Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1790, France granted full and equal citizenship to Sefardi Jews. (Ashkenazi Jews gained citizenship a year and a half later.) The French Revolution, born of the ideals of Enlightenment, had become the first society to emancipate the Jews, permitting them to enter the highest levels of government and finance. In 1807, Napoleon created the French Sanhedrin — a Jewish...
Today in Jewish History – Kislev 18
Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1793, the French district of Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine passed an anti-Jewish law prohibiting circumcision and the wearing of beards. It also ordered the burning of books written in Hebrew. The French Revolution, born of the ideals of Enlightenment, had become the first society to emancipate the Jews, permitting them to enter the highest levels of government and finance...
Today in Jewish History – Tishrei 11
Sponsored by Aish.com: In 1941, SS Chief Helmut Knochen ordered the systematic destruction of synagogues in Paris. During this time the Vichy government established other anti-Jewish measures, including the requirement that all Jews wear a yellow badge. Roundups took place in Paris where tens of thousands of Jews were arrested and handed over to the Nazis. Of an estimated 350,000 Jews who lived...
Report: Anti-Semitic attack against Jewish woman in Paris
From Anti-Semitic attack against Jewish woman in Paris: A 23-year-old Jewish woman was attacked in Paris this week by two masked men of African descent, who beat her up and uttered anti-Semitic slurs, the Jewish Agency reported Monday. Following the attack the young woman needed medical treatment. The local police launched an investigation into the incident. The Jewish Agency further reported...
Obituary: Henri Amouroux
Henri Amouroux, a French historian who testified on behalf of Maurice Papon at his war crimes trial and wrote several books on the Nazi occupation, has died, news reports said Monday. He was 87. Amouroux died Sunday in Normandy, Le Parisien newspaper and France-Info radio reported. No cause of death was given. Amouroux, who served as president of the history section of the prestigious Academie...
French prime minister urges youth to remember wartime deportation of Jews
Prime Minister Francois Fillon urged France’s young people to remember the horrors of the Holocaust during a speech yesterday to mark the 65th anniversary of a World War II roundup of Jews. Speaking at the former site of the Velodrome d’Hiver bicycle stadium – which was used as a transit camp for thousands of Jews on July 16-17, 1942 – Fillon said the French must not...
Today in Jewish History – Tammuz 11
Sponsored by Aish.com: Yahrtzeit of Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer who was falsely arrested and charged with treason. Dreyfus was the victim of a frame-up; falsified documents were exposed in a famous open letter entitled J’accuse! (I Accuse!). This scandal, which came to be known as the Dreyfus Affair, bitterly divided French society for many years. Dreyfus was stripped of his rank...
Torture and Death of Jew Deepen Fears in France
Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man, spent the last weeks of his life tormented and tortured by his captors and splashed with acid in a low-ceilinged pump room in Bagneux, France. “I knew they had someone down there,” said a young French-Arab man in the doorway of a building adjacent to the one where Mr. Halimi was held. “I didn’t know they were torturing him.” But it is...