I TRAVEL
Lyon, France
Continued from Page 22
Baby & Me • Beach Bound •
Bear Essentials • Bleu Moon •
.
Caddy Shack • Complaisant/Stadium
Continental Exclusives • Creations by
Pollak's • Designer Lady • Designer
Shoe Outlet • Executive Cleaners •
F & M Distributors • Fitnesse •
Ilona & gallery • Kappy's • Kitty
Wagner Facial Salon • Leona's •
Let's Entertain • Loehmann's •
Mario Max • Max & Erma's •
Miss Barbara's Dance Center •
Ms. Threads • Nusrala's •
Pages & Pages •
Powerhouse Gym •
Rare Coin Gallery •
Rena Travel & Tour •
Seventh Heaven •
Sherri's •
Silver Fox Furs •
Winkelman's •
Xandru's •
Orchard Lake at 14 Mile Rd.
Farmington Hills 855-8940
24
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1989
restaurants, and Jewish day
schools enrolling a total of
1,000 students.
Over 75 percent of Lyon's
Jews are of Sephardim of
North African descent, and
they enjoy. life in their
adopted home, often known as
the city_of two rivers because
of the Saone and the Rhone,
which wind through the
heart of the city. With its
twenty-nine bridges, its
preserved old quarter, its
views of hills reflected in
water, this is a city with
memorable vistas: What's
more, it's the acknowledged
capital of cuisine in a country
where food and wine are
passions.
It's also a city in which
Jews now enjoy very good
relations with their non-
Jewish neighbors. "There are
good relations between Jews
and non Jews in Lyon," the
Moroccan-born Eledad said.
"We have a very good rela-
tionship with the Catholic
Church now." It's especially
good, he explained, because of
the sensitivity of the high
bishop of Lyon, Monsigneur
Decourtray. "He's always very
sensitive and understanding
about Jewish issues," Eledad
said.
The rabbi's office is in an
old-fashioned room with high
ceilings, but there's a modern
computer on his desk.
Photographs of past rabbis of
Lyon hand on the walls
behind him. His desk is
squarely placed between the
two windows: the police, he
said, advised him to keep his
desk away from the windows.
Security is still an issue in
many synagogues in France,
including this one, which is
protected when services are
held.
It's just a short walk from
the Jewish community center
to Lippmann's restaurant on
rue Tony Ibllet, and I arrived
in time to see how a Jewish
chef, a Lyon native, turned
his skills to the creation of
Lyonnaise-kosher cuisine.
Henry Lippman, owner and
chef, served lunch to a group
of students; like most Lyon-
naise meals, it's quite a feast:
a three course meal featuring
salade Lyonnaise — but
without the usual pork —
then l'epaule d'agneau
(shoulder of lamb) and for
dessert, a frothy concoction of
sorbet with meringue. Bet-
ween these layers is a special
non-dairy whipped cream.
Kosher requirements don't
stop Lippmann from creating
a cuisine worthy of a Lyon-
naise chef. He gets kosher
goose liver from Strasbourg,
experiments with ways to
make sauce without cream,
and has invented his own
kosher ice cream with a dairy
substitute.
"In the kitchen, we always
have to think about what we
cannot do, and then we have
to adapt," Lippman said, as
he poured kosher wine and
watched the students devour
their lunch with gusto.
After lunch, I turned from
the pleasures of cuisine to the
power of history. My next stop
is the Musee de la Resistance
on rue Boileau. Inside are ex-
hibits that document the
courageous work of the
French resistance in Lyon.
The city was occupied by the
Nazis in 1942; and during the
occupation,. Jews suffered the
brutalities of Klaus Barbie,
known as the Butcher of
Lyon. But the city also
became a center of the French
Kosher
requirements don't
stop Lippmann
from creating a
cuisine worthy of a
Lyonnaise chef. He
gets kosher goose
liver from
Strasbourg.
Resistance movement, and
the museum recounts in
detail its efforts.
Afterwards, I crossed the
Rhone and walked along the
quai of the Soane until I saw
the Palais de Justice. With its
massive facade and 24 Green
columns, it looks more like a
palace than courtroom.
I've come not only to admire
its architecture but to visit a
symbol of justice. Three years
ago, the trial of Klaus Barbie
took place in this courthouse.
This was where the painful
testimony was recited by sur-
vivors, day after day, for two
months; and this was where,
as the time for the verdict
drew near, the citizens of
Lyon, Jews and non-Jews
alike, jammed the streets at
2 a.m. demanding a gu,ilty
verdict.
And at 3 a.m., this was
where the verdict — guilty —
was read, and Barbie was
taken from here to prison,
where he is still interred just
a few miles away.
Now, the sight of the Palace
of Justice, stately in the sun-
shine, pulled all the details of
that event together. "What
was important," Rabbi Eledad
had told me earlier," was not
the sentencing of the man
Barbie but the priticiple of
condeming him out in the
open. It meant that the
memory of the dead was
respected." ❑
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