thought, I’ll go on a hunt for more of its remains. The park is divided into little sections, places to wander or sit or, it turned out, to join in a community gardening project. A panel explained that this is one of 166 such schemes, sponsored by the Ville de Paris, where volunteers learn to garden organically. Next to it, a flower picture with the names of children who’ve been helping written on each petal, a curious echo of the children’s names I’d seen on the memorial board. Hélène, Jérome, Jean-Marc, Martine. Near the exit, a beautiful spreading fig tree and a sign giving its Latin name, figus carica.

A fig tree in the Jardin des Rosiers. Photo: Marian Jones
I passed the old hammam building at the end of Rue des Rosiers and turned right down Rue Pavée, where I knew there’s an orthodox synagogue which was designed by Hector Guimard, better known for the stunning art nouveau metro station exits you can still see at in Paris today. Mais non, I would not see it today because currently it’s a building site. Both the road and the synagogue are undergoing restorations, hence the noise, dust and diggers. I’ve seen photos of the curved façade and the simple, elegant interior where chandeliers light up the polished wooden benches and a Star of David is designed into the large central skylight. One day, I’d love to go inside and see it for myself.
Meanwhile, there was only one place to finish my tour of the Jewish Marais, so I crossed the bustling Rue Saint Antoine, went down past the lovely Hotel de Sens, resolving (again!) to do a medieval-themed flânerie in the Marais one day and on to Rue Geoffroy l’Asnier. It’s the home of the Mémorial de la Shoah, the Holocaust memorial site. This time I did not go in, but just stood outside, looking through the bars to the courtyard where a huge cylinder, set directly above the eternal flame burning inside the site, is engraved with the names of the concentration camps: Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Treblinka. This is where I first learned the terrible story of what happened to France’s Jews in the Holocaust, and where I saw the many, many pictures of children who were murdered displayed above the exit to the museum, faces I can never forget.

Mémorial de la Shoah. Photo: Marian Jones
Around the corner is the Allée des Justes Parmi les Nations, where the Mur des Justes (Wall of the Just) borders the site of the Shoah. It’s covered in plaques, listing the hundreds of French citizens honored by the State of Israel for their courageous efforts to help save Jews from persecution. As the opening text explains, “they rejected barbarity ….. providing moral and material support, hiding places, identity papers, food and escape routes.” Their names are individually recorded here, and recognition is given too to the many more who acted anonymously. Their names are not known, explains the text, but “their sacred memory lives on in the lives of those they saved and their descendants.”

Mur des Justes, outside the Mémorial de la Shoah. Photo: Marian Jones
It seemed a good place to end my walk. As I write this, Holocaust Memorial Day is approaching, just the moment to remember again the many who suffered unspeakable horror and the few who tried to help them. The Mémorial de la Shoah, also a place of education, organizes outdoor exhibitions in the Allée des Justes. This time it was on the atrocities in Rwanda in 1994, when so many of the Tutsi population were massacred. Remember, it seemed to say, this keeps happening and it’s up to you, to all of us, to change that.
Lead photo credit : Roses at Rue des Rosiers. Photo: Marian Jones
More in Flâneries in Paris, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish Paris, Jewish Quarter, Marais, rue des Rosiers