Friday, December 26, 1980 11
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Jews of Normandy an Active Community
By BEN FRANK
ST.-LO, France (JTA) —
Rabbi Edmond Bekfreb is a
circuit-riding rabbi. St.-Lo
is one of the towns he covers
as he drives through scenic
Normandy on roads flanked
by high hedge rows which
sometimes form a leafy
canopy.
Among other things,
St.-Lo was one of the towns
Gen. George Patton made
famous. It was from here in
le, 1944, that his forces
oke out of German
encirclement and the
enemy front to the west col-
lapsed. Behind the roads
travelled on by the rabbi are
the D-Day beaches.
True, there probably were
no Jews here when Patton's
Third Army moved out
against the Germans. But a
few have now settled in this
toric town. Today there
eight Jewish families
living in St.-Lo which has
the distinction of being a
kosher meat meat-packing
center serving Paris.
Like the countryside
around it — its brilliant
past, its important his-
toric monuments, its
culinary specialties —
Normandy contains
small Jewish com-
munities tied together by
joint activities and by vis-
iting rabbis such as Bel-
dreb.
The Rabbi's base is Caen,
located in the department of
Calvados in northern
France, and from here
Jewish communities re-
cei v e this spiritual leader.
There are eight Jewish
families in Evreux; eight
families in Lisieux; 15
families in Cherbourg; 200
families in LeHavre; and
400 families in Rouen. And
in Caen, almost entirely re-
built after the war, there
are about 100 Jewish
families. After World War
II, the Jews of Caen built
their own synagogue on 16
Avenue de la Libefation.
The Jews of Normandy
J
are a close-knit group. New
superhighways and high-
speed trains offer them the
opportunity to go from Caen
to Paris in two hours; from
Rouen to Paris in a little
over an hour. All roads lead
to Paris. Nearly half of
700,000 Jews in France live
in and around the French
capital.
But there are also
inter-city activities. the
Jews of LeHavre and
Caen hold joint activities:
seminars, lectures, films.
Even today, the Jews of
Rouen are active in the civic
life of this city which is
associated with another
chapter of French history:
on the market square here,
Joan of Arc was burned at
the stake of 1431.
For centuries, Jews have
lived in Normandy whose
countryside is serene and
peaceful and yet whose
coast provided windows to
the world for Jews and
non-Jews since the Middle
Ages. From the beautiful
seaside town of Honfleur,
Samuel de Champlain set
sail to found Quebec and
explore the Great Lakes.
In Rouen itself, there are
about 400 'Jewish families
engaged in professions and
academic life, as well as in-
dustry and commerce.
Greater Rouen has a popu-
lation of about 400,000 and
is one of the great industrial
centers of France. There is a
synagogue and Rabbi C.
Perez, its spiritual leader,
told me that many Jews
came to Rouen in the 1960s
from Algeria and Tunisia,
and that they have given
the congregation a Sephar-
dic tone.
Caen itself has a small
but active Jewish com-
munity. They are proud.
They are not afraid and
the young people are ac-
tivists. Many arrived
here from North Africa in
the 1960s; others came
here from that center of
Jewish life, Strasbourg.
In the summer time,
thousands of Jews also come
to Deauville, the world-
renowned resort of casinos,
polo matches and horse rac-
ing. In the summer months,
I was' told, there is even a
minyan in Deauville which
in the summer jumps in
population from 10,000 to
over 100,000 persons.
The Jews of Normandy
are also involved in the
tourism industry. In the de-
partment of Calvados, new
hotels are going up in Hon-
fleur, Lisieux, Bayeux and
Caen.
Throughout Normandy,
one finds American Jews,
even former GIs who settled
here after World War II.
Having landed and sur-
vived on the- beaches on
D-Day, they said they fell in
love with this beautiful are
which provided visitors
with an astonishing variety
of scenery, from indented
cliffs and covers, to wide
sandy beaches and seaside
resorts.
Wherever I travelled in
Normandy, whether it'
was in Deauville, the ele-
gant seaside resort; or in
Rouen, which has old
streets set with buildings
in the ageless half-
timbered Norman style;
or in Caen which, besides
being a cultural and ar-
tistic center, is also a
large industrial and
commercial plant, I
learned about Jewish
communities.
Some are small; some
large. They exist. They
thrive. They recall a righ
historical past of which
there is even now new, ex-
citing proof, a proud dis-
covery of a proud people; the
yeshiva in Rouen, the capi-
tal of Normandy.
AV/
Wttge.) ,
LAWRENCE M. ALLAN
President
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