Tourbites: Paris

September 13, 2025

AI Summary

5 min read

Tourbites: Paris

In 1242, on the Friday of Parshas Chukas, King Louis IX—later canonized as Saint Louis—ordered the burning of nearly twenty-four wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts in the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville in central Paris. This was no ordinary bonfire. It came two centuries before the printing press, meaning every lost manuscript was irreplaceable. The great medieval scholars who witnessed it designated that Friday as a permanent fast day, linking the tragedy to the week's Torah portion. That same square, now known as the Pletzel, became the heart of Eastern European Jewish immigrant life in Paris centuries later—and remains one of the most layered sites in French Jewish history.

The Pletzel: An Eastern European enclave in Paris

When Eastern European Jews fled poverty, antisemitism, and conscription in the Tsarist Empire during the great migration of the late 1800s, most headed for America. But some landed in Paris. They were not welcomed by the established French Jewish community—the Consistoire, created under Napoleon—which saw these Yiddish-speaking, traditionally dressed newcomers as embarrassing relics. The Eastern Europeans, for their part, had little interest in integrating. So they created their own neighborhood: the Pletzel, named from the Yiddish word for "place."

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of Jewish History Soundbites

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (00:14) **Episode Introduction and Context** - The host announces that after mentioning his lack of French tours a year ago, he has now completed four trips to Paris in 2024, prompting a "Tourbites" episode summarizing the main Jewish history highlights.
2 (05:59) **The Burning of the Talmud (1242)** - The host describes visiting the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, the site where King Louis IX ordered the burning of 24 wagon-loads of Talmudic manuscripts in 1242, a catastrophic event for medieval French Jewry.
3 (10:44) **The Pletzel: A Hub of Eastern European Jewish Life** - The host introduces the Pletzel, a Yiddish-named neighborhood in Paris that became a bustling, self-contained Jewish community for Eastern European immigrants in the late 1800s.
4 (16:41) **Future Rebbes and a Storied Shul in the Pletzel** - The host details the presence of several future Hasidic rebbes in the Pletzel, including the Gerrer Rebbe (the Lev Simcha), and describes the history of the Agudath Hakihilos shul.
5 (21:14) **The Pletzel's Post-War Role and the 1982 Terrorist Attack** - The host describes how the Pletzel became a central hub for Holocaust survivors in DP camps awaiting visas, and the tragic 1982 Palestinian terrorist attack that marked a paradigm shift in targeting Jews.
6 (23:50) **The Grave of Rabbi David Sinzheim** - The host visits the grave of Rabbi David Sinzheim, the author of the Yad David, in a unique Jewish section of a non-Jewish cemetery in Paris, a result of post-Revolutionary laws.
7 (25:55) **The Napoleonic Sanhedrin: Rabbi Sinzheim's Challenge** - The host dives into the immense challenge Rabbi Sinzheim faced leading Napoleon's Sanhedrin, where he had to satisfy Napoleon, a secular majority, and his own Torah values.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Aside from the generic tourist attractions & fantastic restaurants, Paris is also rich in Jewish history. Some locations evoke tragedy such as the Drancy transit camp which was the point of deportation during the Holocaust, and the Place Hotel de Ville where the Talmud was burnt on the orders of King Louis IX in 1242. Others are more quaint, such as the Pletzl, the historic neighborhood of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the heart of the city. We also visit the gravesite of Rav Yosef David Zintzheim (1745-1812), a towering leader of French Jewry during the challenging times of the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, emancipation of French Jewry and the Napoleonic era. As the head of Napoleon’s ‘Sanhedrin’ in 1806-1807, he navigated the challenging questions posed by Napoleon regarding integrating France’s Jews without compromising an iota of Halacha or Jewish tradition.

Subscribe to Jewish History Soundbites Podcast on: PodBean: https://jsoundbites.podbean.com/ or your favorite podcast platform

For sponsorship opportunities about your favorite topics of Jewish history or feedback contact Yehuda at: [email protected]