Rue des Rosiers

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The rue des Rosiers /ʁy de ʁozje/ (“rose-bush street,” a reference to the rose bushes that covered this area many centuries ago), in the Marais quarter of Paris, has been a nexus of Jewish community life in the city for nearly two centuries. There are several Jewish enclaves in Paris, but this is by far the largest and most important, so much so that journalists like to use rue des Rosiers as a metaphor for the Jewish community in Paris and often for Judaism in France in general.

The area around this street obviously has a large Jewish population, with quite a few Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. The street itself is lined with many shops selling Jewish religious articles, and delicatessens, bakeries, and restaurants selling all types of very tasty, certified kosher foods (including good bagels and falafel sandwiches). There are also some other ordinary stores and businesses, including some fashionable clothing shops.

This very wide-angle photo was taken at the intersection of the rue des Rosiers with the rue des Écouffes; the rue des Rosiers is the street extending into the distance on the left, and into the foreground on the right (you can see the sign). You are looking southeast in this picture, which was taken on a slightly overcast afternoon.

The Jo Goldenberg delicatessen in the center of the photo, with the red awnings, has been a fixture in this area for decades. The patriarch of this family-owned establishment lost most of his family in the dark days of WWII, when they were all arrested on a single morning and deported, and later killed (the owner escaped only because he was not home at the time). The delicatessen survived a terrorist attack in 1982. Unfortunately, it was closed in late 2005 (long after this photo was taken) due to repeated health-code violations. It's not clear whether it will open again or not.

This area was also the site of massive arrests and deportations of Jews at other times during the war, including the notorious rafle du Vélodrome d’Hiver, in which around 13,000 Jews were rounded up by French police, largely from this neighborhood, herded into a stadium, and then deported to concentration camps in Germany by the S.S. And this street is also the site of the still-existing École du Travail, a boys’ school whose entire faculty and student body were deported to Germany and killed. Even today, occasional acts of vandalism and terrorism are committed in this area, no doubt because of its symbolic importance.

This neighborhood is one of the few parts of Paris that is very quiet on Fridays and Saturdays, because of the Jewish sabbath (Friday night to Saturday night). However, it is extremely crowded and animated on Sundays, and quite busy during most of the rest of the week.

Photographed on September 20, 2001.