Jewish quarter: Rue des Rosiers
France > Paris > Beaubourg > Marais > Jewish quarterOne block south of the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, the area around narrow rue des Rosiers has traditionally been the Jewish quarter of the city ever since the twelfth century, and remains so, despite incursions by trendy bars and clothes shops. Although the hammam is now a designer store, and many of the little grocers, bakers, bookshops and original cafés are under pressure to follow suit (for a long time local flats were kept empty, not for property speculation but to try to stem the middle-class invasion), the area manages to retain its Jewish identity. There's also a distinctly Mediterranean flavour to the quartier, testimony to the influence of the North African Sephardim, who, since the end of World War II, have sought refuge here from the uncertainties of life in the French ex-colonies. They have replenished Paris's Jewish population, depleted when its Ashkenazim, having escaped the pogroms of Eastern Europe, were rounded up by the Nazis and the French police and transported back east to concentration camps.Don't leave the area without wandering the surrounding streets: rue du Roi-de-Sicile, the minute place Bourg-Tibourg off rue de Rivoli, rue des Écouffes, rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie (with its lively gay bars), buzzing rue Vieille-du-Temple, and rue des Archives, where a medieval cloister, the Cloître des Billettes, at nos. 22–26, hosts free exhibitions of art and crafts (daily 11am–7pm). On the other side of rue de Rivoli, at 17 rue Geoffroy l'Asnier, the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (Mon–Fri 10am–1pm & 2–5pm; €2.30; www.memorial-cdjc.org; M° St-Paul & M° Pont-Marie) mounts exhibitions concerned with genocides and oppression of peoples, and guards the sombre Mémorial du Martyr Juif Inconnu (Memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr).
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