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. 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